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After a week away due to the holiday, it’s time to catch up with the Pac-12 again. Stanford continues to be the class of the conference, but there are teams showing the poll voters that perhaps they were underrated coming into the season. At the top of that list are UCLA and Utah.
UCLA and Utah stun ranked opponents
When the season started, the Pac-12 had just three ranked teams. UCLA, and last year’s runners-up, Utah, found themselves on the outside looking in. Tara VanDerveer gave the Utes her first-place vote in the conference coaches poll, but they and the Bruins were slotted in the No. 4 and No. 5 slots of both the coaches and media preseason polls. Most of the Associated Press voters failed to include either team on their preseason ballots.
It didn’t take long for the two teams to start proving themselves against quality competition. Utah went first, hosting then-No. 16 Oklahoma and putting a beatdown on the Sooners in a 124-78 victory on Nov. 16. The Utes followed it with a pair of victories over SEC teams, Alabama and Ole Miss. With three straight wins over major-conference opponents, the Associated Press voters finally had to pay attention to the team from Salt Lake City.
On Nov. 20, the Bruins started their run. They went through three teams that have been ranked at some point this season–South Dakota State, Tennessee, and Marquette–to bring home the Battle 4 Atlantis title.
The holiday tournament run finally got the Bruins some national attention, but their road got even more difficult with Tuesday’s visit to No. 1 South Carolina. The loss to the Gamecocks may have been even more impressive than UCLA’s run of seven victories.
The Bruins led for most of the game, building a 10-point lead at one point. They outscored the bigger Gamecocks 14-12 in the paint and outrebounded them in the first half. The smaller team ended the game just -6 on the boards.
The coaching staff devised a defense that kept Aliyah Boston, the presumed No. 1 pick in the next WNBA draft, from being her usual dominant self for much of the game. Of course, Boston is the presumed top pick and South Carolina is the top team for a reason. They eventually handled the Bruins 73-64.
“I hope we proved that we didn’t come in here for a moral victory,” UCLA head coach Cori Close said after the loss. “It’s a balance I’m trying to find with our team…you know, I’m disappointed. We led for 25 minutes, they led for 11 minutes. And we showed a lot of things, but we let a few possessions go and we’ve got to be ticked off about those possessions.”
Being ticked off about those possessions should help the young Bruins grow. Freshman guard Kiki Rice got a late technical foul for slamming the ball down after being called for a foul on what she thought was a clean steal. It’s something that she and her teammates will learn from as they move forward.
Close and her staff have shown that they can come up with strong game plans that help the Bruins against teams with talented bigs, but the game also showed that the lack of true depth in the frontcourt can come back to haunt them. While UCLA has four players 6-foot-2 or taller who have played this season, they don’t have the kind of dominant bigs that South Carolina and some Pac-12 teams have. Fouls started piling up against the Bruins when they faced the Gamecocks with Lina Sontag, Camryn Brown, and Rice all fouling out. Sontag and Brown got most of their fouls while playing in the paint. The scout will be critical in that regard going forward.
The gauntlet that UCLA has already gone through should prepare the team well for the Pac-12 season. The Bruins will face Stanford and Oregon twice each and Arizona and Utah once to give them six more games against other ranked teams once conference play begins, and that number could grow as the season goes on and the polls change.
The Pac-12 in the polls
The conference now has five teams in both the Associated Press Top 25 and the WBCA/USA Today coaches poll. After starting the season with Stanford at No. 2, Arizona at No. 19, and Oregon at No. 20, both UCLA and Utah have moved up from the “others receiving votes” category.
The Cardinal have held steady at No. 2 in both polls. With their only loss coming in overtime to No. 1 South Carolina, it’s no surprise.
The Wildcats have moved up to No. 13 in the coaches' estimation and No. 14 according to the media by staying undefeated and watching those above them take losses. Arizona won’t get into the heart of its nonconference schedule until it welcomes a Kansas team that is receiving votes from the AP voters and is ranked No. 44 in our ratings. After that, the Wildcats will face No. 21 Baylor in their biggest nonconference matchup.
Oregon has been on a bit of a yo-yo so far this season. The Ducks opened the season ranked 20th in both major polls. They climbed before dropping down to No. 19 in the WBCA poll and No. 20 in the AP poll this week after a loss to No. 6 North Carolina. UO only has one game this week–what looks to be an easy win against Portland–before it opens Pac-12 play against an Oregon State team that has had both a slow start and an unstable lineup in the early going.
With their big wins in the Bahamas, the Bruins now sit just behind Arizona at No. 15 in the AP poll. The coaches aren’t quite as high on UCLA, placing them 17th in the WBCA poll. How the pollsters view the road loss to the Gamecocks will be interesting to watch.
Utah has climbed to No. 16 in both polls. The Utes only face Mississippi Valley State this week but will have another tough matchup when they face in-state rival Brigham Young the following week.
Voting for the Best
The Pac-12 has a number of high-quality freshmen this season after welcoming 11 of the 24 McDonald’s All-American Game participants. Those freshmen are seeing significant time for several top teams, including Arizona, Oregon, and Utah. It makes voting for Freshman of the Week a challenge.
Player of the Week
My vote: Alissa Pili, Utah
Winner: Alissa Pili, Utah
Pili burst onto the Pac-12 scene as the conference Freshman of the Year in 2020. The two seasons following that were not on the same level. Head coach Lynne Roberts said that Pili would admit that she hadn’t worked hard enough, but that has changed since she transferred from USC to Utah during the offseason.
The forward is averaging 18.5 points per game on 68.1 percent shooting this season. She is grabbing 6.3 rebounds per contest, finding her teammates for 2.2 assists, and snatching 1.3 steals per game. Her shooting percentage has her ranked sixth in the nation.
It wasn’t much different for Pili at the Baha Mar Pink Flamingo Championship last week. Pili had 19.5 PPG, 5.5 RPG, and 2.5 APG.
Her biggest issue in the early season is the number of fouls she’s picking up. She has at least three in all but one game and at least four in three of the six games Utah has played. Last week, she was whistled for four against Ole Miss and fouled out against Alabama. Despite that, she scored 21 points against the Rebels and 18 against the Crimson Tide.
Freshman of the Week
My vote: Kailyn Gilbert, Arizona
Winner: Kailyn Gilbert, Arizona
Gilbert became the first Freshman of the Week winner for Arizona since Cate Reese in the 2018-19 season. Reese won the award three times during a season when she led all Pac-12 freshmen in both scoring and rebounding.
It was a close call. This vote could have easily gone to Oregon’s Grace VanSlooten, who won the award the first week. She had a great week against better competition. However, it tipped in Gilbert’s favor because the Wildcats won both of their games away from McKale with Gilbert being a major reason for that. With starting point guard Shaina Pellington out for both games, the freshman was a catalyst for Arizona.
Gilbert has shown her scoring ability often in Arizona’s first six games. Of the four Wildcat freshmen, she has seen the most time on the court and had the biggest offensive impact. She ranks third on the team in scoring and is one of five Wildcats who average double-digit points. She’s still learning how to play college-level defense and share the ball, but she has shown a great deal of promise in the early going.
So far this season, Gilbert averages 12 PPG in 17.5 MPG. She’s hitting 50 percent of her shots from the floor and 38.9 percent of her three-pointers. She’s also responsible for 3.3 RPG, 1.8 APG, and 1.8 SPG in her first year.
Gilbert averaged double figures over the weekend as the Wildcats defeated both California Baptist and San Diego at San Diego. She averaged 17.5 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 2.0 APG, and 1.5 SPG at The Dana on Mission Bay Thanksgiving Classic. She shot 52.2 percent from the floor and 50 percent from beyond the arc.