It's anyone's game

WASHINGTON STATE The Cougars are a tough team to figure out this year, as they raced out to the best record in the Pac-10 during non-conference play but didn't beat anyone of note, either. Still, the simple fact that Klay Thompson, who is turning heads across the nation, is averaging a Pac-10-best 24.3 points per game, which is enough for there to be some serious attention focused on Pullman this year. The Cougars got hosed in their Pac-10 opener against Oregon as the Ducks forced overtime following a bogus technical foul call against WSU with 0.2 seconds remaining. Some players jumped up and down in celebration after a made basket gave WSU a two-point lead, causing the officials to whistle a T against the Cougars bench because some players had moved out onto the court. The Ducks made both free throws to tie the game, then ended up winning 91-89 in double overtime. Despite that loss, WSU has recovered nicely from the loss of last year's two leading scorers, Taylor Rochestie and Aron Baynes. Reggie Moore, a freshman guard from Rainier Beach High School in Seattle, has established himself as a legitimate scoring option behind Thompson and is averaging 12.9 points per game. DeAngelo Casto anchors the middle, averaging 10.9 points per game and grabbing 7.4 rebounds. He's also looked at as one of the better defensive post players in the Pac-10. In a mediocre conference, the Cougars could wind up finishing in the upper half. -Christian Caple, The Daily STANFORD It's going to be another tough year for second-year head coach Johnny Dawkins in Palo Alto, Calif., evidenced by the Cardinal's blowout loss to Cal in its Pac-10 opener. After finishing in ninth place last year, it's not out of the question that Stanford could wind up near that same spot this year. Landry Fields is just about the only bright spot for the young and struggling Cardinal (6-7), which has lost six non-conference games and will most assuredly miss out on the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year. Fields averages 23.2 points per game, and, even on a struggling Stanford team, is a candidate for the All Pac-10 team. Jeremy Green chips in 16.7 points per game, but the scoring seriously drops off after that, as the Cardinal have just four other players who average more than five points. For what it's worth, this would be Brook and Robin Lopez's senior season, had either of them decided to stick around for four years. Unfortunately for Stanford, pigs still don't fly. -Christian Caple, The Daily CAL The media's pick to win the Pac-10 this year, Cal has done what just about every other team in the conference has done so far: embarrass itself against top-notch teams from other leagues. The Golden Bears lost four non-conference games, something that's not common for a team expected to win the Pac-10. They got spanked by Syracuse, lost to Ohio State, got dropped by New Mexico, and lost a hard-fought game to Kansas just before Christmas. But they're off to a good start in conference play, hammering Stanford 92-66 during the weekend, and surely glad to be playing strictly Pac-10 teams now. Cal has all of its big-time scorers back from last year's NCAA tournament team: Jerome Randle, Patrick Christopher and Theo Robertson. Randle is a quick, score-first point guard who torched the Huskies in both of the teams' meetings last season, and all three of those guys are capable of pulling up from 25 feet and launching a 3-pointer. If they're hitting from outside, they're almost impossible to defend. Don't let the non-conference record fool you. This is a solid team, especially in a down year in the Pac-10. -Christian Caple, The Daily OREGON Ernie Kent has made a living out of doing just enough to save his job, and this year looks to be no different. Oregon's basketball team consistently plays terribly just long enough for Kent's job security to be questioned and then does well enough to earn Kent an extension. It looked like Kent was gone for sure after a slow start this season, following last season's atrocity in which the Ducks went 2-16 in conference play. At one point this year, Oregon was 4-4, had just lost to St. Mary's, and Kent's seat was boiling. Then the Ducks rattled off six straight victories, punctuated by a double-overtime win over Washington State and a convincing win over defending conference champion Washington. Now, Oregon controls its own destiny, and, with the chinks starting to appear in Washington's armor, has a decent shot to make the NCAA tournament. If that happens, expect to see Kent back next year ... again. Oregon has as much talent as anyone in the conference, and now they are starting to act like it. Center Michael Dunigan was a blue-chip prospect coming out of high school but had yet to play like one until midway through this season. Now he is arguably the best big man in the conference and a headache for teams like Washington that lack a true post presence. His presence also allows Oregon guards Tajuan Porter and Malcolm Armstead to go to work. Porter is a shooter who is already Oregon's career leader in 3-point field goals. He is Oregon's undisputed leader and provides instant offense. Armstead is a new face, but he has already established himself as one of the best point guards in the conference, if not the absolute best already. In his first year out of junior college, Armstead is a heady floor general, which he proved when he dissected the Huskies with his dribbling, passing and shooting. -Jacob Thorpe, The Daily OREGON STATE Oregon State is not who we thought they were. At least, not yet. Tabbed by the Pac-10 media to finish fifth in the conference, it is now apparent that Craig Robinson's resurrection of the OSU men's basketball program isn't going to happen that quickly. Oregon State has a 6-7 overall record and is 0-2 in the Pac-10, leaving them virtually no chance of making the NCAA tournament. Unexpectedly, OSU is starting to show signs of life. In two close losses at Washington and Washington State this past week, OSU displayed some of the talents that caused people to think so highly of it in the preseason. However, Oregon State has dug too big of a hole to play out of in a down Pac-10. Unless they can win the conference tournament, it looks like the Beavers will be staying home during March. Part of the reason for Oregon State's lack of success this season is starting forward Roeland Schaftenaar's lack of development. Schaftenaar was a chic pick for all-conference honors before the season began, yet he is averaging a pedestrian 7.5 points and 3.5 rebounds. Schaftenaar showed some signs of life against Washington, and if he can get his act together, the Beavers' season could turn around. The lone bright spot this season for the Beavers has been the play of guards Seth Tarver and Calvin Haynes. Tarver, a senior, has been putting up a solid 12.5 points and 2.5 assists per game in Oregon State's low-scoring Princeton offense. Haynes is a junior who will be OSU's rock next year. Haynes contributes 12 points per game and is very consistent. -Jacob Thorpe, The Daily ARIZONA STATE The Arizona State Sun Devils (10-5, 0-2) look to improve on a 2008-09 campaign that netted them 25 wins and only 10 losses. They lost two key pieces in Jeff Pendergraph and James Harden to the NBA. However, the Devils return senior guard Derek Glasser and junior guards Ty Abbott and Rihards Kuksiks. Of the trio, Kuksiks is the leading scorer, averaging 10.3 points per game last season, and Glasser is the facilitator for the offense, averaging seven assists per game in 2008-09. The 2009-10 campaign got off to a pretty fast start for ASU, as it won seven of its first 10 games, with the three losses coming to Baylor, BYU and Duke. However, the Sun Devils have scuffled of late, losing their first two conference games in Los Angeles to UCLA and USC by a total of 12 points. The lackluster offensive output at USC - ASU scored only 37 points - was due to a cold night from the field (24 percent). For the Sun Devils to flourish in Pac-10 play, they are going to need senior center Eric Boateng to fill the void left by Pendergraph in the middle. Friday, the Sun Devils will face their first true test in the Pac-10 when they host the Washington Huskies in Tempe, Ariz. Arizona State boasted a strong home record last season, winning 12 of the 15 contests played at Wells Fargo Arena. --Mark Morgan, The Daily ARIZONA The Arizona Wildcats (7-7, 1-1) are a team going through a rebuilding year. The program was a basketball powerhouse for decades under Lute Olson, but recent seasons have seen turmoil on and off the court turn this once-proud basketball institution into Arizona State's sidekick. Missing from the roster are Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill, who were leaders on the team and kept the team in games, which is why both are now playing in the NBA. First-year head coach Sean Miller has his hands full but will look to turn things around in conference play since the Pac-10 is going through a down year as compared to seasons past. There is no real magic formula for this young Wildcat team, which means conference play should be full of growing pains. However, Arizona can look to senior guard Nic Wise to carry the team in scoring (he averaged 15.7 points per game in 2008-09) and leadership. The Wildcats are struggling to find an answer in the middle. Junior forward Jamelle Horne is the heir apparent to Hill; however, he is a "tweener" who scores mostly with his jumper, so the search for a true post player will continue. Sophomore guard Kyle Fogg will also need to come up big for Arizona to have any chance at winning the conference. Fogg will need to provide long-range shooting for this team to be successful. He will also need to pick up the scoring that Budinger and Hill took with them. -Mark Morgan, The Daily USC Reconcile these numbers, if you can. The USC Trojans have the most wins in the Pac-10, beating then-No. 9 Tennessee on Dec. 19 and then-No. 20 UNLV on Christmas. The USC Trojans are tied atop the conference leader board, at 10-4 and 2-0 in conference play. But the only thing that matters now is their biggest loss, which came Sunday when USC athletic director Mike Garrett announced a litany of self-imposed sanctions that seem almost masochistic. USC is forfeiting all wins from its 2007-08 season, along with the money it earned that year for going to the NCAA tournament. That season, O.J. Mayo had played for the Trojans and was linked to a high-profile booster. But the Trojans are not content with adding asterisks and rebating checks. USC will forfeit a scholarship for this season and next season, which will seriously hamper first-year coach Kevin O'Neill's ability to recruit, and is banned from all post-season play this season, including the Pac-10 conference tournament. For Nikola Vucevic or Alex Stepheson, USC's leading interior men and a big part of the Trojans solid defense, the news is tragic. For Mike Gerrity, the senior guard who was just cleared to play for USC in his last season after transferring, a nobody whom O'Neill admitted he'd never heard of before taking the job, the sanctions are unfair. Gerrity has since elevated his game to Pac-10 Player-of-the-Week status, earning the honor after leading USC in the Diamond Head Classic, where it beat Western Michigan, St. Mary's and UNLV. And he wasn't even on the team during the 2007-08 season. For a program that's rebuilding after a scandal and roster depletion, this is the last nail in the coffin. For the Huskies, it means that there'll be one less decent team jockeying for an NCAA berth in the Pac-10 tournament. For the conference, it means that we'll be lucky if two Pac-10 teams go dancing. Since the inception of the modern 64-team format, the Pac-10 has only sent fewer than two teams to the NCAA tournament once, in 1988. This year, the Trojans were the only team to secure even a decent non-conference win, meaning the Pac-10 will be hard pressed to earn an at-large bid. -Zachary Gussin, The Daily UCLA The UCLA Bruins have embarked on a ruinous season. The Bruins, who made eight out of the past 10 NCAA tournaments, missed eight out of every 10 shots against Arizona Saturday. The Bruins, who have a record 11 NCAA titles hanging from their rafters, are now 6-8 this season. They have lost to such distinguished programs as Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Portland, and Butler. Their wins this year are against Cal State Bakersfield (D-II), Pepperdine (in the bottom of the WCC), New Mexico State (in the bottom of the WAC), Colorado State (the middle of the Big Sky), Delaware State (toward the bottom of the MEAC), and Arizona State. The Bruins have yet to play a ranked team, and their only win against a team from a major basketball conference was the 72-70 squeaker they pulled out against ASU. Four of the Bruins' top five scorers from last year are gone: Josh Shipp, Darren Collison, Jrue Holiday and Alfred Aboya. The only legitimate scoring threat that UCLA has left is the oft-maligned Nikola Dragovic, who has fluctuated wildly since returning from a two-game suspension after being charged with felony assault. In UCLA's win against Arizona State, Dragovic made seven of his 11 shots from the field, including six of eight behind the arc. Against Arizona, Dragovic went two of seven and missed all five of his 3-point attempts. He's like a poor man's Chase Budinger: A tall guard who is surprisingly unathletic and will run hot and cold like a double-spigot faucet. Simply put, these ain't your momma's Bruins. If UCLA dances this year, it'll be because Michael Roll develops as a senior leader, J'Mison Morgan emerges as an alternative to Reeves Nelson down low, and Dragovic learns how to channel his aggression into rebounding. Fun stat: Over the past two years, Dragovic has averaged just under five rebounds a game and exactly one arrest for a violent crime per season. -Zachary Gussin, The Daily

It's anyone's game

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