Arizona receives near-unanimous nod as Pac-12’s best
SAN FRANCISCO – Maybe they didn’t see the USA Today poll of college basketball coaches that ranked Arizona No. 2 and no other Pac-12 school, or maybe they didn’t get the collusion memo.
Perhaps, as posited by former USC coach Kevin O’Neil, they were simply “drunk that day.”
But for whatever reason, someone voted UCLA No. 1 in the annual media preseason Pac-12 men’s basketball poll.
The rest of the reporters were unimaginative, riding with Arizona, which has been picked by the media to win the conference 12 times in 22 opportunities, eight times correctly.
The Wildcats were an obvious choice this season with the return of steady point guard T.J. McConnell and Brandon Ashley who helped lead Arizona to a 21-0 start last year before suffering a season-ending foot injury. McConnell’s stats weren’t gaudy last season (8.4 points per game, 3.6 rebounds per game), but he’s been a rock-solid point man, earning all-conference honors every year of his college career, the first two seasons of which were played at Duquesne.
“The biggest compliment you can give T.J. McConnell is he makes guys like Brandon better, makes the game easier for them,” coach Sean Miller said. “That’s what a true point guard does.”
A lack of obvious challengers only served to solidify the Wildcats as the conference’s clear leader.
“I could see where Arizona would be the unanimous pick or almost, I hear, unanimous pick,” Arizona State coach Herb Sendek said. “I think that’s clear-cut. As for the rest of the league, you could probably put everybody in a hat, shake it up, have just as good a chance at predicting the order of finish as we are able to do sitting here today.”
UCLA finished fourth in the poll, behind Utah and Colorado, which were separated by a single point. Oregon State’s selection as the conference’s worst team was nearly as foregone as Arizona’s selection as its best, receiving just 45 points, well short of No. 11 WSU’s 84.
DirecTV
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott spoke at length about the unprecedented level of exposure Pac-12 teams will receive this season with 66 games televised by ESPN or FOX networks and another 147 on the Pac-12 networks.
He acknowledged when prompted that those 147 games will be unavailable to subscribers of satellite provider DirecTV, which has been at odds with the Pac-12 over carrying the Pac-12 Network since its inception.
“They’re not engaging in any negotiations or discussions with us at the moment, which I know is frustrating for fans and us,” Scott said. “We’re hopeful that they change their mind, especially when they see the slate of amazing basketball games that we have.”
Scott said that he’s hopeful that telecom giant AT&T, with which the conference already has a business relationship, will purchase DirecTV.
Additionally, the commissioner said that if proposals to make athletic scholarships cover the full cost of attendance are enacted at next week’s meeting of Pac-12 school presidents and chancellors, and indications are that they will be, it will raise the cost of an annual athletic scholarship $2,000-5,000, depending on the university.
Washington defense
Washington was No. 10 in the Pac-12 last season in scoring defense and last in opponent field-goal percentage, allowing teams to shoot 47.5 percent from the field. Coach Lorenzo Romar said that improving those numbers is a point of emphasis for the Huskies now that practice has started.
“We’ve hit that hard early,” Romar said. “I think trying to create an identity in that regard, making sure our group understands the importance of what we’re going to do on the defensive end. If we’re going to be successful at all, if we’re going to win big games this year, advance to the NCAA tournament, it will be because we played good on the defensive end.”