The Rebound's Pac-12 Preview
The Rebound's Pac-12 Preview
What does Stanford do without Tyrell Terry? What does UCLA do without Daishen Nix? How does Oregon replace Payton Pritchard? Why is Arizona State now known as The Fighting Bitcoins?
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THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
1. STANFORD LOST TYRELL TERRY
Tyrell Terry was one of the most interesting stay-or-go decisions in this year’s draft process. A 6-foot-1, 160 pound lead guard, Terry’s shooting ability and basketball savvy really shined through during his freshman season in Palo Alto. So did the fact that he weighed 160 pounds.
Well, the benefit of having an eight-month pre-draft process is that Terry has been able to get into the weight room and change his body. This mattered, because the decision for NBA teams wasn’t whether or not he had NBA talent, it’s whether or not his frame could add the weight he needed to add.
Well, he did.
And it may have earned him the right to hear his name called in the first round on Nov. 18th.
But it also cost the Cardinal a chance at a Pac-12 title and a trip to the Final Four this year.
Because the rest of the roster is really, really good. They return everyone else from a team that won 20 games.
The headlining name is probably Ziaire Williams, a top five prospect in the country and a potential lottery pick that spent last season playing for the same Sierra Canyon program that also featured Bronny, Zaire Wade and B.J. Boston. A 6-foot-7 combo-forward, he was the perfect player to slot alongside Oscar Da Silva in a modern front court. The backcourt trio of Spencer Jones, Bryce Wills and Daejon Davis is good enough and versatile enough to be able to fill in the gaps with shooting as well as positional size and versatility. There is so much to like about that group.
But without Terry, who was a legitimate preseason All-American candidate, they lose their only real shot-creator from a team that finished 143rd in adjusted offensive efficiency a season ago. That’s a massive hole to try and fill.
2. UCLA BROUGHT BACK CHRIS SMITH BUT LOST DAISHEN NIX
The Bruins suffered a major blow in April, when Daishen Nix announced that he would be skipping college altogether to enter the G League’s Pathway Program out of college. That was not ideal, and while this may turn out to be a scalding hot take, I actually think that getting Chris Smith back was far more important for this program in a vacuum.
As talented as Nix is, in high school he developed the reputation as being a high-level creator and passer that was still developing as a scorer. That’s not all that different from the point guard currently on UCLA’s roster. Now, Tyger Campbell is five inches shorter and no where near as good as a scorer than a developing Daishen Nix, but he’s already a very good distributor. He won’t be as good as Nix, but he can do a good enough job at the point to keep UCLA relevant.
I’m not sure the same can be said about whoever would take over the go-to guy role had Smith opted to keep his name in the draft. A 6-foot-9 shooting guard, Smith averaged 13.1 points while shooting 35 percent from three and 84 percent from the line. When I spoke with him in August, he told me that his goal during the offseason was to improve his consistency and his ability to take games over, and if he can do that this season, it’s a legitimate game-changer for a UCLA team that has just about everything else covered.
Jaime Jaquez should be in line for a big sophomore season after beating out Jules Bernard and David Singleton for a starting spot. Johnny Juzang is a former five-star recruit that will be eligible immediately after transferring out of Kentucky. Jake Kyman really came on as a shooter late in the year. Jalen Hill and Cody Riley have their flaws, but they should be able to hold their own against the frontlines in the league.
The one thing that all those guys I just mentioned have in common is that they aren’t built to be go-to scorers.
UCLA can survive without Nix for one year. I’m not sure the same can be said if they had lost Smith.
3. ARIZONA STATE WILL, ONCE AGAIN, HAVE POTENTIAL
From here on out, I will no longer be calling Arizona State “the Sun Devils.”
They will henceforth be known as the Arizona State Fighting Bitcoins. The roller coaster ride this program seems to take on an annual is just wild. Last season, Bobby Hurley’s program started the year out winning eight out of ten before dropping five of their next seven. After winning seven straight to move into sole possession of first-place in the league, they then lost three straight — including to cellar-dweller Washington at home — to fall out of contention for the league title.
That’s nothing compared to the 2018 season. Arizona State won their first 12 games, including a home win over Kansas that vaulted them to the top three of the national polls, before finishing 8-10 in the league and bowing out of both the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments in the first round.
And if I’m being honest, I’m expecting more of the insanity this year.
I think it’s just what you have to expect out of a program that relies so heavily on a crop of score-first guards. This year’s group will certainly be among the most talented we’ve seen in Tucson. Remy Martin has a chance to win Pac-12 Player of the Year. Alonzo Verge is coming off of a season where he averaged 14.6 points despite playing most of his minutes off the bench. Josh Christopher is a top 15 prospect and a potential first round pick in 2021. The same can be said for Marcus Bagley, Marvin’s younger brother. Throw in Kimani Lawrence and Taeshon Cherry, and there are plenty of talented weapons in this lineup even if Luther Muhammad doesn’t get a waiver.
All that said, there are going to be two keys to this team. The first is Jalen Graham, a former four-star recruit that has received some buzz as a potential breakout star this year. They’ll need him for a good 30 minutes a night after Romello White transferred out.
The other key will be the shooting. Rob Edwards was the only real threat from beyond the arc last year, and he graduated. Is there anyone capable of spacing the floor on this roster?
THREE THINGS WE NEED TO FIND OUT
1. HOW WILL OREGON REPLACE PAYTON PRITCHARD?
The short answer is by committee.
You don’t just snap your fingers and replace a first-team All-American like Pritchard. He was special, and performed as such.
The long answer, however, is that Oregon should once again be in the mix to win the Pac-12 title this season due to the fact that there still is quite a bit of talent on this roster, and those pieces happen to look more similar to a typical Dana Altman roster.
Altman’s best teams at Oregon have been the ones that have had an elite scorer at the lead guard spot surrounded by a handful of switchable and athletic defenders, some of whom were high-level scorers and others of whom were high-level defenders. I immediately think of the Final Four team, the one that featured Tyler Dorsey and Dillon Brooks and eventually made their late-season fun when Jordan Bell moved into the starting lineup at the five.
I think junior lead guard Will Richardson is ready for the Dorsey-Joseph Young role. I think UNLV transfer Amauri Hardy is ready to chip in if he’s not. I think that the trio of Chris Duarte — who could end up being the team’s leading scorer — Eugene Omoruyi and Eric Williams can fill those other roles, and that’s assuming that St. John’s transfer L.J. Figueroa doesn’t get eligible; he could find his way into the starting lineup if he does.
Throw in Chandler Lawson and N’Faly Dante, and there are talented pieces all over this roster.
I loved Payton Pritchard, but I do think this team has a chance to end up being just as good.
2. WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN WITH THE FBI INVESTIGATION AT ARIZONA?
Before we get into that, let’s talk about the actual basketball first.
Because this is a weird roster, but there is some talent there.
I think we have to start with the guards. James Akinjo and Jemarl Baker are probably the biggest names. Akinjo was supposed to be Georgetown’s star point guard last season, but he was booted from the team in November and left the program; he’s eligible immediately, as is Seattle transfer Terrell Brown. Baker might actually be the more interesting player here. A transfer from Kentucky, he’s known for being a high-level shooter despite having something of an up-and-down sophomore season in Tucson.
Then there are the bigs. Ira Lee and Christian Koloko are back, but the name you probably want to pay attention to is former five-star recruit Jordan Brown, now a redshirt sophomore after transferring into the program from Nevada.
Then you need to bust out the passport. Sean Miller brought in seven freshmen in this year’s class, six of whom are from overseas — guards Kerr Kriisa and Bennedict Mathurin and bigs Tautvilas Tubelis, Azoulas Tubelis, Daniel Batcho and Tibet Gorener. (I pity any announcer calling Arizona games this year.)
There are enough well-regarded pieces here — specifically Kriisa and the Tube bros — to bolster the American talent on the roster to compete for a Pac-12 title.
But I’m far more interested in what happens with the NCAA investigation into the program.
Is this Sean Miller’s last run as Arizona head coach?
His program was accused of five Level I violations and nine total violations in the Notice of Allegations that they received last week.
Nine!!!!!!
That is a lot of violations!
Now, the timeline won’t allow for any definitive rulings to be handed down before this season comes to an end, but if things start going badly, I do wonder if we’ll see Arizona fall on their sword the way that Louisville and Syracuse did in recent years. If all you’re doing is costing yourself a trip to the tournament as a No. 10-seed, isn’t it worth self-imposing a postseason ban and trying to get out from under the weight of that?
3. CAN EVAN MOBLEY MAKE USC RELEVANT IN A WAY ONYEKA OKONGWU COUDLN’T?
The most frustrating part of this year’s draft process is the total lack of respect that Onyeka Okongwu has been getting due to the fact that he played last season in relative obscurity. He’s awesome, but he wasn’t quite good enough to make the Trojans relevant.
I worry that the same fate is going to befall Evan Mobley, who is one of a half-dozen guys that would go No. 1 in the 2020 NBA Draft if they were eligible to get picked. The Trojans lose their top five scorers from last season and seven of the ten guys that were in last year’s rotation. They return just over 14 points-per-game from last year’s roster, and none of the three relevant players are good enough that you would recognize their names.
Instead, they’ll be surrounding Evan Mobley and his brother, Isaiah, with as many six mid-major up-transfers, and I’m just not sure that’s going to be enough to get it done.
PRESEASON PAC-12 PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Chris Smith, UCLA
I am a believer in this UCLA team, even without Daishen Nix on the roster, and Smith is a major reason for that. His emergence as a go-to scorer down the stretch of the season is a major reason that the Bruins were able to win 11 out of 13 and come within a game of first place in the Pac-12 title race. A 6-foot-9 shooting guard, Smith spent the offseason developing his perimeter stroke and his consistency in assertiveness, which should help him evolve into more of a starring role.
A major reason I’m bullish on Smith is that he’s not only something of a late-bloomer, but he also is extremely young. Smith, a senior, won’t turn 21 years old until Christmas Eve. For content, that makes him more than four months younger than Cassius Stanley, a one-and-done freshman at Duke this past season. If Smith was a freshman that had the season he had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because he’d be a top 40 pick in this year’s NBA draft.
THE REST OF THE ALL-PAC-12 FIRST TEAM
REMY MARTIN, Arizona State: Say what you will about the Sun Devils and their consistency, Martin had a terrific junior season, finishing with averages of 19.1 points, 4.1 assists and 3.1 boards. He’s going to carry Arizona State this season.
MCKINLEY WRIGHT, Colorado: Wright might captain the “How are they still in school?” team. A roughly 37-year old senior, he’s coming off of a season where he posted 14.7 points, 5.7 boards and 5.0 assists despite being banged up for much of the year.
OSCAR DA SILVA, Stanford: For my money, Da Silva will be the best player on Stanford this season, particularly if the shooting starts to come around.
EVAN MOBLEY, USC: A potential top two-pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, Mobley is a 7-foot center that can do all the things you want a 7-footer to be able to do: defend the rim, be switchable, make some perimeter shots, catch lobs. He’s a terrific long-term prospect. I’ll be fascinated to see where he is as a player in the here and now.
FIVE MORE NAMES TO KNOW
WILL RICHARDSON, Oregon
TIMMY ALLEN, Utah
JOSH CHRISTOPHER, Arizona State
JAIME JAQUEZ, UCLA
ZIAIRE WILLIAMS, Stanford
BREAKOUT STAR: Will Richardson, Oregon
Oregon is going to have their work cut out for them trying to replace Payton Pritchard, but I’m not sure how many players in the country are better-suited to doing so in a Dana Altman offense than Richardson. If you look at the guys that have had success playing in Altman’s spread offense in recent years, guys like Tyler Dorsey and Joseph Young keep popping up. Richardson is not quite as quick or as much of a volume shooter as either of them, but he is a crafty lefty with some size that is an absolute bucket-getter. When he was a junior in high school in the state of Georgia, he was the only guy to average more points than Collin Sexton, who was a senior. I think there’s a non-zero chance that he ends up being the best player in the Pac-12 this season. I’m very much in on the Will Richardson breakout.
COACH UNDER PRESSURE: Jerod Haase, Stanford
So here’s the thing about Jerod Haase — I don’t think that he is in danger of getting fired this year. He had a team that was good enough to get to the NCAA tournament last season and he has a pair of top 35 recruits, including a five-star prospect in Harrison Ingram, committed to the program in the Class of 2021.
But the truth is that there really is no good excuse if this squad struggles. Yes, losing Tyrell Terry was an unexpected blow, but there is still way more than enough on this roster to be a top 25 team. Oscar Da Silva and Ziaire Williams is a really good top two, and there are good enough role players surrounding them that anything less than a trip to the NCAA tournament should be considered a major disappointment.
And if the Cardinal yet again disappoint to that level, at some point the reckoning will be inevitable. It’s a big year for Jerod Haase.
ON SELECTION SUNDAY WE’LL BE SAYING …
I thought the Pac-12 was supposed to be better this year, how come there isn’t a single top four seed in the conference?
I’M MOST EXCITED ABOUT …
Mick Cronin in Westwood, Season 2. I was one of the people extremely skeptical of the decision to hire Cronin, but he outperformed all expectations in his first season. What can he do now that he’s had time to develop his roster.
POWER RANKINGS
TIER 1 (contenders)
1. OREGON: I’m in on this Oregon team. They have multiple weapons that play roles that Dana Altman has proven capable of excelling with. They’re old. There is a winning pedigree. In a league where there is no clear favorite, I’ll bet on the team that has the best coaching.
2. UCLA: The Bruins would have been the favorite for me if Nix was on the roster. Without him, I have them just behind Oregon. It would have been close either way. The key here, for my money, is going to be the development of Johnny Juzang and Jaime Jaquez. If those two both play at or near an all-Pac-12 level, the Bruins are going to be dangerous.
3. STANFORD: I want to be in on the Cardinal this year, but it’s hard to buy in to this program too much. I need to see it, especially in a year where we have questions about them offensively and at the point. The talent is there.
4. ARIZONA STATE: As I mentioned earlier, the talent is not the question with Arizona State. It’s the shooting, the frontcourt and the fact that this team as been schizophrenic under Hurley.
5. ARIZONA: I really like some of the pieces on the Arizona roster, but I’m just not sure how all of these pieces are going to fit together. They have nine new faces, and one of their four returnees was a redshirt. Six of their nine newcomers are playing in a foreign country in the middle of a pandemic. And all of that is happening with the cloud of the FBI investigation still hanging over them. Everything about this team, this roster and this season is weird. We’ll see how Sean Miller handles it.
TIER 2 (talking myself into them tier)
6. COLORADO: This is the year for the Buffaloes. McKinley Wright is a senior, as are six of the 12 players on the roster. That doesn’t include redshirt junior Evan Battey.
The unfortunate part?
Last year might have actually been the year, because the Buffaloes will be without Tyler Bey, who left with a year of eligibility remaining, and Lucas Siewert this season. And last year, Colorado entered the final two weeks of the season sitting at 21-6 overall and 10-4 in the Pac-12, good for first place. They still haven’t won since.
I’ll ride with Wright, especially now that he’s going to be 100 percent, but it’s still unfortunate that last season ended the way that it did.
7. USC: I’m not sure what else there is to say about the Trojans. Evan Mobley has a chance to be a special talent the way that Onyeka Okongwu was a special talent last season. That team struggled to crack KenPom’s top 50 all season long despite the fact that he was the most production big man in the conference. I’m not sure Mobley will be as good at the college level as Okongwu was.
8. WASHINGTON:
TIER 3 (I trust the coaching tier)
9. UTAH: Utah lost Both Gach, who transferred to Minnesota. With him in the fold, I think might have had a shot to climb their way into the top half of the league, especially if that had coincided with Caleb Lohner making it to campus. But all is not lost. Timmy Allen is back after averaging 17.3 points as a sophomore, and when combined with a backcourt of Rylan Jones — the baby-faced assassin — and Alfonso Plummer — who was really good down the stretch of the season — there is reason to be bullish. If Larry Krystkowiak can find a way to make the frontcourt work, there’s an interesting team in here somewhere.
10. WASHINGTON STATE: Losing C.J. Elleby was a killer for Kyle Smith. Elleby was a 6-foot-6 do-it-all forward that had legitimate first-team all-Pac-12 upside, but he left for the pro ranks. That will put quite a bit on the plate of Isaac Bonton, who averaged 15.3 points and 4.0 assists last season. I trust Smith, but it’s going to take a while to build this program the way he aspires to.
TIER 4 (other guys tier)
11. CAL: I don’t hate this roster the way I was expecting to! Matt Bradley is good, and he’ll be joined by low-major up-transfers Ryan Betley and Makale Foreman. That’s enough to at least make them a threat to win some games in a league where there isn’t anyone that they shouldn’t be able to play with.
12. OREGON STATE: The Beavers finished last season at 18-13 with a 7-11 record in the Pac-12 despite having one of the best players in the history of the program on the roster as a redshirt senior. According to the guys at Three Man Weave, there were just 11 players in college basketball that amassed more win-shares from 17-18 through 19-20 than Tinkle despite the fact that he only won 52 games in those three years. There’s no one in the pipeline to replace that.