The Pac-12 won’t have as many national title contenders as say the Big Ten or ACC, but with 8 teams likely to be competitive for an NCAA bid, the Pac-12 will be plenty relevant next year.
|
Team |
Proj CW |
Proj CL |
Proj Off |
Proj Def |
Last Off |
Last Def |
T100 |
Ret Min |
Ret Poss |
|
Arizona |
14 |
4 |
116.2 |
91.2 |
114.9 |
91.8 |
7 |
44% |
42% |
|
UCLA |
12 |
6 |
113.0 |
92.7 |
109.7 |
94.6 |
7 |
67% |
64% |
|
Colorado |
11 |
7 |
112.1 |
93.7 |
104.7 |
90.3 |
3 |
64% |
69% |
|
Stanford |
11 |
7 |
111.0 |
93.1 |
109.1 |
94.5 |
5 |
84% |
88% |
|
Washington |
10 |
8 |
111.8 |
95.8 |
105.9 |
96.8 |
1 |
55% |
54% |
|
California |
10 |
8 |
107.4 |
93.2 |
105.6 |
92.4 |
2 |
63% |
62% |
|
Arizona St. |
9 |
9 |
109.7 |
96.7 |
107.5 |
96.6 |
1 |
53% |
56% |
|
Oregon |
9 |
9 |
104.5 |
92.6 |
105.9 |
87.9 |
2 |
44% |
42% |
|
Oregon St. |
7 |
11 |
106.6 |
98.9 |
107.9 |
101.0 |
1 |
69% |
68% |
|
Wash. St. |
5 |
13 |
102.2 |
98.0 |
106.6 |
98.0 |
0 |
67% |
58% |
|
USC |
5 |
13 |
99.6 |
95.5 |
101.3 |
94.7 |
2 |
46% |
46% |
|
Utah |
5 |
13 |
101.4 |
98.5 |
103.2 |
98.1 |
1 |
40% |
43% |
For a description of the lineup-based model that generated these results, click here. For a description of column headings, click here.
Arizona: I love what NBC’s Rob Dauster wrote here. For Arizona to reach its full potential, elite recruit Aaron Gordon has to play the power forward position. Arizona doesn’t need a repeat of what we saw with Baylor’s Perry Jones who floated too much on the perimeter and fell from the 8th ranked prospect out of high school to the 28th pick in the NBA draft.
Arizona’s ideal forward rotation would be a three man split between Kaleb Tarczewski, Brandon Ashley, and Gordon. To reach its full potential, the team doesn’t want to have to rely on Matt Korchek or Zach Peters for major minutes next year.
That doesn’t mean Gordon cannot display his perimeter skills. He can draw opposing bigs out by shooting threes and then blow by them to the hoop. That doesn’t mean Gordon might not start at the small forward position. A starting lineup of transfer PG TJ McConnell, returning star Nick Johnson, Gordon, Ashley, and Tarczweski is certainly a possibility. But the team would be better off getting Rondae Hollis-Jefferson on the court at the SF position as much as possible, and if that means playing Gordon at the PF position, so be it.
UCLA: UCLA recently added forward Wannah Bail to provide more depth in the front court. Prior to Bail joining the team, the model had no choice but to assume all the post minutes were going to go to The Wear twins and Tony Parker who are all talented high potential athletes. But if Alford plays Bail some minutes, because Bail wasn’t rated as highly out of high school, the model thinks Bail is only going to be a drag on the offense. Thus UCLA slipped a few spots in the Top 25 since my last projection.
This is one of the things I plan to tweak in the model going forward. I think players should generally only have positive option value. If Bail isn’t very good, Alford doesn’t have to play him. There really is no downside risk to having another post option.
On the other hand, there probably is something to be said about having a tight lineup. Part of why Missouri’s offense was so crisp two years ago is that they literally only had 7 guys to play. If Alford sticks to playing his 7 highly rated athletes (Kyle Anderson, Jordan Adams, Norman Powell, freshman Zach LaVine, Parker, and the Wear twins), that seven man rotation may be able to develop incredible chemistry with one another. But the fear of foul trouble, exhaustion, and the desire to prepare players for the future will probably lead Alford to give some minutes to the less highly rated freshmen in his incoming class.
Colorado: I was a little surprised that Colorado didn’t fall out of more people’s Top 25 rankings with the loss of Andre Roberson. Part of that may be Roberson’s offensive regression last year. Roberson’s shooting percentage was down across the board, and he had a career worst turnover rate. But Roberson wasn’t just valuable because of his offense; Roberson was a truly elite defensive player. Roberson had a ridiculous 27% defensive rebounding rate and was the only Colorado player with a defensive rebounding rate above 15% last year. He was also an incredible shot-blocker and ball-thief. And he posted great numbers in defensive boards, blocks, and steals throughout his career. My model is predicting that Colorado will take a step back on defense this year without Roberson in the lineup.
Offensively, I expect a big jump. Xavier Johnson, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Josh Scott are young and talented players who are only going to get better. And while Askia Booker really struggled with his three point shooting last year, he is still an asset. Top 100 recruit TreShaun Fletcher will be too. That starting lineup has a lot of people excited.
But there are questions about offensive depth. Last year Colorado’s bench was dreadful. Despite being low volume shooters, Jeremy Adams, Shane Harris-Tunks, Xavier Talton, and Eli Stalzer were not Pac-12 caliber players. Two of those players have transferred. The result is that Colorado is probably going to end up giving a bunch of bench minutes to freshmen again this year. Expect Colorado to have a lot of games where they win the first 5 minutes, but then fall behind once some of the reserves take the court.
Now that doesn’t mean Colorado won’t be good. Tad Boyle has been remarkably good at developing offensive players and playing the best basketball at the end of the season. That should continue and Colorado’s offense should take a big step up from last year. But in the final evaluation, my model places them 27th nationally, not in the Top 25.
Final note: The Buffaloes have a chance to be truly elite in 2014 because none of their key players are seniors.
Stanford: No team vexes me more than Stanford. The Cardinal show up as 28th in my model nationally, which seems way too high to me. Stanford struggled mightily down the stretch last year, and even if they return 88% of their offensive possessions from last year, I wasn’t in love with last year’s lineup. Johnny Dawkins has been at Stanford for five years and while his teams have generally been competitive, they have never been to the NCAA tournament yet. In fact, they’ve never finished better than 6th in the conference. To project them at 28th suggests this team is close to a tournament lock.
But I’m not the only one to see some value in this team. Jason King slotted the Cardinal in his initial Top 25. And I do understand where the numbers are coming from. Stanford actually had solid margin of victory numbers last year, finishing 50th in the country. They simply lost a ton of close games. In fact, they were 323rd in terms of luck according to kenpom.com.
And next year’s team should be very experienced. They will likely put together a solid 10-player rotation without a single freshman. They won’t have the growing pains of other teams and that will help them tremendously early in the season. They may be able to pull off a few non-conference upsets based on experience alone. And yet, I still can’t get that excited about this team.
Washington: When UCLA was looking for a new coach, Lorenzo Romar’s name came up a few times as a possibility. I get the feeling Washington fans weren’t terribly worried about losing him. It isn’t that they don’t respect what Romar has done with the team. But with just 3 NCAA appearances in the last 7 years, and three more key seniors starters departing, it feels like the program isn’t trending in the right direction.
But the model is way more optimistic. First, the team returns its best player (by far) in CJ Wilcox.
Second, the team adds Nigel Williams-Goss at PG. Williams-Goss might be the best recruit anyone picks up this year. He is an incredibly intelligent and hard-working player, the kind of player that improves the character of a basketball team. And while he is good enough to lead his team from Day 1, he isn’t a super-athlete. He doesn’t have NBA teams salivating over him for next year. To get an instant impact player who might stick around for several years is the ideal situation.
Third, the team adds San Francisco transfer Perris Blackwell, a forward who dominated in the WCC. While the WCC isn’t quite at the Pac-12 level, Blackwell has played against NCAA tournament caliber teams like Gonzaga, St. Mary’s, and BYU on a regular a basis. The team also adds JUCO small forward Mike Anderson.
Fourth, Shawn Kemp Jr. will be healthy from the start of the year and that should help his development.
Finally, while many of the backups on last year’s team weren’t stars, they were still solid. Players like Andrew Andrews should be ready for an expanded role.
Overall, Washington can go a solid eight players deep without needing to depend on any unranked freshmen recruits. Saying this team returns just 55% of its minutes is deceiving. The combination of experience and talent at the top should put Washington back in the tournament.
California: If you want to be pessimistic, let me hand you some ammunition.
-California was lucky to make the NCAA tournament last year. They had the 56th best margin-of-victory numbers nationally which normally wouldn’t make the cut.
-The team’s best offensive player, Allen Crabbe, declared for the draft.
-Last year was Montgomery’s worst offensive team in his five years at California. And Tyrone Wallace was Montgomery’s personal kryptonite. Montgomery stuck by the shooting guard and Top 100 recruit even though he couldn’t make a perimeter shot to save his life (22 of 98 on the year). And Wallace is expected to return and play a similarly large role in the offense this year.
-The team gave tons of rotation time to Brandon Smith even though over four years he proved his idea of offense was dribbling into traffic and losing the ball. If he was good enough to play major minutes after four years of struggles, that suggests the players sitting on the bench aren’t ready.
-That means the team is probably going to rely a lot on a group of three-star freshmen. There will be some growing pains with that endeavor.
Still, let’s not get overly pessimistic. With four quality starters (Justin Cobbs, David Kravish, Richard Solomon, and instant impact recruit Jabari Bird), and a coach who has dominated the Pac-12 for most of his career, there is plenty to work with. California may not be a lock for the tournament, but they’ll be in the hunt.
Arizona St.: Everyone knows about last year’s super-frosh PG Jahii Carson, but the player who amuses me most is stretch-4 Jonathan Gilling. Despite great rebounding numbers and post-play on defense, he lived on the perimeter on offense. Gilling took four times as many three pointers as two pointers, and made 84 threes on the year.
And that will be useful because the biggest question market for Arizona St. next year is outside shooting. There just aren’t many attractive candidates at the off-guard position. Last year’s Hawaii transfer Bo Barnes wasn’t able to contribute much. And I’m not that much more excited about Michigan St. transfer Brandon Kearney. Kearney rarely took outside shots at Michigan St. and made them even less often. Freshman Chance Murray might eventually be the answer, but his recruiting rank suggests he may not be ready this year.
Arizona St. has more depth at forward with Valparaiso transfer Richie Edwards and JUCO transfer Sai Tummala joining the team. But the lack of perimeter shooting will hurt.
Oregon: Here is something you may not know. Oregon wasn’t a very good offense team last year. They got out in transition and so their games weren’t stuck in the 50’s, but they were much less skilled offensively than you might think.
The reason Oregon had its best season under Dana Altman was that Altman’s defense was the best of his career. Somehow, after back-to-back years of lackluster defense, the Ducks had an elite defensive unit. A large part of that was the late addition of Arsalan Kazemi. He personally ate up so many defensive rebounds that Oregon’s defensive rebounding improved from 162nd to 27th nationally. To say Kazemi will be missed is an understatement. Expect Oregon to be competitive defensively this year, but more in line with Altman’s historical performance.
Thus to return to the tournament the team will have to be better on offense. And while Oregon adds some nice pieces, they also lose four of their five most efficient offensive players (EJ Singler, Carlos Emory, Tony Woods, and Kazemi).
UNLV transfer Mike Moser can replace some of that production. Elite recruit Jordan Bell can replace some of it. Top 10 JUCO Elgin Cook is another nice piece. And Dominic Artis should be able to chip in by avoiding injury this year.
But in expectation, Oregon looks a little worse on offense, and meaningfully worse on defense. That should make them a fringe bubble team. My model currently has them 60th nationally.
Personally, I am buying what Dana Altman is selling right now. And I would not be surprised to see his team surprise us again.
Oregon St.: With Oregon St. returning nearly 70% of its minutes, you might think this will be a veteran squad next year. But many of those minutes went to players like Challe Barton and Jarmal Reid who do not appear to be Pac-12 caliber players. Because of the need to look for better options, the team is going to have to give a lot of time to new lineup pieces again. The team has three Pac-12 quality starters in Roberto Nelson, Devon Collier, and Eric Moreland, but the rest of the lineup is relatively weak.
Washington St.: Brock Motum, the team’s best player is gone, and there aren’t any players who can replace his star quality. This is the only team in the Pac-12 without any Top 100 athletes. Teams can win without elite talent if the coach is good at developing players, but after four seasons Ken Bone has proven to be below average in that regard. If Bone doesn’t develop a few hidden gems this season, he will likely be replaced.
Assuming last year’s partial qualifier Que Johnson has his academics in order now, he could help. And transfers Brett Kingma (ORtg of 97 at Oregon), Jordan Railey (ORtgs of 85 and 68 at Iowa St.), and Danny Lawhorn (46th ranked JUCO) will try to upgrade the offense too. I don’t want to make it sound hopeless, but Bone absolutely must break the trend if he wants to keep his job.
USC: Omar Oraby is the only returning player with an ORtg over 100. Worse yet, the retuning players that couldn’t score last year had a quality point-guard feeding them the ball in scoring position. Now Jio Fontan is gone and the team’s PG prospects are thin. Will the highly inefficient P’Shon Howard become eligible immediately? Will the team turn to unranked freshman recruit Julian Jacobs or Kahlil Dukes? Will former walk-on Chass Bryan, who played major PG minutes last year get the call? None of them is a particularly attractive option.
This also explains why UNLV transfer Katin Reinhardt was willing to sign with USC this off-season. Reinhardt left UNLV because he wants to play the PG position. And Reinhardt is likely going to have to sit out this season. But USC’s options at the PG spot are so under-whelming that Reinhardt is confident he will be the starter next season.
It is possible that a less structured, run-and-gun, dunk-city offense help the team score more effectively. I certainly trust that kind of system more in the Pac-12 than a league like the Big 10 where you run into coaches like Bo Ryan on a regular basis. But give Andy Enfield some time. Wait until Reinhardt and fellow transfer Darion Clark become eligible next year. Until then, this could be the worst offense in the Pac-12 again.
Utah: I expect Jordan Loveridge to become a household name as a sophomore. He is a former top 100 recruit and he was an aggressive and surprisingly efficient given his large role as a freshman. But the Utes bring in 7 new players including 3 junior college transfers. Expect more growing pains.