PAC-12 basketball has gotten better
What's the deal with Allen Crabbe?... dude is a beast and massively underrated at this point.
There is no reason to believe Ketavious Caldwell can come out this year but not Allen Crabbe.
Allen Crabbe can play the catch and shoot just as good as good him if not better and his mechanics are nothing short of excellent. He has shown better ability to get his shot off in iso situations, it's safe to say he has better handles. He does Not struggle shooting off the dribble which i hear is a knock on him, I would say its actually the opposite, his mid-range game is pretty good. Gets to the line fairly well. Can post up shorter guards.
Weight issues??? look at the draft and see how many prospects have the same problem... including Caldwell.
My guess is that scouts may like Crabbe more. You can't go by these mock drafts because they are the opinions of these guys who run the sites not actual scouts. What guys like that do is put the obvious guys at the top of the draft board then add the former McDonalds all Americans or higher ranked guys who are having ok to good years to the list.
PAC 12 is solid this year. Washington stanford, and ucla are the only teams underperforming and I believe the bruins will get it going soon, just taking them some time with 3 freshman and a transfer all coming playing big minutes. I also still think highly of Stanford. Guards just have to shoot better.
I've seen Oregon state play twice, and while they did lose a tough game in rhe final seconds, that team is solid. They have 4 legit big men who can all
Colorado has been maybe the most impressive squad so far. And zona hasn't been challenged yet and are top 10.
Of course considering how terrible the conference was last season, saying it's better is not saying much. It darn well better be improved
Stanford is underperforming as far as losing to Belmont , even though that wasn't a bad loss, but losing to Minnesota and Mizzu who are both ranked doesn't fall into that catagory especially when they are missing two starters one of which is the returning leading scorer and last season MVP of the N.I.T. Unfortunately one of them is red shirting due to injury but the other will be back in two games.
They have a lot of solid teams, that will probably be on the bubble when March rolls around. When matched up against top 15 teams they're dropped a few games lately, Cal last night vs Creighton and Kansas rolled through Oregon State, Colorado and Washington ( horrible) state without much resistance as well as doubling up Belmont who beat Stanford.
Better, yes, but a lot of bubble teams IMO.
It hasn't gotten considerably better other than Arizona is winning rather impressively at the moment. The rest of the league hasn'y been overly impressive in their games against decent to good teams (even if you overlook the couple bad losses).
UCLA- Georgetown L, Texas W
Cal- Georgia Tech W, Pacific W, Wisconsin L, UNLV L, Creighton L
***FYI-http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/50213474/ns/sports-college_basketball/
"The [Creighton-Cal] game attracted more than a dozen NBA scouts, with 15 NBA personnel credentialed in all. General managers Bob Myers of the Golden State Warriors, Dell Demps from the New Orleans Hornets and Oklahoma City Thunder's Sam Presti attended."***
USC- Illinois L, Marquette L, Texas W, San Diego St L, Nebraska L, New Mexico L, Minnesota L
Stanford- San Francisco W, Belmont L, Missouri L, Minnesota L
Oregon- UNLV W, Cincy L
Oregon St- Alabama L, Purdue W, Kansas L
Arizona State- Arkansas W, Creighton L, DePaul L
Washington- Seton Hall W, OSU L, Colorado State L, SLU W,
Washington St- Kansas L, Texas A&M L, Gonzaga L
Colorado- Dayton W, Baylor W, Murray St W, Wyoming L, Colorado St W, Kansas L
Utah- SMU L, Boise St W, BYU L
ucla is getting it together. They had their most impressive game last night where they actally look lke they know their roles. Oregon,Oregon state, Cal, Stanford, Arizona State, UCLA and Colorado all have very realistic chances of making the tourny while Zona is in the running with best in the nation.
Not sure if serious.
The Pac-12 has one ranked team (out of 12, obviously). That's the worst out of the major 6 conferences.
Out of those key wins listed, among conference play, only one is good (UNLV...and it came without Khem Birch).
Sagarin has the Pac-12 as the 6th best conference in the land FWIW:
As far this year the Pac-12 has looked much better than they did last season and they have some very good wins. Arizonia is still the top team that has yet to be tested since they have a cupcake schedule and UCLA is a train wreck and no one on here saw coming. They Pac stands second in the RPI ranks and third as far as conference SOS RPI. Key wins include
Baylor
Murray St
UNLV
Purdue
New Mexico st
Other than UCLA and Washington (Cal Poly and Albany) the conference doesn't have many of another bad losses
http://www.teamrankings.com/ncb/rpi/
As far as individual performances they have
Allen Crabbe 12th in the nation in scoring
Andre Roberson 14th in the nation in rebounding
Josh Huestis 10th in the nation in blocks
Larry Drew 5th in the nation in assists