Among the six Pac-12 teams above .500, four of them are playing against a team below .500.
The other two — Oregon St. and Utah — play each other. One-half game separates the Beavers and the Utes, so there are heavy tiebreaker implications.
I haven’t been writing, which is the surest indicator that I’m not OK. Ask me “how are you?”, and I can lie well enough to fool myself.
I can’t lie about “are you writing?”.
I didn’t realize that I wasn’t writing until I said to myself: It’s time to write about this weekend’s games, and you never got around to last weekend. That means, call a doctor.
There were games last week:
USC 79 Cal 69
I attended that game. Two days after Juju Watkins scored 51 for USC at Stanford, she led the Trojans with 29.
You might say that was good news, holding her to 29, said Cal coach Smith. She did not want to talk about the discrepancy in free throw attempts. The different in FTA sort of suggested to me that USC got a bit of star treatment.
Colorado 80 Washington 57
My prediction for Colorado at Washington was that it might not hit a 90 total, like Colorado 47 Washington 42. Two of the best defensive teams in the nation, while Colorado has been missing layups.
Then the Buffaloes had 50 at halftime.
Coach Payne talks to the media with small words that we’ll understand, and I think an air of bemusement at how perfunctory it is, talking to media.
During Colorado’s narrow escape from Washington State Friday, a Pac-12 Network host asked gravely what the Buffaloes had to do differently in the second half. Coach said: “Make layups”. She said she’s appealing to them to play together, and let the games flow to them.
The Buffaloes clearly had it together last Sunday.
This is a photo from Colorado at Washington Friday:
One-point game near the end of the 3rd, Washington St.’s #1 Wallack has just plowed through Colorado’s screener Sharrod. Play stops, referees huddle. Basketball is never better than when the officials confer for minutes over the replay moinitor.
The Pac-12 Network gives us a look at Wallack waiting for the verdict. I am fascinated by the man in the seats, writing in his yellow pad. I get the feeling he’s taking notes about the game, rather than, say, compiling his grocery list.
Washington State, the defending tournament champion, lost the best player in school history to an ACL injury. It’s more disruptive for them than it was for Utah losing Kneepkens. Utah got a month to tinker before conference play began; Washington St. is abruptly on red alert.
When Colorado reached #3 in the AP poll, I said the worst thing that could happen to them is peaking too soon, though I didn’t think that would strike a group stuffed with graduate students and seniors. However, at Washington, the Buffaloes made many turnovers, while missing layups.
Utah 83 Washington 65
83 is the most anyone’s scored against the Huskies all year, and the Utes made it look like it was more about them imposing their will than an off-day for the defense.
Ines Vieira and Isabel Palmer played together for a dozen minutes. That was a dream of mine, but I didn’t think it would cross Coach Roberts’ mind.
Some of my favorite Phoenix Suns teams played Kevin Johnson and Jeff Hornacek together, as a 1 and a 1.5. The Suns were usually shorter everywhere, with Dan Majerle at 3, with Eddie Johnson and Tom Chambers as “bigs”.
People think Coach Dantoni’s “Seven Seconds or Less” Suns was the fastest Suns team, with Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa, but the group from the turn of the ’90s was faster at every position.
My favorite photo from NBA play. The Honorable Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle, and Jeff Hornacek.
