***Official Pac-10 Basketball Thread***

[BobJoeJim]

Oregon homer here.

We might be really good, but I think you're underestimating what Brooks meant to this team last year. Neither Porter nor Taylor is a point guard. Porter will be forced into the role this year, but unless he improved drastically in the offseason he does NOT have the ball handling and decision making skills to be a trustworthy point guard against good athletic competition like he'll be facing week in and week out in the Pac Ten.

Porter is far more effective as a catch-and-shoot two guard than he is running the offense. Taylor at the point is just LOL, he's a guard-forward hybrid. Oregon will only live up to expectations this year if one of two things happens. Either, Porter learns how to run the offense FAR better than he did last year during the few moments where Brooks sat out, or else true freshman Kamyron Brown takes over the point guard duties competently. If neither of these players steps up to run the offense, the team will still be dangerous, as Leunen, Catron, Hairston, and Porter have as much raw talent as any starting five in the conference, or maybe even the country. Without a true PG though, they will be inconsistent and lose enough games they "shouldn't" that it's not entirely unreasonable to predict fifth place in the conference. Losing Brooks REALLY hurts.

The upside is that Kamyron Brown looked surprisingly comfortable with the ball in his hands in the first three games this weekend. He may turn out to be the best freshman in the conference that you didn't know anything about and could be the key to a successful season. At least, I hope he might. The Ducks ran a lineup with Brown and Porter on the floor simultaneously a lot, with Porter taking the ball up the court but Brown running the half-court offense, and Brown being in charge of breaking the press when the opponents showed it. They did this not just experimentally, but during key moments. Brown was very impressive with his decision making, and this has me far more excited for this season than I was a week ago, but I still want to see what happens against a better opponent than Pepperdine/Pacific/Western Michigan. Also, I haven't watched tonight's WMU game yet, it was closer than I was hoping it would be from a glance at the box score, so I'll have to look over the film before I can say for sure how I feel.

Preseason I would've ranked Oregon 3 and USC 6, but in light of the opening to the season, here are my current rankings:
1 UCLA
2 Oregon
3 WSU
4 Arizona
5 Stanford
6 Washington
7 Cal
8 USC
9 ASU
10 OSU

[ProfessorBen]

GOGOGOOGOGOGOGOG Cardinal!

[Dids]

kyleb is mos def not an oregon homer in any form.

It is totally asldkfjasldfkjsdflkj that WSU is #9. I get giddy every time we see it.

If you look at how much Kyle Weaver improved over last year, and realize that the biggest things holding him back are mental, he could be a HUGE player this year. Same for Baynes. I think WSU has a chance to be a top 5 team this year.

[rakes.a.beach]

[ QUOTE ]
Forgot to include Arizona in initial post. My pre-season ranking (giving it not enough research):

1.UCLA
2.Oregon
3.Wash St.
4.Arizona
5.USC
6.Stan
7.Wash
8.Cal
9.OSU
10.ASU

Stanford may do better. The Lopez twins return. Wash returns Dentmon, Appleby, Brockman, but to be honest, these players ain't that great. The top 6 teams look strong.

[/ QUOTE ]

looks similar to the daily bruin ranking i read last week

[CardSharpCook]

Dids,

Congrats for 218! I'm pushing 190 now and going up, we may cross paths soon.

[JaredL]

CardSharp,

I expect us to do well. I expect us to finish 2nd, 3rd or 4th. I haven't followed other teams much at all but UCLA clearly seems to be the top team and then I guess you have the ducks, Wazzu, Arizona and USC before the huge dropoff. I don't know much of anything about Arizona and little about USC so take that with a grain of salt.

For Oregon it's going to be a tough year to predict as the variance is pretty high. Brooks is gone and Malik Hairston needs to step up and be the superstar we thought we had on signing day. He has had his moments but hasn't been consistent enough to be the team leader. That was ok with Brooks having some monster games and hot shooting on 3s often bailing us out but I think this year without an experienced point guard he is going to have to carry the load. Like Brooks last year he is going to be the guy who everyone expects to get the ball at the end of close games. I think if Malik can dominate, as he showed for stretches of games last year but didn't do consistently, then we can go far especially if we get hot shooting like at the end last year.

On the other hand it can go the other way. I expect us to look awful at times and drop an easy game or two in the conference. Part of this is just that Oregon plays a high variance style with the up-tempo pace and the 3s. Last year we lost at Washington in one of the worst games I've ever seen. The two wins against Wazzu were ugly with the Cougs being better than Oregon at giving the games away. The other not so bad losses were losing both on the trip to Cal and Stanford and losing at home to USC. It's not awful but if you want to challenge for the conference title you can't take losses like those.

The other problem is of course the lack of an experienced point guard. Brooks played so much last year that nobody has played much at all there. I would not be surprised to see a couple games, especially early as Porter and Brown get experience there, slipping away because of turnovers and overall bad management.

I'm not sure how coherent that all was. Basically I think the regular season will go about like last year. Clearly Oregon is one of the best teams in the Pac 10 but I think consistency problems will keep us from challenging UCLA for the conference championship. Like last year if they get it together they could make a big run in the tournaments.

[viciouspenguin]

1. UCLA
2. Washington State
3. Stanford
4. Oregon
5. Arizona State
6. Arizona
7. Cal
8. USC
9. Washington
10. OSU

I think my most debatable picks are ASU at 5, Arizona at 6, and USC at 8.

ASU was a very well coached, rapidly improving team by the end of the team last year with limited talent. They nearly beat UCLA and USC just by being well coached. With more talent (more specifically Harden), their frustratingly slow style, tough D scheme, and excellent coaching, I expect them to be the 2006 WSU of this year. I would put them higher but Oregon fans would get mad at me. I'm personally not very high on Oregon because I think the loss of Brooks will impact the team much more than people think, but I can't rank them any lower since they're obviously still a good team. But I am curious what will happen when those open 3 point shots arent there anymore becuase Brooks isn't breaking down the D and kicking the rock out. I also dont like the idea of Porter running the point permannetly. Taylor and Hairston will need to prove themselves but if they do Oregon is a top 2-4 team, otherwise i put them at middle of the pack in such a tough PAC10

Arizona will not meet expectations this year. Chase will find trouble scoring because all the focus will be on him. All those open looks he had last year will be gone. He's overhyped by the media. The Arizona defense is still soft and weak. The team is inexperienced as well. Most of the players are still raw and very undisciplined. Chase is just an athlete and pretty selfish. Look up Trent Suzuki.

What people don't realize about USC last year compared to this year is the defense. Pruitt, Young, etc. were all excellent defenders. Their offense, leadership, and experience will also be missed obviously. OJ Mayo is not a team player and I expect them to finish near the bottom of the PAC10. SC's defense is horrible this year. In such a deep PAC10 the one man team of OJ Mayo is not going to win. Especially with some of the great defensive teams that will just shut him down with their help D. UCLa, Stanford, WSU, ASU come to mind. If OJ can't beat Mercer by himself, USC is NIT status. It's not going to get much better.

[Dids]

Jared,

Way I see the UO games vs us last year was that we beat you, but Brooks beat us. I have a hard time seeing UO being nearly as good without that guy, he was amazing.

Oh, also because your pet midget chucker is insane, but I assume that's not a repeatable skills, and if it is, I will order Baynes to sit on him.

[BobJoeJim]

Jared, one problem with relying on Malik to step up as the dominant player is that it's dangerous to put the ball in his hands at the end of the game because of his free throw shooting. He looks good so far (have you had a chance to watch the first three games? O-Zone is awesome!), and I think for the first 38 minutes of any given game he will look like the star we've been waiting for him to be. I don't want the ball in his hands at the end of a game though, until he proves he can hit free throws reliably.

You're dead on about the variance point, we live by the three and will probably die by it in a few games this year as well. We're also vulnerable defensively to a good post player, as WMU showed. I still maintain that the number one key to the season is how Porter and Brown can do at the point; there will undoubtedly be drop-off from Brooks, but if we can at least get replacement level play it could be a very good year. If those two struggle badly, though, it will get ugly and with how tough the conference is, we could find ourselves plummeting through the standings. Right now it's still too early to say which way it will go, but road games against St. Mary's and especially against K-State will go a long way toward figuring out this team.

[JaredL]

Unfortunately I live in Pittsburgh so I might not get to see any preseason games. I get a Fox Sports channel that isn't FSNW but some sort of West Coast hybrid. For example they have weekly highlight shows for UCLA and Washington. Annoyingly they don't usually have these shows for Oregon. They show a lot of Pac 10 games so I can watch most of the games on there, some are delayed iirc but I can watch them, but for preseason games especially against crappy teams I don't get them.

Ironically, I am applying for a job as an econ professor at OSU. If I luckbox into that I'll be back in state albeit in a strange situation. I'd be much happier there.

With Malik, I'm referring more to games that are within one possession. Obviously if we are up 5 with half a minute to go his ass should be on the bench or at least he shouldn't touch the ball. Down by 2 with 30 seconds left I think he should get the ball. Even if they should, teams won't foul him on purpose in situations like that.