Game of the Week- Saturday

The Saturday “Game of the Week” features two new additions to the feature: California (11-9, 4-4) and Oregon (10-10, 3-5). Both teams are coming off impressive wins Thursday against Oregon State and Stanford, respectively. The two teams square off at 3:00pm at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley.

While inconsistent, both teams feature the talented youth necessary to surprise any team in the conference on any given day. Cal has certainly experienced that with wins over the likes of Washington State and USC, while Oregon also has downed USC an upstart Stanford team. The real key to this game will be which team shows up for each school.

Oregon is a bit of a difficult team to figure out. At times, the Ducks look flat and completely overmatched. Yet, at other times Oregon shows flashes of their increasingly bright future. In his first year in Eugene, head coach Dana Altman has already begun to change the culture of Oregon basketball. A talented recruiter, Altman is beginning to find more and more success on the hardwood. The Ducks get much of their offensive output from forwards Joevan Catron (15.4 points per game, 6.3 rebounds per game) and E.J. Singler (11.5 ppg, 5.9 rpg). But, what makes the Ducks a dangerous team is when their guards are knocking down shots. Garrett Sim and Jay-R Strowbridge are both potent three-point shooters when open, as are Singler and Teondre Williams.

Cal is led by junior forward Harper Kamp (14.6 ppg, 5.4 rpg), junior guard Jorge Gutierrez (12.2 ppg, 4.4 apg) and freshman Allen Crabbe (11.5 ppg, 5.5 rpg). With those three leading the way, and senior Markhuri Sanders-Frison chipping in a team-high 8.0 rebounds per game, the Bears have the potential to put points on the board in a hurry. However, be it the youth or simply streaky players, Cal also is wildly inconsistent. For instance, in a game against Notre Dame earlier this season, the Golden Bears scored just five first half points. Less than two months later, Cal’s offense caught fire en route to 42 first half points. If head coach Mike Montgomery can begin to get some consistency from his offense, the Bears may be a tough out come the end of the season and into the Pac-10 tournament.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Inconsistency can be infuriating as a fan, but perhaps even more so for a coach. In that sense, it is a miracle Montgomery and Altman have any hair left. While Cal and Oregon can both be very good teams when they are executing, the have both been frequently prone to inconsistent shooting and failing to execute both offensive and defensive sets. The outcome of this game may very well come down to which of the two teams show up. However, if neither or both teams display anything resembling consistency, it will likely be a very close game.

KEY PLAYERS

E.J. Singler- Singler is often Oregon’s most dangerous offensive weapon due to his high motor and willingness to do it all. Whether it is roaming the baseline, stepping out and hitting threes or getting put backs on offensive rebounds, Singler has the potential to take over a game against less talented players.

Allen Crabbe- Ever since promising freshman Gary Franklin announced his intentions to leave the program and transfer, Crabbe has asserted himself as the frontrunner for Pac-10 Freshman of the Year. A near 37 percent three-point shooter, Crabbe has the shooting ability to superbly complement the Bears’ strong inside game.

Game of the Week- Thursday

Our third “Game of the Week” segment features a familiar face- and a new one. After splitting the Washington road trip, Arizona (16-4, 5-2) still finds itself in second place in the conference standings. Right behind them? That would be the Wildcats’ Thursday night opponent: the UCLA Bruins (13-6, 5-2). The matchup between the conference’s two most storied programs tips of at 6:00pm from Tucson and will be broadcast nationally on ESPN2.

We have detailed Arizona quite a bit in this space thus far. Once again, the Wildcats are led by one of the best forwards in the nation in sophomore Derrick Williams. Williams finished the Washington trip with 39 points and 30 rebounds, though his efficiency from the field was below his usual rate. Williams shot just 12-28 combined in the two games, but also gathered 12 offensive rebounds, 9 of which against Washington State.

UCLA counters with a solid core of talented players, who appear to be hitting their stride in recent weeks. Winners of four straight games, the Bruins have a quartet of players- Reeves Nelson, Tyler Honeycutt, Malcolm Lee and Lazeric Jones- averaging double figures on the season, with freshman center Joshua Smith just a touch below at 9.8 ppg. Meanwhile, Nelson, Honeycutt and Smith combine for 22.5 rebounds per game, almost two-thirds of Bruins’ boards.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

When one thinks of Pac-10 basketball in a historical context, UCLA and Arizona are the teams that come to mind. However, both programs have fallen on a bit of uncharacteristic times recently. That has changed this season in the first go around of conference play. One thing is for sure in this game, it is going to be a physical battle on the blocks. Derrick Williams is a tremendous rebounder, both offensively and defensively, but he is in for a challenge against UCLA’s blue chip posts. Williams and his teammates almost certainly will find rebounding against UCLA to be a much greater challenge than in their win Saturday at Washington State. However, while both teams are strong in the post, this game may well come to which team gets better guard play. Honeycutt and Lee give the Bruins two probable future-NBA players, but when on their game, Arizona’s Jordin Mayes, Jamelle Horne, Kyle Fogg and Brendon Lavender can be excellent three-point shooters. Whichever team supplements its inside game with its outside game the best will likely come out victorious and in sole possession of second place in the conference.

KEY PLAYERS

Tyler Honeycutt- When Honeycutt is on, he’s one of the premiere players in the Pac-10. Against Stanford on Saturday, Honeycutt scored 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds to go along with four blocks in leading the Bruins to victory.

Reeves Nelson- The fiery sophomore post from Modesto, Calif. can be a load himself on the offensive end. But in this game, he’ll likely find himself matched up against Williams on the defensive end. His ability to limit Williams’ easy looks and offensive rebounds may be a determining factor in the game.

Derrick Williams- While Williams is likely to get his points and rebounds- as he has done in just about every game this year- where he may play the largest impact in this game is drawing fouls and getting the Bruins’ bigs in foul trouble. Williams shoots more free throws than any other player in the country, so if he goes after UCLA’s talented posts, they may be forced to back off or risk fouling out.

Jamelle Horne- Williams garners all the attention for the Wildcats, but Horne’s three-point shooting prowess helped guide Arizona to their victory at WSU. If Horne can bring that same shooting touch to the court Thursday, it gives the Wildcats one more scoring threat off the bench.

Game of the Week- Saturday

For the second time in as many installments of the “Game of the Week” feature, Arizona (15-4, 4-2) finds itself in the day’s marquee matchup. Two days removed from the battle for first place with Washington, the Wildcats travel five hours east to take on Washington State (14-5, 4-3) in Pullman. The game takes place at 7:30pm Saturday at Beasley Coliseum and will be broadcast regionally on FSN.

There are two clear options for the Wildcats’ mindset coming into this game. They could be on an emotional low after getting blasted at the hands of Isaiah Thomas and the Huskies and come into Saturday’s game flat and unfocused. Or, in what seems like a more likely scenario, Arizona will view this game as a chance to salvage its trip to the northwest, and give the Cougars one of their tougher home games of the season.

Washington State, for its part, is looking to continue its ascent to the top of the conference standings after getting swept in their opening Pac-10 series in Los Angeles. Since that weekend, the Cougs are 4-1, with their only loss coming in overtime to a hot-shooting Cal team. Led by potential Pac-10 Player of the Year candidate Klay Thompson, Washington State boasts a high-scoring, dynamic offense when the shots are falling. When that is the case, few teams have been able to slow down the likes of Thompson, Faisal Aden and Reggie Moore through the first 19 games of the season. However, the Cougars have been prone to shooting slumps at times, often resulting (or perhaps caused by) players attempting to go one-on-one rather than sharing the ball. 

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Much of the intrigue in this game revolves around how the Cougars are able to contain Arizona’s frontcourt. Sophomore Derrick Williams and freshman Solomon Hill give the Wildcats a spectacular core of frontline players. On the other side, the Cougars are rather undersized, with junior DeAngelo Casto (6’8, 255) and redshirt junior Abe Lodwick (6’7, 208) anchoring the frontcourt. Will the Cougars be able to slow down Arizona’s inside game and force them to make shots over the top? Or will Williams and Solomon have their way with the undersized Cougars, putting them in foul trouble and taking over the game? The answers to these questions may very well determine the outcome of the game. Either way, this game should go a long way in proving where each team stands in the Pac-10 race.

KEY PLAYERS

Derrick Williams- The likely NBA lottery pick scored 22 points and pulled in 11 rebounds Thursday against Washington, but at times Arizona seemed to get away from its biggest strength: getting the ball to Williams and letting him go to work. As that happened, the game began to get away from the Wildcats.

Klay Thompson- Against Arizona State Thursday, Thompson may have had one of the quietest near triple-doubles in history. The silky-smooth shooter has evolved into one of the most complete all-around players in the Pac-10, if not the country.

DeAngelo Casto- Casto dominated an undersized Arizona State team Thursday to the tune of a career-high 25 points. If the emotional spark plug can defend Williams and get him into foul trouble as he did last year in Tuscon, the Cougars have to like their chances in a shootout. 

Game of the Week- Thursday

Welcome to the inaugural installment of our bi-weekly “Game of the Week” segment. In this space we will highlight one marquee matchup in each Thursday and Saturday (or Sunday) set of games.

So, which game wins this week’s title of “Thursday Game of the Week”? Well, this one was obvious: #25 Arizona (15-3, 4-1) at #20 Washington (13-4, 5-1). Perhaps the biggest conference match-up of the year takes place Thursday at Hec Edmundson Pavilion, pitting the conference preseason poll’s number one and number two ranked teams against each other. And thus far, both teams have lived up to their rankings through the first three weeks of the conference season.

When looking at these two teams, the first thing you notice is the offensive capabilities of each team. Led by junior guard Isaiah Thomas’s emergence as one of the nation’s top point guards, Washington boasts the second-highest scoring offense in the nation at 87.1 points per game.  However, Thomas has plenty of help. Down on the block, senior forward Matthew Bryan-Amaning has evolved as a top post player in the conference. In just 26.4 minutes per game, Bryan-Amaning averages 15.2 points and a team-high 7.7 rebounds per game. Out on the wing, senior Justin Holiday has undergone one of the greater transformations throughout the entire conference. Until the end of the 2009-2010 season, the California native and brother of former UCLA star and current Philadelphia 76er Jrue Holiday was known almost primarily as a non-shooter who excelled on the defensive side of the ball. That is not the case any longer. Holiday maintains a 52.6 field goal percentage, 44.6 three-point percentage and averages 12.4 points per game. His emergence on the offensive end has been a significant reason for Washington’s rise to number 20 in the Top 25.

Arizona is no slouch on offense either. The Wildcats come into the game averaging 77.7 points per game- good enough for 34^th in the nation. Sophomore forward phenom Derrick Williams accounts for more than a quarter of his team’s scoring, checking in at 19.7 points per game. His contributions are not limited to scoring, however. The potential NBA lottery pick also chips in a team-high 7.3 rebounds per game in addition to going to the free-throw line more than any other player in the country. But, as with Thomas at UW, Williams is not the only threat for the Wildcats. Alongside Williams, sophomore forward Solomon Hill gives Arizona one of the top frontcourts in the Pac-10. And when the guards, such as Kyle Fogg and Lamont “MoMo” Jones are hitting shots, Arizona can be an offensive juggernaut. In all, the Wildcats’ prowess on both the offensive and defensive end has helped earn them a Top 25 ranking.

KEY PLAYERS

Isaiah Thomas- the talented 5’9 guard is coming off one of the best performances in recent UW history with 27 points, 13 assists and four rebounds in a 92-71 win over Cal.

Derrick Williams- the reigning Pac-10 Player of the Week dominated in-state rival Arizona State to the tune of 31 points and 10 rebounds.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

One area that may play a difference in this game is the emergence of another back-court option for UW. Starting guard Abdul Gaddy was lost for the year after tearing his ACL earlier this month. Junior Scott Suggs got the start against Cal and head coach Lorenzo Romar said Suggs may get the start again Thursday, with senior Venoy Overton coming off the bench. Will the back-court find its groove early like they did against Cal, or struggle to find any rhythm reminiscent of its first conference loss Thursday to Stanford? The answer may very well decide the outcome and the claim to sole possession of first play in the conference. 

Compiled by Neil Stover

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