Pac-12 Basketball: UCLA strength, “buy game” losses among early takeaways
By Tuck Clarry
The bad buy games
The first week of the season for Power-5 schools is traditionally filled with “buy games.” These are matchups against lower-level Division I schools that accept lucrative money offers to go on the road and get shellacked by the bigger school. There is rarely a bigger pie-on-your-face moment than when a “buy game’ results in that Power-5 school going down.
Well, four teams in the Conference of Champions did just that. Washington, California, Arizona State and Stanford all lost to a collection of teams that average a ranking of 201 in KenPom.
Huskies fans were likely praying that Mike Hopkins’ team could at least start moving in the right direction this year with a handful of homegrown talent transferring back to Seattle. Instead, the Huskies trailed by as much as 17 points to a team to finish dead last in the MAC in the conference’s preseason coaches poll and is ranked 313 on KenPom.
Cal had an equally horrendous start on the season, dropping their opener to UC San Diego 80-67. It’s up to you, dear reader, to decide if losing to a team that was picked to finish dead last in the MAC is better or worse than the Bears getting run out of the gym by a team that is ineligible for Division I postseason play as they’re halfway into their four year Division I reclassification efforts. The Bears and Huskies are no doubt bottom-dwellers in the conference and have a rough few months ahead of them before they can continue working on overhauling their programs.
As far as Stanford and Arizona State are concerned, it seems like preseason optimism was again misplaced towards two habitual underachievers. Both Stanford’s Jerod Haase and Arizona State’s Bobby Hurley have plenty of talent to make something finally happen for their programs, but the two fell flat jumping out of the gate yet again.
Arizona State fell in perhaps the most Sun Devils way imaginable, giving up a buzzer-beater heave after finally reclaiming the lead with two minutes left to play against the UC Riverside Highlanders. Hurley has continually overachieved on the recruiting trail for results like Thursday night’s to happen.
The Cardinal were dominated by Herb Sendek’s Broncos on Friday, trailing by as much as 26 against a team picked to finish 6th in the WCC. Stanford shot 39% from the field and 28% from outside and could not find their men on defense, allowing the Broncos to shoot 48% from three.
The Pac-12 is bearing out to be a have and have-not league this season, with the gap between the top four teams and the bottom teams appearing massive. The conference is the only power conference to have two teams ranked lower than 120 in KenPom.