The highlight of my weekend was the Oreo’s I bought for my Super Bowl watch. What was yours? Was it when Tyler Dorsey didn’t miss a three? Maybe it was when Jabari Bird dunked away the Utes? Could it have been Lonzo’s outshining of Markelle (kind of)? Perhaps Colorado’s first conference road win in a year (1/23/16 was their last)? You could even be from Massachusetts or simply not from Atlanta?
For me, the Oreo’s were really good. And here’s our podcast on the weekend (not the cookies).
It’s not decided and Spencer, Cody and I discuss as much on this week’s podcast. You should give it a listen (it’s also linked at the bottom meaning you can simul-consume: podcast + these power rankings) – flop into it if you will (Is that a saying?).
Of course it has to be noted that no Pac-12 (or 10) team has ever achieved in-conference perfection. Stanford, Arizona and UCLA have accumulated 17-1 seasons. It’s hard to do. Saturday projects to be fantastic theater and it is one of just 10 marquee games (remember, marquee = Arizona, UCLA, and Oregon are playing one of each other) we’ll be delighted to this season. Can’t
Rankings:
Power Rankings are rooted in the present, an expression of immediate results accounting for only the current taste on an evaluator’s tongue. The best of PR’s are a declaration of recency bias, rationalized the facts, figures and stones.
Here’s my recency bias without recently posting any Power Rankings. Also, the following, unless noted as an opinion, consists of no alternative facts.
We did it! Or rather they did, the twelve teams of the Pac, completed their regular season. And how about those seniors? Andrews for 47, a week earlier it was Scott as the P12 POW, and then Gabe York going full Steph Curry Bryn Forbes for us.
Alas, we’ve come to the end of scheduled play and our last power rankings. If you’ve followed for all 17 of these posts, here’s what it’s tracked like:
This is our last Power Rankings of regular season basketball. It’s also our first Power Rankings of March, a month that needs no introduction. Considering such, let’s just get right to it (but real Q: How many of these teams are actually going to dance?):
Power:
I spent the Pac-12 week on the East Coast and I maintain a West Coast bias. That said, it was mostly quiet on the Western Front as the conference’s top-4 teams established themselves as…the top-4 teams. Of course Utah asserted themselves on the road and Cal did something they’d never done before. We’re 2 weeks away from some definitive answers but I’m not comfortable pretending like I know anything.
Power:
While the Power Rankings are getting harder and harder to build, the Dunk Contest (and even parts of the skills competition) were chalk full of Pac-12 representation. And its less about who won the subjective award, but more about ohmahgawd what’d he just do moments. There was plenty of it (and Oregon got swept in the Bay).
Alas, we find ourselves with co-leaders heading into the homestretch and I find myself in sub-zero temperatures in Boston, MA. I watched a lot of movies over the long weekend.
Power:
This week’s guest – a favorite – has long been associated with the Pac-12 Conference. Sarah Kezele grew up in Arizona, attended its finest university, and worked at the Conference’s main offices before helping to launch its network. Then she worked for Arizona’s biggest newspaper, the Arizona Republic (which I was once featured on the Sports Section’s cover page, NBD), and has now moved to be Campus Insider’s WCC correspondent. Sarah joins the podcast formerly known as WANE (we are not experts) as a clear expert. She’s really the best.
What’s unique to this podcast, however, is it’s Valentine’s Day theme. Spencer and I are both single and the closest to a gift we’ll receive is an Arizona sweep of the LA schools. The closest to a gift we’ll give is this podcast, to you, with Valentine analogies for every Pac-12 team.
Listen. Enjoy. Subscribe.
I got credentialed to last year’s Pac-12 tournament. It was awesome and in that wonderful first day of basketball, USC knocked off the fifth seeded Sun Devils. It was USC’s sixth win over a conference opponent in two years and it came at the hands of my behated (word?) Devils. I don’t know if you “have” schadenfreude or wish it or feel it but knowing what the German word translates to, that’s what I have/feel/wish for ASU. Until I had to go into that presser and listen to sixth-year senior Shaq McKissic talk about the game. To listen to Bo Barnes explain how the shittiest team in the Pac-12 could erase a 14-point lead in the game’s final ten minutes was miserable. All the ill I’d have ever wished on the Sun Devils was manifesting but the moment’s cruel reality was that I had to see what my schadenfreude created. I wanted nothing to do with it. It looked awful. They answered their questions with red eyes, barely audible, then left the stage. I felt for them. It wasn’t the stakes of the Super Bowl but those red eyes suggested otherwise. Josh Norman. Cam didn’t answer a few questions. I’m pretty much OK with it.
Power:
It took the ending of a 49-game home win streak to avoid having a 6-way tie for first place. It’s that kind of year in the Pac-12. Yet as far as I can tell, no one in Eugene cares. We’re halfway home and despite all the crazy talk this one feels pretty wrapped up. Maybe I’m crazy but Oregon seems the best, Utah seems the hottest, and WSU seems the worst. Maybe those are my mid-season superlatives with a hat-tip to Andrew Andrews.
Power:
