Pac 10 hoops first week

[Russ Smith]

Well the conference goes 7-1 with the one loss a total stunner by USC to Mercer.

Stanford is 3-0, Harvard, NW STate and UCSB beaten last week. Nice week for the Furd, good debut for transfer Drew Shiller who's a Bay Area kid. Looks like Stanford avoided the slow start of recent years.

Oregon is 2-0 beat Pepperdine and Pacific. Tajuan Porter off to a great start(like Last year) 22.5 PPG 6 APG. Malik Hairston averaging 18.5, Leunen averaging 13 RPG, 4 players scoring in double figures.

UCLA and WSU are both 1-0 .

UCLA had a great 13 minutes to open the Portland State game and then sort of sleepwalked the rest of the game. Kevin Love had 22 and 13 in 28 minutes apparently he came out cramping up in the 2nd half which means he needs to get in better shape. Shipp had 18 in 29 minutes, hit his first 4 threes. Bad games from Luc and Aboya and 6 turnovers from Westbrook. They announced that Collison won't play tonight or tomorrow so we'll see if UCLA can get by with Westbrook at the point for 2 more games.

WSU had the most impressive win a 27 point blowout of Eastern Washington
with great games from Baynes, Low, Cowgill, great all around game from Weaver nice game from Rochestie. WSU seems to be the healthiest team in the group of teams picked at the top right now and they were easily the most impressive.

USC what can you say, embarassingly ugly loss. THey have injuries Hackett didn't play, Simmons didn't play, Gibson has a sprained ankle and struggled, but they got blown out by a team that won 13 games last year, and they played at home? The funny part was Davon Jefferson, all the hype about Mayo has overshadowed Jefferson a very talented 21 year old freshman. So what happens, he doesn't play at all, after the game Floyd says that Jefferson doesn't know what he's doing in the offense yet so he didn't play. Then we found out that before the game on radio they said Jefferson was being held out of the game for "not doing what the coaches want in practice, it's a discipline move DNP coached decision".

Even USC fans didn't know he wasn't going to play and they're all now using that as an excuse for the loss. They'll be a lot better soon, Hackett got his jaw wire taken off so he can eat again, Gibson will be healthy soon, Simmons will be back soon(ankle) but Floyd was pretty honest after the game we can't guard anybody right now. To be fair because of all their injuries they haven't been able to practice their defense much so Floyd said he kept it simple and Mercer torched them.

 

[Gaddabout]

Just a guess, but I think USC's going to struggle against efficient teams that play smart basketball. They could be one of those teams that sleeps through January and then starts lighting up right around tourney time.

 

[Russ Smith]

Just a guess, but I think USC's going to struggle against efficient teams that play smart basketball. They could be one of those teams that sleeps through January and then starts lighting up right around tourney time.

Too early to judge them they don't have their real team yet until they get Hackett back and apparently that could be soon. We'll see on Jefferson being suspended a game might wake him up.

Speaking of suspensions, don't look now but it's quite likely Mayo will be suspended one game in the near future for violating NCAA rules. Seems Mayo was seen at the Clips/Cavs game sitting in the 3rd row in Clippers team section with friends. One of the friends is James Dunleavy son of Coach Mike, and a walkon at USC. Mayo is buddies with LeBron, and with Sam Cassell, and he was sitting in seats that go for $175. At some point during the game Clips officials came and escorted Mayo and his friends into the VIP box and they were allowed to go into the locker room afterwards.

One minor problem, it's an NCAA violation for Mayo to accept the ticket, Coach Dunleavy is considered a USC booster because his son plays for USC(even as a walkon) and while he can give his son free tix, any other member of the team has to pay their own way. Richard Jefferson was suspended at UA for the same thing when Bill Walton gave his son Lakers tix and Jefferson attended a game.

Apparently the Pac 10 was made aware of the situation and has already reported it to the NCAA so I would expect unless Mayo can prove he bought his own ticket, he'll be suspended for one game.