Pac-12 predictions

I enjoyed reading this piece....

The fellow who wrote the article, Hayden Tharp, is a recent journalism grad...I think he is trying to make his mark as a sports writer - which is all well and good.
The article he has put together probably will sound about right to most of us - although he might be a bit generous placing the Beavs at #2 in the Pac....
He's done his internet homework and has fashioned an interesting July read....

Whether he actually knows WBB beyond what can be learned from a thorough reading of internet WBB is hard to tell from this article. Maybe someone out there knows....

I have to agree with you on how much he knows and the article seems a little simplistic on the analysis side.  But as a brief over  view I guess it is alright.

Another goof by the author is saying Hailey Van Dyke improved as the season continued for UW. Missy Peterson is clearly the second best player on the team behind Melgoza. She played well at the beginning and end of the season, she just couldn't shoot worth a darn the whole time she was wearing a face mask during the middle portion of the year. And of the 3 freshman, Darcy Rees by far had the biggest impact, not Van Dyke.


USC underachieves every year and ASU overachieves every year. I can't see any way the Trojans finish ahead of the Sun Devils. Cal not only lost their head coach and best player, they lost most of their contributors from last year. They would probably finish closer to the bottom...except Colorado and Utah also have heavy losses and UW and WSU have a long way to go to catch up to the upper half of the conference. Top 3 seems fairly clear. Could be interesting to see how much momentum Arizona carries forward from the NIT run, will it be enough to pass up UCLA?

UCLA is being down played a bit... very talented kids left from several talented recruiting classes plus two studs/5* this class. I'd OSU's bigs don't progress, UCLA's a top 3 team in league play.

SC got rid of some head cases the last 2 years and also has (3) top 50 players coming in if I remember? One a very talented 6'5" post.

OSU can not be one dimensional this season and be in the top 3.

I predict Aliyah Mazyck will not have an impact on UofO, negative or positive.  Minyon Moore might be a different story however.

I think the tail end of last year showed that coach SR and the Beavers need both a dominant post and a Kat (and/or a hot Aleah) type 3 point threat in order to be successful......
Trish better make that jump this year (I wish she had gotten some more minutes early last season, like some here have also bemoaned), and some tasteful combination of Jelena, Taylor, AA better dominate in the other 20 minutes, or at least be a sufficient threat to command full-time respect. Jo, bless her heart and efforts, wasn't the dominant post last year, and I don't believe Janessa or Maddie can be that (consistently) in the Pac-12 either. Implied in all of that is Jelena being healthy, and the folks slated to spell Trish get those minutes early.....I think Italy can also be a way to get those early minutes for the paint players.

If we don't rediscover our dominant post play, I seriously doubt us finishing in the top-3, and that is assuming Mik/Aleah/DS play as well as they did last season, and Kat shows up as a factor at some point before the New Year. 
Interesting times ahead!

Go Beavers!

I hope you're right about SC, but I think he's slowly cleaned house and his recruiting is far better at this point than I expected.

Any surge by SC, Zona is cause for concern. If OSU doesn't get a two/three-prong player rotation contributing post offense and defense a 4th or 5th spot could easily happen. The 3 pt game is exciting when on, but very undependable in the long run vs the athletic teams in the Pac12.

It isn't her game, but I had hopes that Taya would develop an inside presence/back to the basket game to compliment/take the pressure off her outside game.