Updated with some morning links:
None of the 31 Pac-10 media folks in an Oakland Tribune survey picked Arizona to win the Pac-10 Tournament, though the Wildcats edged UCLA as the pick to win the 2010-11 regular-season title.
The full list of voter comments is here, including this statement about the Wildcats next season:
“Almost everybody back, plus can you really tell the difference between MoMo Jones and Nic Wise?. They look and play the same.”
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The writers also said Derrick Williams will be the top NBA player from the league in five years.
Here's Jeff Faraudo's main story on the survey, and the league's perceived weakness, is here.
The L.A. Times says the Pac-10 could only have one team in the NCAA field if Cal wins this week.
The Sporting News puts Derrick Williams on its five-man all-conference first team, but does not put Nic Wise on any of its three teams.
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When Reeves Nelson was cleared to play against Arizona last week, Derrick Williams figured he had a difficult night ahead of him.
"Coach told us before the game he was going to play," Williams said. "When we figured out he wasn’t playing, that was big for us. Nothing toward their other players but he’s a big part of their offense."
Nelson decided at the last minute not to play, in part because of hereditary retina issues, but Williams won't be so lucky this time. Nelson said Tuesday he would play this week.
Mike DeCourcy of Sporting News says the Williams-Nelson matchup is the top one of the tournament.
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Williams called his Pac-10 freshman of the year award and first-team all-Pac-10 honors a "huge accomplishment," having surprised even himself a bit with the season he's had.
"I really didn't believe I would be freshman of the year," Williams said.
Of course, he was hardly the only ones surprised. Williams noted that he wasn't even ranked in the Rivals 150 for the class of 2009.
"Just showing I can do this here kind of proved a lot of people wrong," Williams said.
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Sounds like Washington's Quincy Pondexter wants to prove some people wrong this week: The Pac-10 coaches who voted in Jerome Randle as Pac-10 player of the year.
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Sean Miller said he won't be changing his substitution patterns this week, despite potentially playing up to three games in three days, but the return of Kevin Parrom will make it easier to keep everybody rested.
“I don’t think you can plan for the future because when you lose, there is none,” Miller said. “We’re just going to do the best we can, play with great effort and energy. If we can add Kevin to the mix and make our team a little bit deeper, great.”
Miller said he would not start Parrom on Thursday and didn't want to make a big deal of it because he was not sure what kind of impact Parrom would have after over two weeks of inactivity.
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Guess the Wildcats will want to focus on taking away the drive from Malcolm Lee.
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Here are the statements from KO, Phil Johnson and Gib Arnold after the USC coaching shakeup.
