Arizona raced up to No. 12 in the updated Scout.com rankings of the top classes of 2009.
Jerry Meyer from Rivals.com told me he would probably place Arizona in the Top 15 when they update their rankings, too.
Some links and notes:
— MoMo Jones is a bit queasy after finally ending a wild ride to choosing a college. He says in that Daily News story that he’s “a little bit shaky” about coming to Arizona but told me last week he was planning to arrive Sunday and start taking classes on Monday.
— 2010 Top 25 wing Doron Lamb is leaning toward Kentucky and did not list UA in his finalists, as Ned noted on the previous thread. Lamb is another New York player with a close relationship with Book Richardson, so that may be accelerating speculation that UA is among the leaders. Lamb did tell goazcats.com he will visit UA, so we’ll see.
— Channing Frye says a simple farewell to Blazers fans. Portland says on the previous thread he will be missed there, and the comment on Frye’s blog indicate that, too.
— Andre: Wakahaka is correct that Marcus Johnson can return if KO wants him and he’s eligible academically. The rule is that you can return if you are not drafted and don’t hire an agent. But once the NBA withdrawal deadline passes and you stay in, you lose your control of the situation: If they pick you, even if it’s No. 58 and you have not hired an agent, you can’t go back to school. Plus, the vast majority of players who stay in past the deadline do hire agents, so they can’t return no matter what.
Bill Morgan, UA’s compliance chief, says that’s also the case with the new rule that will make guys withdraw by May 8 — if they don’t hire an agent and don’t get picked, they can return. It will be interesting to see with the earlier deadline if anybody continues to “test” the waters by not hiring an agent until they are sure they will be drafted.
aw yeah!
— guert 07/01/2009 11:18 PM #
This comment on his blog made me a little misty:
“Attention followers of whatever team Mr. Frye ends up with:
You’re now the luckiest basketball fans on the planet. Don’t take this guy for granted.
Best of luck, Channing”
I adore Channing. Like Chase, he got tagged with that “soft” label, which I thought was unfair. I honestly believe that the injury he suffered in New York derailed his career. I hope he is able to return to the form that made him such a great ‘Cat. One fan on the blog mentions that he hopes Channing ends up in Phoenix, so he can play at home. That would be awesome. Any ideas where he might actually end up?
— Kim 07/02/2009 05:14 AM #
germy – your post #20 on the previous thread is perfect. What a great way to break down the teams in the Pac 10 for the upcoming season. Nice logic.
Also, I love the analogy about being KO’d. Never thought of it that way before but will think of it that way forever now. Hey, I appreciate you posters who like KO for whatever reason, but you are definitely in the minority in this crowd. Loser, mean, arrogant, a little deranged (burning gear), … that’s enought for me. I’ve definitely been KO’d.
Thanks germy.
— wildcatinflag 07/02/2009 06:44 AM #
Bruce: Scout’s rankings actually haven’t been updated – only the commitments have been added. If you look at who is ranked #29 on its list, you’d see. I’m sure Scout will update the order soon, because Rivals just did. They have UA ranked #12. Expect UA to have a higher ranking with Scout.
— F V 07/02/2009 07:17 AM #
FV, You’re right. Unbelievably sloppy job at Scout.
— andre 07/02/2009 11:36 AM #
If you resort the teams by the Avg (last column), Arizona is still #12. I don’t know if that info was updated, but I would assume it was. Maybe that column isn’t the only thing they use to give the rankings. I don’t know. I thought it was interesting though.
— Chi_cat 07/02/2009 11:50 AM #
Washington lost 6’9” JC transfer 2009 commit Charles Garcia as he was unable to meet their admission requirements.
He immediately got picked up by Cameron Dollar, at the University of Seattle.
— Adman 07/02/2009 05:04 PM #
Channing Frye was an excellent college center, getting better every year, and he was a pretty good rookie in the NBA, before being relegated to the bench.
— Santa Rita Ghost 07/02/2009 05:23 PM #
Don’t know if any of you caught this, but CAL received a commitment from Alex Rossi, a fantastic Wing from Chicago’s New Trier High (Chi_Cat).
From what I hear this kid can shoot the lights out, as if Montgomery needs another one like this.
The funny part was that Stanford was recruiting him really hard, but hadn’t offered him a ride and Monty snuck in and got him.
— Adman 07/02/2009 07:50 PM #
AZ’s haul may, overall, not be rated higher than 12th (I rate it 6th), but in terms of success post-LOI day,they come in at number 2.
— DC BureauCat 07/02/2009 08:02 PM #
Adman — I saw that at Jon Wilner’s blog, I think, but I got the impression the kid is 2010 prospect; is that right?
germy (and Flag) — you said in your post (which was great) about predicting Pac-10 regular season finishers, “…I definitely think everyone agrees on the top two…” I just wanted to reiterate that I’m picking OSU, not Cal or Washington. I gave an analysis that I’m not going to repeat here, but the summary reasoning is that they will start with more experience playing with superior team discipline that can hold up for a few road wins as well as be very tough in Gill Coliseum. I’ve got Cal second, with UW, UCLA, and UA competing for 3 thru 5.
S.R.Ghost — Frye had some injury problems in New York and then later in Portland. Partly because of that, he was not able to shoot well enough to beat out Travis Outlaw for backup minutes behind LaMarcus Aldridge — and he was not able to bring the defensive and rebounding help that would have made his shooting less relevant. He needs the right coach, system, and roster to fit into; he can’t just show up somewhere and win a spot on his total game. This next move is really important to the arc of his career, IMO.
— Portland Catfan 07/02/2009 08:08 PM #
Portland; Yes Rossi is a 2010. I got this from Wilner’s blog. Should have given him billing, but just didn’t think of it.
I assume that Bruce will formalize everyones pick. OSU is a a gutzy pick, but I can see your rationale.
I’m going with Washington, CAL, UCLA, OSU, UA, ASU, OR, WSU, SC, Stanford.
The bloggers here are lauding Millers recruits, but to my mind the key to the season is Horne. I think Wise will be fine, but his output is a lot determined by Fogg to divert some of the attention. I like Fogg and think he has what it takes to be a very good player; however, if Horne doesn’t show up consistently as a dominant PF crashing the boards there will be trouble in River City, to use a cliche.
— Adman 07/02/2009 08:23 PM #
Okay, if we are assuming Bruce is the keeper of the picks .. I’ll elongate my previous list (didn’t mean to start anything .. but you guys sure took the bait). Looks like we were all hungry for getting our picks in. Like I’ve said, I think we should get one adjustment, right before Pac 10 play begins.
Cal, Wash, UA, UCLA, OSU, OR, asu, WSU, SC, Stan.
Great fun.
— wildcatinflag 07/02/2009 08:37 PM #
Anybody have a good scoring system for this kind of contest? In case of ties in W-L records, how about just using the seedings for the conference tournament as the final standings for this contest? I.e., basically we just adopt the Pac-10’s tie-breakers but we don’t even have to know what they are.
What about scoring by taking the differences between predicted and actual finish for each of the ten teams, add up the differences, and then low total wins?
We could debate a lot of approaches — I’m glad Bruce has volunteered to figure all of this out!
FWIW, if I had to pick right now:
OSU, Cal, UCLA, UA, UW, UO, WSU, asu, Stanford, USC
At the end of the year, UA may well be playing the best ball. I’m convinced this team will be super entertaining no matter how the W-L record comes out. Bear Down!
— Portland Catfan 07/02/2009 08:56 PM #
I went back and grabbed a few predictions from:
Portland, Adman, Confused (had some groupings??), Jimmy, Cactus Pete, Mike in DC. Probably missed some folks .. just scanned the old threads.
Anybody else .. chime in. I’ll leave the scoring scheme to others.
— wildcatinflag 07/02/2009 09:15 PM #
Impact on Budinger’s chances? Artest to the Lakers, Ariza to the Rockets:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/6509192.html
Suddenly, it looks like Chase will need to impress Rick Adelman that he can play the 2 spot (that Artest is vacating), where Chase will now compete with Brent Barry and Von Wafer and one other returnee and another draft pick. Unless he wants to go against Battier and Ariza at the 3 spot.
Does this help Chase? I think maybe it does; he has offensive skills for either spot, but how is he ever going to guard NBA level SG’s?
— Portland Catfan 07/02/2009 10:01 PM #
Budinger can make it as a role player, but I don’t see him as a multiple minute guy. You’re right, he just doesn’t have it to guard NBA level SG’s.
I’d go for one revision just before the conference starts. This would broaden everyones perspective so they will pay attention to all the teams in pre-conference and make it much more interesting and informative.
— Adman 07/02/2009 10:50 PM #
Chase should have stayed in college. For all you optimists, everyone knows that you go at least 3-5 spots above the predication. In Chase’s case it was worse. Beach volleyball is a better and more comfortable career.
— Johnny Boy 07/02/2009 10:50 PM #
Portland, with the quality of coaching, except for maybe one, I would think that all the teams will be playing their best ball at the end of the season.
As I said before in another thread, we most likely will see two distinct seasons. That’s the beauty of our format where we play home-and-home in conference. It really levels the playing field and allows for young teams to mature.
Now if they would just do away with the conference tournament. That’s a total overkill. By that time every tendency of every player on every team is known. Takes all the fun out of it.
— Adman 07/02/2009 10:59 PM #
UCLA will surprise and finish no worse than tied for first. No senioritis this time. Arizona will battle OSU for 4th – and probably win it.
— Jim Turner 07/03/2009 06:22 AM #
Below is my pre-season list of PAC order of eventual finish. I also hope for the revision just before conference play begins. Adman, I also don’t like the conference tourney but am afraid we are whisling in the wind—it is back to stay. As long as that is so, I guess letting the tourney seeding determine our final order is as good a problem solver as any.
CAL, UCLA, UA, WASH., OR.ST., OREGON, asu, WASH.ST., SO.CAL., STANFORD.
— Larry 07/03/2009 08:33 AM #
Bruce, are you getting all these predictions? I think we’ve got something going here. Maybe you’ll get a bonus for keeping basketball alive in the summer.
— Adman 07/03/2009 08:47 AM #
here are my predictions:
1) Cal
2) Washington
3) UCLA
4) U of A
5) Oregon
6) Oregon St.
7) asu
8) Washington St.
9) Stanford
10) USC
Wildinflag, i love what you started with leaving asu in lower case. good work!
— Patrick 07/03/2009 09:10 AM #
Here’s what I’ve got so far. Could be some mistakes, so check your picks. Good fun. Bruce – we’re waiting on your picks! :)
Cal, Wash, UA, UCLA, OSU, OR, asu, WSU, SC, Stan.
WildcatInFlag
OSU, Cal, UCLA, UA, UW, UO, WSU, asu, Stanford, USC
Portland Catfan
I’m going with Washington, CAL, UCLA, OSU, UA, ASU, OR, WSU, SC, Stanford.
Adman 07/02/2009 08:23 PM #
I predict Cal, UCLA, Wash/Zona, Oregon/ WSU/OSU/ASU, Stanford, SC.
confused, maybe not 06/29/2009 10:22 AM #
1. Cal
2. Washington
3. UCLA
4. Arizona
5. Oregon State
6. Oregon
7. USC
8. Washington State
9. ASU
10. Stanford
Jimmy 06/29/2009 12:31 PM #
1.Washington
2.Cal
3.Arizona
4.UCLA
5.Oregon
6.Stanford
7.ASU
8.Oregon St.
9.Wash. St
10.USC
Cactus Pete 06/29/2009 04:11 PM #
1.Washington
2. Cal
3. UCLA
4. Arizona
5. Oregon St
6. Oregon
7. Wash St
8. ASU
9. Stanford
10. USC
Mike_in_DC 06/30/2009 07:37 AM #
CAL, UCLA, UA, WASH., OR.ST., OREGON, asu, WASH.ST., SO.CAL., STANFORD.
Larry 07/03/2009 08:33 AM #
— wildcatinflag 07/03/2009 09:18 AM #
Ooops. I was posting while Patrick was submitting his picks. Here’s the latest for copying and pasting:
Cal, Wash, UA, UCLA, OSU, OR, asu, WSU, SC, Stan.
WildcatInFlag
OSU, Cal, UCLA, UA, UW, UO, WSU, asu, Stanford, USC
Portland Catfan
I’m going with Washington, CAL, UCLA, OSU, UA, ASU, OR, WSU, SC, Stanford.
Adman 07/02/2009 08:23 PM #
I predict Cal, UCLA, Wash/Zona, Oregon/ WSU/OSU/ASU, Stanford, SC.
confused, maybe not 06/29/2009 10:22 AM #
1. Cal
2. Washington
3. UCLA
4. Arizona
5. Oregon State
6. Oregon
7. USC
8. Washington State
9. ASU
10. Stanford
Jimmy 06/29/2009 12:31 PM #
1.Washington
2.Cal
3.Arizona
4.UCLA
5.Oregon
6.Stanford
7.ASU
8.Oregon St.
9.Wash. St
10.USC
Cactus Pete 06/29/2009 04:11 PM #
1.Washington
2. Cal
3. UCLA
4. Arizona
5. Oregon St
6. Oregon
7. Wash St
8. ASU
9. Stanford
10. USC
Mike_in_DC 06/30/2009 07:37 AM #
CAL, UCLA, UA, WASH., OR.ST., OREGON, asu, WASH.ST., SO.CAL., STANFORD.
Larry 07/03/2009 08:33 AM #
1)Cal
2) Washington
3) UCLA
4) U of A
5) Oregon
6) Oregon St.
7) asu
8) Washington St.
9) Stanford
10) USC
Patrick 07/03/2009 09:10 AM #
— wildcatinflag 07/03/2009 09:22 AM #
chi, dj, Kim, Vegas, & others –
Come on in.
— wildcatinflag 07/03/2009 09:24 AM #
I went to New Trier and live nearby now. Rossi is a great player and poised for a big senior year. That’s a nice pick up for cal. Both former Cal coach Ben Braun and Stanford player Matt Lottich are NT Alumns. Also check out Andy Katz’s article on ESPN about the recruiting class.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4299788&name=katz_andy
— uaruby 07/03/2009 10:12 AM #
Flag — thanks for all the work. I’m hoping we’ll hear from SCDave, Trev, Nevada, Original Nick, Poppa, andre…many others…as a result of your promoting the game.
Adman — in #15, I meant that UA could well be playing not only their best ball but the best of any team in the conference. That’s based on the team defense coming together and on having Nic Wise figure out how to make all the youngsters productive on offense (who needs the ball where, etc). Sometimes I get carried away.
Agreed that the conference tournament is an evil thing, only about the money. No value to the teams or the fans, really.
I don’t know much about the Suns or what they want to do next. Anyone know if Channing could be a fit or in their plans?
— Portland Catfan 07/03/2009 10:14 AM #
Portland—other than ur upset special of OSU to win it looks like our ideas at this point are about the same, including our feeling of the scumdevils:}. The tourney is exactly what you say —MAKE A BUCK—Always at the Staple Center is the worst of it. If they had some kind of rotation built in they might get some additional enthusiasm for it. Hell, if they won’t do that fix a neutral site; like Las Vegas. I know I’d rather go there for few days than to Los Angeles.
— Larry 07/03/2009 11:34 AM #
Cal will win the conference with UCLA coming second. Then Washington and then us. Who cares what happens after us?
— John 07/03/2009 12:42 PM #
MyWAG predictions for UA 2009-10, up for debate:
Non-conference:
— 12 games
— early season, develop on the fly
— 8-4 likely W-L
— 10-2 optimistic
— 6-6 pessimistic
Cal-UW-UCLA-OSU:
— 8 games
— need to protect McKale
— 3-5 likely W-L
— 4-4 optimistic
— 2-6 pessimistic
UO-WSU-ASU:
— 6 games
— need road break-thru’s
— 4-2 likely W-L
— 5-1 optimistic
— 3-3 pessimistic
USC-Stanford:
— 4 games
— need to maintain focus
— 3-1 likely W-L
— 4-0 optimistic
— 2-2 pessimistic
Pac-10 Regular Season:
— 18 games
— large uncertainties, new system and coaches
— depending on development of 8 or 9 players
— 10-8 likely W-L (tough out in Pac tourney)
— 9-to-11 likely range of total wins
— 13-5 most optimistic (not enough for 1st place)
— 7-11 most pessimistic
Overall:
— 30 games
— need to defend, rebound, use depth (!)
— 18-12 likely W-L (if so, another bubble)
— 16-to-20 likely range of total wins
— 23-7 ultra-hyper-optimistic
— 13-17 doom-sayer-pessimistic
— Portland Catfan 07/03/2009 02:04 PM #
Re: Bayless
The Blazers are signing Turkoglu:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2009/07/hedo_turkoglu_agrees_to_join_t.html
The Blazers also have off-loaded Sergio Rodriguez (PG) recently. They are expecting Jerryd Bayless to showcase again in the Summer League, this time more as a PG than SG.
Jerryd should have every opportunity, with these developments, to earn much more playing time next year. Bayless, Roy, and Rudy Fernandez are all combo-type guards; Hedo is a point-forward type. Steve Blake is more of a PG, but there are now plenty of people who can initiate offense. Bayless has more upside than Blake as a defensive asset as well as much more ability to attack the basket either as the PG or from off the ball.
It looks like the Blazers have one more significant move up their sleeves, but it may not be at PG. They would love to pick up a “beast” at PF to play behind Aldridge; my guess is that’s where they’ll go next. (Good luck, Channing!)
Go Bayless, Bear Down!
— Portland Catfan 07/03/2009 02:46 PM #
Wildcatinflag, if my groupings need to be better organized for the contest, I’m happy to do it. If not, I stick by my picks. I’m shocked you guys have OSU so high. I think they’ll be competitive, and they have two good recruits (no better than zona’s though) and last year’s team, a team that didn’t exactly dominate any team in the pac.
— confused, maybe not 07/03/2009 04:17 PM #
confused, a few of your picks were with slashes so I didn’t know if that was the exact order or those teams “tying” for that place in the standings. If they are in exact order, just let us know. Any other changes are fine too of course.
— wildcatinflag 07/03/2009 04:58 PM #
Confused, I rated OSU high for a combination of reasons. They have a good nucleus returning and played really good post season ball. While everyone else is sorting things out and learning to play with one another they should be coming together much quicker. The experience factor should work to their advantage in the first half of conference play.
OSU also has as solid recruiting class, and a very good coach who has seemingly gotten the team to buy into his system.
— Adman 07/03/2009 09:43 PM #
I’m not huge on this type of predictions (too many intangibles, plus I really don’t pay any attention to the other PAC teams in the offseason), but here’s my best guess:
1)Cal
2) Washington
3) UCLA
4) Zona (I only typed this this way, b/c it ticks a few people off :-) )
5) Oregon
6) asu
7) Oregon St.
8) Washington St.
9) Stanford
10) USC
— Chi_Cat 07/03/2009 09:51 PM #
Bruce,
Have you heard any info on the possibility of Midnight Madness coming back? When would that be if they did it? I think it was always at Midnight of the first official day of the practice season right?
I think I’d rather fly into Tucson to visit family then instead of Thanksgiving and spending $1200 on tickets for my wife and I.
— Chi_Cat 07/03/2009 09:56 PM #
Confused, I forgot to ad that should OSU run into trouble they might get a stimulus infusion of some sort.
Portland, you might want to go to The UCLA Basketball Forum and go to the post “Player analysis at the UCLA Elite camp.” It is a Bruinau post who attended the camp and who has been a basketball talent scout for over thirty years. His analysis includes the high school talent that was at the camp. You might be interested in what is coming down the pike at that level as I’m sure some will be Zona targets also.
— Adman 07/03/2009 10:05 PM #
Chi Cat — Don’t think that has been discussed yet. It was sort of dropping off in popularity, so they haven’t had it recently.
When they’ve had it, it has been at 7 p.m. the night before the first official practice because the rules are more relaxed now (the NCAA realized how crazy the midnight thing was) and it was actually changed to “McKale Madness.”
I’d think it might be more fun to come to a game in November depending on if they have it and what they do with it. Airfare shouldn’t be that bad if you don’t travel on the Wednesday before or the Sunday after Thanksgiving, should it?
As for the predictions, I’m trying to see if we can post a form that would be easier to input. Bear with me…
— Bruce Pascoe 07/03/2009 10:46 PM #
Chi – gotcha. Thanks for playing along.
Bruce – way to be on the predicition thing. Thanks for playing along.
— wildcatinflag 07/04/2009 06:36 AM #
I’ve been reading these predictions and thought I would post mine too. We’ve all been experiencing the “Miracle in the Desert” these past couple of months with the signing of Coach Miller and the amazing recruiting class he has put together. So, I am going to state that the “Miracle” continues into PAC-10 play and we finish 2nd.
My picks are: Cal, UA, UW, UCLA, UO, OSU, asu, WSU, USC, Stanford.
I picked USC ahead of Stanford because I think KO will “exhort” a couple of extra wins out of his players.
— Class_of_77 07/05/2009 10:31 AM #