From John Canzano:
Here’s a fun fact this season: 44 percent of the Pac-12 Conference’s scholarship basketball players have either sat out or left a game due to injury.
That hurts. Also, the Pac-12 as a whole had a rough performance in early-season games. The Pac-12 is just 81-41 (.667) in non-conference games this season. That ranks last among the Power Five conferences. Troubling non-conference losses have dragged down the NET rankings of the teams in the middle of the conference standings.
“We hammer the 75 percent figure into coaches heads,” Zaninovich told me on Friday. “Conferences across the board that win 75 percent of non-conference games in any given year get 50 percent of their teams in the tournament.”
The Pac-12 fell about 10 non-conference wins shy of that target win percentage. It’s why Cal losing to Eastern Washington, UC Davis and Santa Clara eventually hurts the whole conference. Same goes for Oregon’s losses to UC Irvine and Utah Valley. And Oregon State lost to Portland State — twice. That can’t happen if you want to boost the overall NET ranking and get half your conference in the NCAA Tournament.
The Pac-12 is due for a refresh on the strategic front. It has been five years since the last one in basketball. In the past, the Pac-12 hired scheduling consultants, studied the markers of successful programs, and urged members to invest more heavily in basketball.
“The top brands have been investing consistently over a long period of time,” Zaninovich said. “Some of the other programs have more recently got to the investment levels.”
Pac-12 fans hope a couple of NCAA Tournament teams will emerge in the group that includes USC, Utah, ASU and Oregon. I’ve seen USC up close. The Trojans look like a tournament team, especially now that they’re healthy.
I talked to USC coach Andy Enfield last week after his team throttled ASU in Tempe. I asked him about the top-six teams in the conference. What does Enfield see when he looks at the standings?
He said: “We have our hands full every night.”
Here’s a fun fact this season: 44 percent of the Pac-12 Conference’s scholarship basketball players have either sat out or left a game due to injury.
That hurts. Also, the Pac-12 as a whole had a rough performance in early-season games. The Pac-12 is just 81-41 (.667) in non-conference games this season. That ranks last among the Power Five conferences. Troubling non-conference losses have dragged down the NET rankings of the teams in the middle of the conference standings.
“We hammer the 75 percent figure into coaches heads,” Zaninovich told me on Friday. “Conferences across the board that win 75 percent of non-conference games in any given year get 50 percent of their teams in the tournament.”
The Pac-12 fell about 10 non-conference wins shy of that target win percentage. It’s why Cal losing to Eastern Washington, UC Davis and Santa Clara eventually hurts the whole conference. Same goes for Oregon’s losses to UC Irvine and Utah Valley. And Oregon State lost to Portland State — twice. That can’t happen if you want to boost the overall NET ranking and get half your conference in the NCAA Tournament.
The Pac-12 is due for a refresh on the strategic front. It has been five years since the last one in basketball. In the past, the Pac-12 hired scheduling consultants, studied the markers of successful programs, and urged members to invest more heavily in basketball.
“The top brands have been investing consistently over a long period of time,” Zaninovich said. “Some of the other programs have more recently got to the investment levels.”
Pac-12 fans hope a couple of NCAA Tournament teams will emerge in the group that includes USC, Utah, ASU and Oregon. I’ve seen USC up close. The Trojans look like a tournament team, especially now that they’re healthy.
I talked to USC coach Andy Enfield last week after his team throttled ASU in Tempe. I asked him about the top-six teams in the conference. What does Enfield see when he looks at the standings?
He said: “We have our hands full every night.”
