Pac-12 Basketball Notes: Azuolas Tubelis or Jaime Jaquez?

When Azuolas Tubelis scored 40 points in a win over Oregon on Feb. 2, the Pac-12 player of the year award was conceded to Arizona’s 6-foot-11 star.

Things have changed. UCLA’s Jaime Jaquez has made it a two-man race as he has come on strong in recent weeks and Tubelis has faded just a bit.

The case for Tubelis:

---Tubelis leads the Pac-12 in both scoring (19.6 points) and rebounding (9.1), and no one has led the conference in both categories in 17 years.

---He is likely to be the first Arizona player since 1999 (Jason Terry) to lead the conference in scoring. Tubelis leads the conference's second-place scorer by more than two points per game.

---Tubelis plays for a team that is ranked in the top 10 and could land a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. The NCAA tournament selection committee ranked Arizona No. 6 and UCLA No. 8 in its list of the top 16 seeds released Saturday.

The case for Jaquez:

---Over the past five games, Jaquez (16.8 Points, 8.1 rebounds) has averaged 20.4 points and 11.2 rebounds while Tubelis has averaged 14.0 points and 7.0 rebounds over the same stretch. How players perform at the end of the season is often given more weight.

---Arizona plays at a much faster pace than UCLA, so Tubelis’ scoring and rebounding numbers are apt to be more impressive than Jaquez’s. Tubelis scores 23.6% of his team’s points and Jaquez scores 22.7% of his team’s points.

---Jaquez is a key component of UCLA’s outstanding defense.

---UCLA has a two-game lead in the loss column over Arizona, and 10 of the past 16 Pac-12 players of the year played for the team that won the regular season title. Four of the six others were on teams that finished within a game of first place. (Josph Young’s Oregon team finished three games back in 2015, and James Harden’s Arizona State squad was three games back in 2009.)

---The Bruins are No. 4 in the country in this week’s AP rankings and could move up a spot or two when the latest rankings are released Monday.

---The last player to lead the conference in both scoring and rebounding was Cal’s Leon Powe in 2005-06. He did not win conference player of the year even though Cal finished just two games out of first place.

---Tubelis might not finish as the Pac-12’s top rebounder. Teammate Oumar Ballo is just a fraction behind, 9.0 boards to Tubelis’ 9.1.

Conclusion:

Let’s wait until UCLA hosts Arizona in the final Pac-12 game of the regular season on March 4 to cast the ballots. Their previous head-to-head meeting was basically a wash: Tubelis had 14 points on 5-for-15 shooting and 10 rebounds while Jaquez had 12 points on 5-for-17 shooting and 11 boards in Arizona’s victory.

Forever Blowing Bubbles

Three Pac-12 teams – USC, Oregon and Arizona State – remain on the bubble for inclusion in the NCAA tournament, as evidenced by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s latest breakdown posted Sunday morning.

pic.twitter.com/xqW9cRNb7i
— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) February 19, 2023

Lunardi has Oregon as one of the “First Four Out” and that was before Sunday's crippling loss to Washington State. He puts Arizona State as one of the “Next Four Out,” so both are clinging to NCAA tournament hopes by a thread, with Utah, which lost to Arizona State on Saturday, on the outside at the moment.

Notably, USC is one of the “Last Four In.”

Other reputable bracketologists put the Trojans into the 68-team field with a little more room to spare, but USC obviously is not a lock to get a berth, especially with road games remaining against Utah and Colorado and home games against Arizona and Arizona State before the Pac-12 tournament.

So it’s possible the Pac-12 will have just two NCAA tournament teams, which would be the first time since 2012 that one of the six power basketball conferences got fewer than three bids. (That two-bid 2012 conference was also the Pac-12, by the way).

Remember when the Pac-12 got seven teams into the NCAA tournament in 2016? Ah those were the days.

Conspiracy Theory?

UCLA coach Mick Cronin suspects something is fishy with the way the NCAA selection committee is viewing his team.

The committee on Saturday released the top 16 seeds at the moment, and even though UCLA has a two-game lead over Arizona in the loss column in the Pac-12 standings and has better AP and NET rankings than the Wildcats, the committee ranked Arizona sixth overall and the Bruins eighth. That led to Arizona getting a No. 2 seed in the favored West Regional in Las Vegas, while the Bruins are the No. 2 seed in the East in faraway New York City. Lunardi also placed Arizona in the West and UCLA in the East.

Cronin suggested after UCLA’s win over Cal that the Bruins’ departure from the Pac-12 in 2024 is playing a role.

“When we left the Pac-12, it cost a lot of people millions of dollars and there was going to be fallout,” Cronin said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “I even talked to my old AD, Mike Bohn, about it, and I think it’s a direct result of it. Now, I’m not going to put the pieces together for you on how that affects that, but comical — if you ask my one-word answer on that ranking? Comical.”

Just a Thought

When UCLA and USC leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, Arizona will be left without a high-prestige adversary. Wouldn’t it be great to add Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s to the Pac-12 when they leave.

The Pac-12 could have 12 football schools (San Diego State and SMU?) and 14 basketball schools. The Big Ten has 16 schools so 14 would work in the Pac-14.

Of course, this ignores the numerous reasons Gonzaga is unlikely to be added, as pointed out by Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury-News, but it’s fun to think about.

Notable Notes

---UCLA is the only one of the 76 teams in the six power basketball conferences (Pac-12, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, ACC) that does not have a single transfer on its roster. They come; they stay.

---Washington State made its first eight three-point attempts in its win over Oregon State. The Cougars’ Mouhamed Gueye scored 21 points on 9-for-9 shooting, one of which was a three-pointer. But he had zero rebounds for the first time in his career. He had 12 boards on Sunday against Oregon.

---USC’s Boogie Ellis scored a career-high 33 points on 6-for-10 three-point shooting in the victory over Stanford, but what might be more surprising is that he also had a season-high seven assists. You just don’t think of Ellis as a facilitator.

---Cal lost its 24th game on Saturday, tying it with the 2017-18 Bears for the most losses in program history. Unless Cal wins all its remaining games and wins the NCAA tournament, it will break the record with its 25th loss. Cal lost this week's road games against USC and UCLA by a combined margin of 72 points.

Top Five Pac-12 Teams (at the moment)

1. UCLA (23-4, 14-2 Pac-12) – The Bruins have won 23 straight home games, the longest active streak in Division I.

2. Arizona (24-4, 13-4) – Oumar Bello’s 18 points and 16 rebounds against Colorado were impressive.

3. USC (19-8, 11-5) – Trojans are just 3-5 away from home and they travel to the mountain schools (Colorado and Utah) this week.

4 Arizona State (19-9, 10-7) – The win over Utah kept the Sun Devils’ NCAA tournament hopes alive.

5. Oregon (15-13, 9-8) – The Ducks lost to Washington State Sunday, a game they desperately needed to get on the right side of the cutline for an NCAA tournament berth.

Pac-12 Player of the Year Standings

1. Jaime Jaquez, UCLA (16.8 points, 8.1 rebounds) – He’s been the conference best player of the past two weeks.

2. Azuolas Tubelis, Arizona (19.6 points, 9.1 rebounds, 57.2% FG, 34.6% 3-pt) – Foul trouble in recent games has affected his production.

3. Boogie Ellis, USC (17.1 point, 3.0 assists) – When Ellis has games like Saturday’s he looks like an All-American.

4. Branden Carlson, Utah (16.4 points, 7.4 rebounds, 2.1 blocks) – The Utes are slipping out of the NCAA tournament picture, and Carlson slips with them.

5. Drew Peterson, USC (14.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 4.5 assists) – You could argue all day whether Peterson or Ellis is more valuable to the team. (Oh, and Oumar Ballo is making a late-season bid to return to the top five.)

Cover photo of Azuolas Tubelis and Jaime Jaquez is by Zachary BonDurant, USA TODAY Sports

Follow Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

Find Cal Sports Report on Facebook by going to https://www.facebook.com/si.calsportsreport