Big Sunday slate

[Plebe]

Next year will be interesting. This should be by far their best finish in conference since joining the Pac 12. They have that really nice Fr. class that should be mainstays for years. They will have some significant losses with Huff of course but also Bean, Provo (I think she played in too many games to be able to get a RS) and Porter.

Provo played in 13 games this year. Probably 4 too many to seek a medical hardship waiver. Always breaks my heart to see a player's final season truncated by injury . They really needed her this past weekend. Their overreliance on Huff is their greatest weakness.

Utah has by far the most productive freshman class in the conference: two starters (Edwards and Gylten), a 6th man (Torres), and a fourth freshman, Niyah Becker, who also averages double-digit minutes.

 

[newfrontier]

Over the next 2 weekends, we are going to unearth the real contenders for the PAC-12 title.

Yeah, this weekend and next are HUGE for the Pac-12, with 3 of the 4 top teams all playing each other (including OR and ORST meeting twice). Stanford is lucky because they get OSU and Oregon at home with no road trip to Oregon or OSU this year.

For this weekend, I like that OSU plays Stanford first. The Beavs can focus their Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday practices mostly on Stanford, and Saturday on Cal. If OSU was to play Cal first, it might almost be a trap game, plus OSU would have had to focus the weekday practices on both teams. With the Stanford game first and Cal second, the Beavs can better focus on each team one at a time.

In contrast, Stanford can't afford to spend all week just on OSU, so their focus will be split. Plus, by playing OSU first, they may be peaking a little ahead to Oregon on Sunday...then again maybe not. Tara is a great coach.