Dec 21st, 2009
We begin our riveting list of Bay Area/West Coast basketball notes with Cal’s game at No. 1 Kansas on Tuesday, Dec. 22, and the intriguing individual matchups it presents:
Kansas guard Serron Collins (left) and center Cole Aldrich -- Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Cal point guard Jerome Randle vs. Kansas point guard Sherron Collins – Two of the best in the country at their position, Collins and Randle are both from the Chicago area and played on the same AAU team. Collins is all about strength and power, and Randle is all about quickness and finesse.
Kansas freshman Xavier Henry vs. Cal sophomore Jorge Gutierrez – We are just hoping this matchup occurs. Theo Robertson is likely to get the starting assignment on Henry, who leads the Jayhawks in scoring (17.7 points) while shooting 53.1 percent from the floor and 49.1 percent on three-pointers. Gutierrez may get a crack at Henry, though, and Henry probably has never faced anything like the frenzied defense he will see from Gutierrez, the best all-around perimeter defender we’ve seen in a long time.
Kansas center Cole Aldrich vs. Cal center Max Zhang – Aldrich, a preseason Associated Press All-American, did not have a field goal in Saturday’s victory over Michigan, so he will be amped up for the Bears, whose interior defense is suspect. Zhang, Cal’s 7-3 conversation piece, may not play much, but he will play some and don’t be surprised if he blocks one of Aldrich’s shots.
STANFORD THOUGHT it had its point-guard problems solved with Jarrett Mann, who had 41 assists and just 16 turnovers through seven games and was the main reason the Cardinal was exceeding expectations. But in the recent losses to Oklahoma State and Northwestern, he had 16 turnovers, and he will be tested against by Texas Tech point guard John Roberson on December 22 in Lubbock, Texas.
HAS MIKE GERRITY transformed USC into the Pac-10 favorite? Without Gerrity, the Trojans lost to the likes of Loyola Marymount while starting 4-4. In its only game with Gerrity, USC beat No. 9 Tennessee by 22 points.
“They are a completely different team with him running the show,” Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl said.
Gerrity was just 1-for-7 from the field and committed six turnovers, but he also had 10 assists and 12 points. Gerrity began his college career at Pepperdine, transferred to Charlotte two games into his sophomore season, then transferred to USC following the 2007-2008 season. He had not played in a college game in more than 19 months before the Tennessee game, but he did not seem affected by the layoff.
IT WAS NOT A GOOD Saturday for USF. You know how coaches say, “We just can’t beat ourselves”? Well, USF lost to USF by 20 points on Saturday, Dec. 19. The USF on the winning side was South Florida, as the Dons’ top scorer Dior Lowhorn had just five points and the Dons dropped to 3-8. Nearly as disappointing is that Peter Smith left team the same day and plans to transfer. He was a major contributor late last season as a freshman after coach Rex Walters dismissed several players for disciplinary reasons. Smith was named the team’s most improved player and its most inspirational player and was awarded a scholarship for the second half of last season. During the summer, Smith changed his uniform number to 20 in honor of his father, Phil Smith, who also came to USF as a walk-on but left as a star. The story did not end as planned, though. Smith he has not played in any of USF’s last five games, and said he wanted to go elsewhere to get more playing time.
St. Mary's Ben Allen, an excellent shooter for a 6-11 center, started his college career at Indiana -- Photo by A.J. Mast/SI
ST. MARY’S SHOULD BE 14-1 when it hosts Gonzaga on Jan. 14, and again it is the country Down Under leading the charge. With guard Wayne Hunter out for the season with a knee injury, four of the six Gaels players who getting significant playing time are from Australia. And they can shoot. Aussie Clint Steindl, Hunter’s replacement in the starting lineup, is 10-for-19 on three-pointers in his three starts. And how many teams have a 6-11 center who is hitting 41.9 percent of his three-pointers, as Ben Allen, another Australian, is for the Gaels?
UCLA (3-7) IS OFF TO its worst start since 1945-46, when the Bruins lost games – and I’m not kidding about this – to the Carroll Shamrocks and to 20th Century Fox while starting 2-13. Stanford folks had better not be laughing because those Bruins beat Stanford four times that season. UCLA defector Drew Gordon, a graduate of Arch Bishop Mitty High School in San Jose, plans to enroll in another school soon so that he can play the second half of next season. He has narrowed his choices to UNLV, Notre Dame, New Mexico and San Diego State.
ANY QUESTION about how Washington State has achieved the best record in the Pac-10 (9-2) need only look at the statistical line of freshman point guard Reggie Moore in the Cougars’ 93-69 victory over Portland State – 12 assists, 0 turnovers.
ANOTHER STATISTICAL LINE of note belongs to Oregon guard Tajuan Porter and covers the past three games — 2 points, 1-for-11 shooting, 0-for-8 on three-pointers. He went scoreless in the past two games. Much of this is due to an ankle injury that has affected him for quite a while, but it’s still hard to believe Porter has scored just 2 points in those 47 minutes of playing the time the past three games.
IF ANYBODY HAS FIGURED figured out Oregon State, let us know. The Beavers have decent wins over George Washington, which is 7-2, and Colorado, which is 6-4, but they have losses to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Sacramento State and now Illinois-Chicago, which was 0-6 against Division I teams before knocking off Oregon State on Dec. 16.
