Leaderboard

Pac-12 Conference Tournament 1st Round: Oregon State Beavers, 9-18, 4-14 (12th seed) vs Stanford Cardinal, 18-9, 10-8 (5th seed): After many lead changes, Stanford took charge late in the first half to go ahead 42-32 at the break. The Cardinal then ran away from the Beavers in the 2nd half enroute and crushed Oregon State 79-56. PG Dustin Gervin scored 21 points and C Roger Yeager had 15 points and 16 rebounds for Stanford. Arizona State Sun Devils 13-14, 6-12 (11th seed) vs Oregon Ducks, 17-11, 10-8 (6th seed): This game had 22 lead changes and 12 ties. Oregon eked out a 43-41 halftime advantage. The early part of the 2nd half remained close, but in the latter stages of the game Oregon’s talent paid dividends and the Ducks pulled away to win 90-77. Reserve guard Donnell Williams topped Oregon’s scoring with 16 points, but the team was led by PG Charles Phillips who scored 15 points and dished out 5 assists while reserve C Daryl Hamilton had 12 points and 10 boards. C Jeremy Totten hit for 17 points and grabbed 9 rebounds for Arizona State. Washington State Cougars, 14-14, 7-11 (10th seed) vs Utah Utes, 15-13, 9-9 (7th seed): The first half was close the entire 20 minutes with Utah coming out on top 39-36. In the 2nd half the Utes opened a 15 point lead and then held on to beat the Cougars 75-66. Utah’s PF Mark Wall scored 12, pulled down 8 rebounds, and had 3 assists and 6 blocks. USC Trojans, 13-15, 7-11 (9th seed) vs Washington Huskies, 17-12, 8-10 (8th seed): This was another close game throughout the first half. At the intermission, USC led 37-34. The Trojans then went ahead by as much as 12 points in the 2nd half but had to hold on to edge the Huskies 74-68. Washington, which had been on the top of the conference standings in the first half of conference play, saw their late season fizzle (they lost 7 of their last 8 regular season games) continue. SF Matt Gates scored 15 points and had 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 steals for USC. C Shamel Pringle had 15 points and 9 rebounds for the Huskies. UCLA, Colorado, Arizona and California had byes. 2nd Round: Stanford Cardinal, 19-9, 10-8 (5th seed) vs #19 California Golden Bears, 20-9, 11-7 (4th seed): California ran away from Stanford in the first half and held a 40-26 lead at the half. But the tide turned in the 2nd half as Stanford steadily reduced the lead. Then when the Cardinal finally took a lead late in the game, they never looked back and pulled away for an upset 74-67 victory over the Golden Bears. C Roger Yeager was the cornerstone for Stanford, scoring 17 points and pulling down 13 rebounds. Stanford outscored Cal 48-27 in the 2nd half. Oregon Ducks, 18-11, 10-8 (6th seed) vs Arizona Wildcats, 15-12, 11-7 (3rd seed): Arizona blitzed the Ducks in the first half to take a 44-21 halftime lead. The Wildcats never let the Ducks close the gap in the 2nd half and Arizona came away with an 82-59 drubbing of Oregon. For Arizona PF Tim Petry scored 22 points and C James Whitworth hauled down 15 rebounds. Oregon’s SF JJ Robinson scored 19 points. USC Trojans, 14-15, 7-11 (9th seed) vs #3 UCLA Bruins, 22-5, 14-4 (1st seed): USC completely shut down UCLA’s potent offense in the first half and sported a 36-24 advantage at the end of the half. The Trojans then shot the lights out in the 2nd half to expand their lead and come away with a huge 78-61 upset of the Bruins. Since UCLA had beaten USC by scores of 94-48 and 75-53 in the regular season, USC’s victory was completely unexpected. USC’s reserve C Dan Warford had 18 points and 7 rebounds while SG Brendan Trilli scored 17. USC outshot UCLA 57% to 38%. Game #30: Utah Utes, 16-13, 9-9 (7th seed) vs Colorado Buffaloes (19-10, 11-7) (2nd seed): In the two games these teams played during the regular season, each won by about the same point difference while playing on their home court. Surprisingly the odds makers favored the Utes over us in this game. We were surprised that they felt Utah’s bench was stronger than ours since we felt our reserves were the strongest in the Pac-12. C Marc Fife and PF Mark Wall both averaged over 13 ppg with Fife averaging 9.3 rpg. We felt that controlling Mark Wall was important, but PG Jason Swygart dropped down 37 points against us in the 2 games we played, so we also needed to figure out a way to finally control him as well. Both players make a high percentage of their shots and can score from all over the court so its no small task to be able to limit either one. We’re going to try to wear them down with a quick pace and hounding defense. We fell behind 9-2 and picked up 4 fouls in the first 4 minutes of the game. The Utes dominated the boards giving them numerous 2nd chance attempts. Fortunately they weren’t shooting particularly well, but we shot even worse hitting just 1 of our first 10 shots as well fell behind 12-3 after 8 minutes of play. Things didn’t improve for us as we hit just 21% of our FG attempts and 10% of our 3P attempts. By the end of the half we found ourselves in a 34-20 hole. We were out-rebounded 28-14. PF/SF Kenton Dunn scored 7 points for us but reserve PG Tega Knox dropped in 13 points for Utah. All-in-all we just played horribly. I read the riot act to the guys in the locker room. We responded by scoring on our first 5 possession in the 2nd half to reduce the Utes’ lead to 6 points. With 13:16 to go PF Charles Maors hit a baseline jumper and was fouled. He sunk the free throw to narrow the difference to 40-36. With 8 minutes remaining we tied the game at 48-48. SF Rick Coffey sunk 2 free throws to give us our first lead of the game at 50-48 with 7:15 on the clock. A minute later we capped a 10-0 run to go up by 7 points. With 57 seconds left Utah cut our lead to 60-58. PG Matt Conley was fouled on our next possession. He hit both free throws to put us ahead by 4 with 50 seconds remaining. Utah was unable to score on their next possessions so had to foul. That allowed us to come away with a 65-58 victory. We won in the 2nd half by forcing Utah to make turnovers, and unlike in the first half, we outshot the Utes. We outscored Utah 45-24 in the 2nd half to achieve what was a scary but satisfying comeback. PF/C Charles Maors scored 14 points, SF Rick Coffey had 13, PF/SF Kenton Dunn and PG Matt Conley both scored 11, and SG Steve Jackson added 10. Kenton Dunn also pulled down 10 rebounds. Utah was led by PG Tega Knox with 13 points. Round 3 (Semi-finals): Stanford Cardinal, 20-9, 10-8 (5th seed) vs USC Trojans, 15-15, 7-11 (9th seed): USC came built a 42-34 halftime advantage. But in the 2nd half the lead shifted back and forth. With 22 seconds to go and the game tied at 80-80, USC played for the final shot. But they were forced to put up an off-balance 18 foot jumper that clanked off the front rim. The Trojans PF Jero Okesola went up and tipped the ball back up and it fell through the basket as the buzzer sounded. USC’s 82-80 win was their second upset victory of the tournament. Okesola finished with 25 points and 12 rebounds for the Trojans. SF Matt Gates had 15 points and 11 boards for Stanford. Game #31: Arizona Wildcats, 16-12, 11-7 (3rd seed) vs Colorado Buffaloes, 20-10, 11-7 (2nd seed): In the two games these teams played, each won on the other team’s home court. We’re the higher seed, but are the underdogs for this contest. We need to keep SF Rolan Bell from breaking loose. I really hope we don’t have another slow start…that could be catastrophic against the Wildcats. The winner of this game will take on the 9th seeded USC Trojans for the Pac-12 Championship. Both teams beat USC twice during the regular season. USC will need to pull off their 4th straight upset in the tournament to capture the championship. We had turnovers on our first 3 possessions resulting in 2 breakaway lay-ins for Arizona. Then SF Rolan Bell scored 9 of the Wildcats’ first 11 points and 3 of our starters had 2 fouls on them after 6-1/2 minutes of play. 7 minutes into the game we had 7 team fouls and Arizona was shooting 1-and-1’s. Somehow we took a lead at 14-12 with 11:50 to play in the half. Arizona was called for their FIRST foul with 8:31 left in the half! At that point we had 9 team fouls and 4 players on the bench in foul trouble. The Wildcats took advantage of our forced reserve lineup to pull ahead 26-20 with 5 minutes remaining in the half. But we shifted players in and out and struggled but were able to almost keep up with Arizona. At the break we only trailed 34-32. We had been called for 13 fouls while the Wildcats’ were whistled just 4 times and Arizona had been to the foul line 12 more times than us. Arizona had out-rebounded us 24-14 but we hit 46% of our shots compared to 33% by the Wildcats. SG Steve Jackson scored 10 points for us and Arizona was led by Rolan Bell’s 13 points. Arizona (and the refs) seemed to wear us down in the 2nd half. With 11 minutes to play we trailed 58-40. We never gave up, but our game plan continued to be blown apart. We ended up with a disappointing 69-57 loss. SG Steve Jackson scored 17. Arizona’s SF Rolan Bell scored 10 while their PF Tim Petry had 13 points and 15 rebounds and their C Cliff Rivera had 13 points and 13 rebounds. Thus endeth our dream of winning the conference championship. Round 4 (Championship): Arizona Wildcats, 17-12, 11-7 (3rd seed) vs USC Trojans, 16-15, 7-11 (9th seed): Arizona ended USC’s Cinderalla run by leading from beginning to end. At the half the Wildcats were ahead 34-19. They then expanded their lead to 23 points in the 2nd half before easing up and finishing with a 68-52 victory. C Cliff Rivera had 17 points and 13 rebounds for Arizona.

Just over 10 games into the season and I'm pretty happy with how my team is performing in the GHL so far. I've had to do a little bit of juggling while trying to find a suitable left winger for my top line. Besides that my center depth is looking strong and my top 6 is driving the bus offensively. Biggest signs of youth with my team is coming on the backend with my D-core. Performance wise I only have two defenseman in the green. I've got a very curious case in my defenseman Cussons. He's been my lowest rated defenseman the last three seasons (currently only 82 overall) but has been consistently one of my best performing defenseman. He was absurdly almost a point a game defenseman in his 20 game GHL stint at the end of season 4 when my team was last place in the GHL, then put up 60 points in 80 games in the SHL last season. He's currently playing at a 75 performance rating in the GHL. I don't think I've ever had a player like him in that he's so average ability wise but performs so well. How's it going for everyone else?