It’s a Thursday night, which obviously means that the Pac-12 got weird again.
These are the three things you need to know:
1. OREGON LOST AT WASHINGTON STATE
Kyle Smith landed his first big win as the head coach of the Cougars as he knocked off the 8th-ranked Ducks, 72-61, in Pullman.
C.J. Elleby scored 25 points to lead the way for Wazzu, who improves to 11-7 on the season and 2-3 in the Pac-12 with the win.
The loss is more relevant for Oregon, however, as they fall two games off the pace that Stanford has set in the Pac-12. The Cardinal are now sitting at 4-0 in league play after last night’s win over UCLA and have a one-game lead on Colorado and USC.
The three teams that were ranked in the preseason from the conference?
Arizona and Oregon are both two games out of first. Washington is three games off the pace, which is definitive proof that, once again, the Pac-12 looks like it may not actually be all that good.
And here I thought there would be at least one conference in college basketball that made any sort of sense.
2. COLORADO BEAT UP ON ARIZONA STATE; ARIZONA BEAT UP ON UTAH
While Oregon was struggling to put away the Fighting Klay Thompsons, Colorado and Arizona both took care of business against Arizona State and Utah, respectively, setting up a Saturday afternoon showdown in the desert.
No. 20 Colorado paying a visit to the McKale Center to take on Arizona and all their freshmen lottery picks.
That should be fun.
3. MEMPHIS KNOCKED OFF CINCINNATI
The No. 22 Tigers took care of business at home against Cincinnati on Thursday night, and while the final score ended up being 60-49, it wasn’t quite as easy as that would indicate.
Memphis held an 11 point lead at halftime, but the Bearcats used an 18-2 second half run to take the lead and trailed by only four with four minutes left on the clock.
The good news for Memphis fans is that Penny Hardaway has seemingly fully committed to the idea that he needs to start Alex Lomax alongside Lestor Quinones and D.J. Jeffries. What’s somewhat frustrating is that he still isn’t playing Precious Achiuwa at the five full-time, which is where I think that he is going to play at the next level and where he has been the most effective at this level.
But some of that is because Malcolm Dandridge showed up to play. He finished with seven rebounds, four blocks, three steals and four assists in 26 minutes.