Oh what a night

Cal 77 Oregon St. 74
The Beavers' Jack McGillis' 3 went through, but he let it go after the buzzer as Cal held off a 6 point comeback from the home squad.
Both teams were extremely efficient in this 63 possession game (1.21 ppp for Cal, 1.16 for O St.).
Great shooting on both sides (63% vs. 61%) as Eric Vernheisel posted 13 points in only 26 minutes of play on 5 field goal attempts for a homicidal 2.18 points-per-weighted shot. Marcel Jones did his best for the Beavers, draining 29 points for a 1.58 ppws average, his second best point total of the season. Cal took care of business before it's big road game in Eugene.


Stanford 59 Oregon 66
Another close win for the Ducks in a game that they probably would have given away last year. Oregon shot poorly, and was dominated in the paint for the first half of the game. Stanford recorded 10 blocks, or in other words, almost 20% of all attempted Ducks shots were blocked. Yikes. But, they overcame this by getting the big Lopez boys in foul trouble by driving to the lane more often. This kept Stanford small and also gave Oregon a 23 free throw attempt advantage in which they made 81% of them. Brooks led the game with 18 points, despite shooting 4 for 13. Stanford missed some easy looks and only made 21% of their threes. Oguchi's shot from the corner was the key shot of the game.


Arizona St. 73 UCLA 80
No problem holding serve at home for the Bruins before their big one on Saturday. They held the Sun Devils to .95 ppp and only 13 points in the second half while posting another sub-par 1.03 ppp themselves. The game was extremely slow, as expected at only 58 possessions and was uncharacteristically ugly in the turnover field, 26% recorded by both teams. Mbah a Moute had 5 of those turnovers, but he hauled in 14 total boards, 7 offensive to post a salacious 30% offensive rebounding percentage and hauling in 32% of Arizona St.'s misses while he was on the floor.


Arizona 73 USC 80
Big win for the Trojans against an Arizona team that has now lost one game each of the past three weeks. USC shot well, 58% efg, led by Nick Young posting 1.37 ppws while getting 30 points and hauling in 8 rebounds. On the other side, Arizona shot extremely poorly, only 42% efg with Jawann Mclellan dropping a .5 ppws turd on the court on 1 of 7 shooting from the floor. This after he's been averaging over 1.2 ppws in the Pac10. The game was fast as expected at a nice 77 possession clip. USC also cradled the ball like a small puppy, only giving up 16% of their possessions in turnovers. Not bad in a 100 yard dash of a game.