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Jonah Matthews, USC’s hero in the Trojans’ 54-52 win over UCLA on March 7th, tries to get by the Bruins’ Cody Riley during that game. Photo courtesy of pantagraph.com

 

LOOKING AT SOCAL’S BEST TEAMS IN A SEASON THAT WAS CUT SHORT DUE TO UNPLEASANT CIRCUMSTANCES

I didn’t expect to write this for a few more weeks.

But since college basketball for this season has been cancelled this COVID-19 crisis, here are my choices for the best teams that this region had to offer for this year, as the men’s and women’s teams for both of SoCal’s biggest institutions of higher learning plus a team from Orange County who continued their dominance of their conference are featured.

I’ll start with the men’s and women’s teams of my alma mater, the…

 

UCLA’s Jules Bernard (#3) bringing the ball up court with Cody Riley (#24) beside him during a game. Photo courtesy of twitter.com

 

UCLA BRUINS (men)

Final Record: 19-11, 12-6 and second place in the Pac-12 Conference

  • Won 11 of last 14 games, going from 8-9 on January 15th to 19-11 on March 7th
  • Mick Cronin won Pac-12 Coach of the Year in his first season
  • Tyger Campbell lead Pac-12 in assist-turnover ratio, first time a Bruin led in that category since 2012-13

Player Stats:

  • Chris Smith, G – 13.1 ppg, 5.4 rpg
  • Jalen Hill, F – 9.0 ppg, 6.9 rpg
  • Jaime Jaquez, Jr., G – 8.9 ppg, 4.8 rpg
  • Cody Riley, F – 8.8 ppg, 4.5 rpg,
  • Tyger Campbell, PG – 8.3 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 5.0 apg

My Choice For Most Valuable Player:  Chris Smith

Comments:

A funny thing happened during usual tirades over this team’s sorriness in getting embarrassed by the likes of Hofstra and a Cal State Fullerton team that lost twenty games this year – In Pauley Pavilion, no less…

They got better!

They FINALLY bought into Mick Cronin’s defense-first philosophy and accepted the fact that – to quote a friend of mine – that “…defense is not a bad thing”!

It got to the point that I couldn’t bad mouth those Bruins anymore as their fortunes changed during the last two months of the season, going from being irrelevant to the point of not being able to beat Munchkin College,

To being, in my view, a solid lock for the NIT,

To being a legitimate contender for the NCAA Tournament, though they likely had to win at least two games in the Pac-12 Tournament to get that at-large bid and, thanks to that coronavirus, didn’t get a chance to earn.

Credit must be given where credit is due.

And so I say to Cronin, well done!

All he needs is something that UCLA severely lacked this year – a go-to guy who if you need a winning basket or someone who will score over 20 points and take over a game, he’s the one.

If he gets that, look out!

Now let me talk about the team that I officially designate as the best college basketball team in SoCal this year,

A team that happens to play their home games in the same building as these guys.

The…

 

UCLA’s Lady Bruins, the only team in SoCal that was nationally ranked, celebrating during a game. Photo courtesy of twitter.com

 

UCLA BRUINS (women)

SoCal’s Best College Basketball Team For 2019-20

Final Record: 26-5, 14-4 and second place in the Pac-12 Conference

  • Won their first sixteen games, a school record which earned them the distinction of being the last undefeated team in women’s college basketball
  • Won at least twenty games for the fifth straight year – also a school record
  • Beat five teams ranked in the Top 25, including Oregon State, Arizona and Stanford (on the road)
  • Michaela Onyenwere won third team All-American honors

Final Rank: 10th

Player Stats:

  • Michaela Onyenwere, F – 18.8 ppg, 8.4 rpg
  • Japreece Dean, PG – 13.7 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 4.8 apg
  • Charisma Osbourne, G – 12.2 ppg, 6.0 rpg
  • Natalie Chou, G – 7.4 ppg, 3.6 rpg
  • Lauryn Miller, F – 6.8 ppg, 5.9 rpg

My Choice for Most Valuable Player: Michaela Onyenwere

Comments:

When I wrote about these ladies on this blog last month, I vividly recalled the two words that I felt best described these Bruins of coach Cori Close’s…

  • Heart
  • Guts

They showed a LOT of that in the game I saw, and they showed a LOT of that all year.

That, as much as everything else, was the prominent factor in UCLA having the season that they had.

These five straight 20-win seasons have all been under Close; I don’t know about anyone else, but let’s put it like this,

If I were the one hired to take over as UCLA athletic director from Dan Guerrero, one of the first things I would do is to sign Close to an extension and give her a substantial raise for what she has done with this program.

In order to break that concrete ceiling that still hovers over this team and has prevented those Bruins from Final Four and national championship glory, Close, in my opinion only needs to do one thing:

Get a second heavy scoring option to relieve Onyenwere, who is returning next year, of the burden of being the one go-to player, a Scottie Pippen to go along with her Michael Jordan, so to speak.

If Close does that, well…

I won’t say that they will definitely be in the Final Four in 2021,

But their chances at being one of those four teams playing for the national championship will soar.

All right, let’s go across town to Exposition Park and review UCLA’s hardcourt rivals, the…

 

 

 

USC ADVANCES TO PAC-12 TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINALS WITH 78-65 WIN OVER ARIZONA; Nick Radocevic (#31) and Jonah Matthews (#2) celebrating that win. Photo courtesy of usctrojans.com

 

USC TROJANS (men)

Final Record: 22-9, 11-7 and tied for third in the Pac-12 Conference

  • Most wins in a four-year span in program history (88)
  • Swept UCLA: 74-63 at Pauley Pavilion on January 11th and 54-52 at Galen Center on March 7th
  • Reached the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Tournament

Player Stats:

  • Onyeka Okongwu, F – 16.2 ppg, 8.6 rpg
  • Jonah Matthews, G – 13.4 ppg, 2.5 rpg
  • Nick Radocevic, F – 10.5 ppg, 8.3 rpg
  • Ethan Anderson, PG – 5.5 ppg, 4.2 apg

My Choice For Co-Most Valuable Players:  Jonah Matthews and Onyeka Okongwu

Comments:

I knew all year that this Trojan team was the best that SoCal had to offer in college basketball; at least on the men’s side.

The only difference between them and the UCLA women, the reason why I picked those Bruins over this USC team as SoCal’s Best College Basketball Team for 2019-20, was this…

* The Lady Bruins were ranked.

* These Men of Troy were not.

Other than that, this was a very good ‘SC team, with coach Andy Enfield having some outstanding senior leadership and a go-to guy who, as a freshman, was the team’s scoring leader.

Who unfortunately will probably be a one-and-done player who will announce that he’s entering the NBA Draft later this spring.

In fact, with the loss of seniors Matthews and Radocevic,

I would normally state that these Trojans may well fall off next season if it weren’t for the fact that their recruiting class is among the top five in the country.

Which means that Enfield has a real shot of building a program at USC that, while it will never take precedence over their football brothers,

Would go a long way to standing next to them in Trojan Lore.

 

 

 

I like this shot of this year’s version of USC’s Women of Troy! Photo courtesy of twitter.com

 

USC TROJANS (women)

Final Record: 17-14, 8-10 and seventh place in the Pac-12 Conference

  • BEST WIN: Beating UCLA 70-68 in 2 OT at Galen Center on January 17th
  • Beat Colorado 69-54 in the Pac-12 Women’s Tournament on March 5th
  • Alyssa Pili won Pac-12 Freshman of the Year

Player Stats:

  • Alyssa Pili, F – 16.3 ppg, 8.0 rpg
  • Endiya Rogers, G – 13.1 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 2.9 apg
  • Stephanie Watts, G – 10.3 ppg, 6.0 rpg
  • Aliyah Jeune, G – 9.6 ppg, 4.4 rpg
  • Kayla Overbeck, F – 8.1 ppg, 6.1 rpg

My Choice For Co-Most Valuable Players: Alyssa Pili and Endiya Rogers

Comments:

Though their record wasn’t as good as their Trojan hoops brothers,

And though they finished in the lower half of the conference standings,

In the grand tradition of “Don’t be fooled by the won-loss record”,

I have to hand it to those Women of Troy for showing the same guts that their rivals in Westwood showed for so much of this year.

Especially on January 17th.

This was a team that truly showed the “Fight On” spirit as they made the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Tournament.

The best thing about coach Mark Trakh’s team?

It was freshman-led!

Their top two scorers, and my choices for co-MVPs, were both in their first year as Women of Troy.

And if they, as well as the rest of the team, continue to develop like they did this year, well…

That’s a team that I would not want to play next season.

BY THE WAY: Be sure to check out the thing that first put this Trojan program on the college basketball map, the HBO documentary “Women of Troy”, the story of how Cheryl Miller, Cynthia Cooper, Pam McGee, and her twin sister Paula changes women’s hoops with their back-to-back NCAA titles in the early 1980s.

I saw that documentary, it’s good.

 

 

Now, in the category of Best of the Rest,

Here’s the team that doesn’t stage their home contests in Westwood or Exposition Park that was clearly the standout this year,

A team located forty miles down I-5 from L.A…

 

 

UC Irvine’s Anteaters, the Big West Conference Champions, during a game. Photo courtesy of twitter.com

 

UC IRVINE ANTEATERS (men)

Final Record: 21-11, 15-3 and Big West Conference Regular Season Champions

  • Won the regular season title for the fifth time in the last seven seasons
  • Russell Turner won the Big West Conference Coach of the Year
  • Five players were selected to the All-Big West Conference team

Player Stats:

  • Collin Welp, F – 13.0 ppg, 5.9 rpg
  • Evan Leonard, G – 12.4 ppg, 3.4 rpg
  • Eyassu Worku, G – 12.3 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 4.0 apg
  • Tommy Rutherford, F – 10.1 ppg, 4.3 rpg
  • Brad Greene, C – 9.0 ppg, 7.7 rpg

My Choice For Most Valuable Player: Collin Welp

Comments:

You can’t argue with a twenty-win season.

In fact, you can’t argue with winning twenty games for the seventh time in the past eight years.

But that illustrates the quality of program that coach Russell Turner has at UC Irvine.

I was quite happy for those Anteaters when they not only made the NCAA Tournament last season, but beat power five conference name Kansas State to make it to the Round of 32.

Too bad their ride stopped there.

And a BIG too bad that this coronavirus stopped this year’s Big West Tournament and the season, because I was looking forward to seeing how these ‘Eaters would do.

 

 

Another look at some members of SoCal’s College Basketball Team of the Year, who happen to be from UCLA (from left to right): Natalie Chou, Lauryn Miller, Michaela Onyenwere, and Chanel Horvat. Photo courtesy of uclawbb.com