Jimmy Chitwood
Hall of Famer
PAC-10 Basketball: The Untold Story of 2007-'08
by Jimmy Chitwood
I watch a lot of basketball. A LOT of basketball. So I catch most all the regularly aired hype commercials that promote various match-ups on the idiot box. When a network will be featuring some game or other, they most always feature highlights and graphics of a team's "best" player in order to garner as much fan notice as possible. You'll notice I place "best" in quotation marks...
See, here's the deal. FoxSports, as well as a couple of other networks, have an arrangement with the PAC-10 to broadcast their basketball games. This is not unusual, of course, seeing as how the PAC-10 is widely regarded as an elite basketball conference, and TV networks want to make money. But what really bothers me is that when I see a promo for a game, or I watch a sports broadcast that mentions the PAC-10, the featured athletes are almost exclusively black. In fact, if I were to judge by the boob tube hype machine, UCLA's star freshman center Kevin Love is the only white man playing hoops in the PAC-10.
Or at least, he's the only one worth watching. I find this troublesome.
"Why?" you might ask. I'll tell you.
This season, the PAC-10 has been completely dominated by white men. Yes, dominated.
We as fans are repeatedly assured that basketball is a black man's game. I guess the white men in the PAC-10 didn't get the memo.
If one were to watch a lot of PAC-10 hoops, as I do, one would be inundated with messages regaling the most glowing praise imaginable on USC's O.J. Mayo (you know, the phenomenal future NBA superstar), or on UCLA point guard Darren Collison (without a doubt one of the top two point guards in the nation, of course), Washington State's Kyle Weaver, Arizona's Jerryd Bayless, or Arizona State's James Harden and Jeff Pendergraph. The list of black "superstars" and superlatives to attach to them is seemingly endless...
Which brings up a problem.
Why are these guys hyped when there are numerous white athletes who are MUCH better? The PAC-10 hype machine is truly a Puzzle And Conundrum. Because it would appear that there are Plenty of Awesome Caucasians to praise, but aside from the aforementioned Love the only white man who ever gets any love (please pardon the pun) from the media is Arizona's Chase Budinger. But he often, maybe even usually, gets pushed aside for his less gifted (but blacker) teammate Bayless.
This is obviously driven by a purposeful agenda. Otherwise, every basketball fan would know a vastly different set of names associated with the PAC-10 than the ones mentioned two paragraphs up.
Yes, the promo advertisements would be featuring a much paler set of players. For example:
The PAC-10 is led in scoring by Ryan Anderson's 21.5 points per game. He's a white forward from Cal. Ever see him anywhere on the idiot box? Me neither. And I've looked! He's also third in the league in rebounding (9.9 rpg). Not bad for a guy that can't get any air time, huh? In fact, 5 of the top 10 scorers in the PAC-10 are white. I'm guessing that also comes as a surprise to you.
You've all surely heard of Kevin Love from UCLA. He is a gifted big man, without a doubt as his numbers indicate (he is second in the league in rebounding with 11.1 rpg and sixth in scoring with 17.3 ppg). However, there is another white big man in the PAC-10 who is putting up even better numbers than the "potential College Player of the Year."
His name is Jon Brockman, and he plays for the University of Washington. The only way you'll see or hear about him on the TV is if Washington has a televised game. He gets no promo ads, no references to greatness, no nothing the rest of the time. And he leads the PAC-10 in rebounding (11.6 per game) and is fifth in scoring (17.6 ppg)!
Ever hear of Maarty Leunen? I didn't think so. At 6-foot-9, he's the best 3-point shooter in the PAC-10 (knocking down an incredible 53% of his long bombs). He's also the league's number four rebounder (9.1 rpg) and averages 15.7 points per game (which is ninth in the conference) while shooting a stellar 57% from the floor. Until this year, the natural small forward had been forced to play center, but now he's free to roam both inside and outside, and he's killing people every time out. Think Kyle Singler (Duke's phenomenal frosh) only as a senior. I wonder why he's not getting more attention from the media? Hmmm...
In fact, all four of those players are outstanding shooters. Compare how they get their points by how the over-hyped Mayo gets his. He shoots UNDER 45% from the floor, is a guard with more turnovers than assists, and heaves up more shots than any two of his teammates combined! In fact, he has WAY more shot attempts than anyone else in the whole conference!
Speaking of over-hyped, I should point out Darren Collison.
Collison is regarded almost unanimously as one of the top two points guards in the NCAA (along with Texas' D.J. Augustin), but in reality he isn't even the best point guard in the PAC-10! That honor deserves to go to Washington State's Taylor Rochestie.
Never heard of him? I figured that would be the case.
Rochestie, until this week, led the PAC-10 in assists. Now he is second (by .13 per game). What makes this truly astonishing is that he also leads the league in Assist-to-Turnover Ratio, which almost never happens! He is averaging 3 assists for every 1 turnover. Simply an amazing stat. Compare that to Collison, who average LESS than 2 to 1.
To makes these numbers even clearer, Rochestie has 39 more assists and 4 fewer turnovers than his "vastly superior" and much more hyped counterpart.
Interesting, is it not?
If you dig even deeper, you will notice that in addition to his vastly superior playmaking ability, Rochestie measures up quite nicely with Collison.
Rochestie shoots 48% from the floor, 43% from the 3-point ling, 82% from the free throw line, and averages 10.7 ppg and 3.2 rebounds per game. Collison shoots 48% from the floor, 47% from the 3-point line, 90 % from the free throw line, and averages 14.3 ppg and 2.6 rebounds per game.
Those are nearly identical stat lines for two point guards on Top-25 teams. Why is one widely praised and the other widely ignored? I'll let you answer that for yourself.
I've not gone into detail about the other white athletes who have "star power" if not for their lack of the required dark skin; players such as Washington's Ryan Appleby who knocks down more 3-pointers per game than anyone else in the league, or Washington State's Aron Baynes who hits 60% of his shots and likely has the most dunks of anyone in the conference.
Heck, any of five players could make a case as Washington State's most valuable, but I don't have to tell you that it is their only black starter who gets the acclaim.
Yes, despite the fact that he doesn't lead the team in scoring, or rebounding, or assists, or anything other than steals, WSU's Kyle Weaver (the lone black player who gets significant playing time for the Cougars) is universally held to be "their best player."
Weird how all this stuff works. Isn't it?
by Jimmy Chitwood
I watch a lot of basketball. A LOT of basketball. So I catch most all the regularly aired hype commercials that promote various match-ups on the idiot box. When a network will be featuring some game or other, they most always feature highlights and graphics of a team's "best" player in order to garner as much fan notice as possible. You'll notice I place "best" in quotation marks...
See, here's the deal. FoxSports, as well as a couple of other networks, have an arrangement with the PAC-10 to broadcast their basketball games. This is not unusual, of course, seeing as how the PAC-10 is widely regarded as an elite basketball conference, and TV networks want to make money. But what really bothers me is that when I see a promo for a game, or I watch a sports broadcast that mentions the PAC-10, the featured athletes are almost exclusively black. In fact, if I were to judge by the boob tube hype machine, UCLA's star freshman center Kevin Love is the only white man playing hoops in the PAC-10.
Or at least, he's the only one worth watching. I find this troublesome.
"Why?" you might ask. I'll tell you.
This season, the PAC-10 has been completely dominated by white men. Yes, dominated.
We as fans are repeatedly assured that basketball is a black man's game. I guess the white men in the PAC-10 didn't get the memo.
If one were to watch a lot of PAC-10 hoops, as I do, one would be inundated with messages regaling the most glowing praise imaginable on USC's O.J. Mayo (you know, the phenomenal future NBA superstar), or on UCLA point guard Darren Collison (without a doubt one of the top two point guards in the nation, of course), Washington State's Kyle Weaver, Arizona's Jerryd Bayless, or Arizona State's James Harden and Jeff Pendergraph. The list of black "superstars" and superlatives to attach to them is seemingly endless...
Which brings up a problem.
Why are these guys hyped when there are numerous white athletes who are MUCH better? The PAC-10 hype machine is truly a Puzzle And Conundrum. Because it would appear that there are Plenty of Awesome Caucasians to praise, but aside from the aforementioned Love the only white man who ever gets any love (please pardon the pun) from the media is Arizona's Chase Budinger. But he often, maybe even usually, gets pushed aside for his less gifted (but blacker) teammate Bayless.
This is obviously driven by a purposeful agenda. Otherwise, every basketball fan would know a vastly different set of names associated with the PAC-10 than the ones mentioned two paragraphs up.
Yes, the promo advertisements would be featuring a much paler set of players. For example:
The PAC-10 is led in scoring by Ryan Anderson's 21.5 points per game. He's a white forward from Cal. Ever see him anywhere on the idiot box? Me neither. And I've looked! He's also third in the league in rebounding (9.9 rpg). Not bad for a guy that can't get any air time, huh? In fact, 5 of the top 10 scorers in the PAC-10 are white. I'm guessing that also comes as a surprise to you.
You've all surely heard of Kevin Love from UCLA. He is a gifted big man, without a doubt as his numbers indicate (he is second in the league in rebounding with 11.1 rpg and sixth in scoring with 17.3 ppg). However, there is another white big man in the PAC-10 who is putting up even better numbers than the "potential College Player of the Year."
His name is Jon Brockman, and he plays for the University of Washington. The only way you'll see or hear about him on the TV is if Washington has a televised game. He gets no promo ads, no references to greatness, no nothing the rest of the time. And he leads the PAC-10 in rebounding (11.6 per game) and is fifth in scoring (17.6 ppg)!
Ever hear of Maarty Leunen? I didn't think so. At 6-foot-9, he's the best 3-point shooter in the PAC-10 (knocking down an incredible 53% of his long bombs). He's also the league's number four rebounder (9.1 rpg) and averages 15.7 points per game (which is ninth in the conference) while shooting a stellar 57% from the floor. Until this year, the natural small forward had been forced to play center, but now he's free to roam both inside and outside, and he's killing people every time out. Think Kyle Singler (Duke's phenomenal frosh) only as a senior. I wonder why he's not getting more attention from the media? Hmmm...
In fact, all four of those players are outstanding shooters. Compare how they get their points by how the over-hyped Mayo gets his. He shoots UNDER 45% from the floor, is a guard with more turnovers than assists, and heaves up more shots than any two of his teammates combined! In fact, he has WAY more shot attempts than anyone else in the whole conference!
Speaking of over-hyped, I should point out Darren Collison.
Collison is regarded almost unanimously as one of the top two points guards in the NCAA (along with Texas' D.J. Augustin), but in reality he isn't even the best point guard in the PAC-10! That honor deserves to go to Washington State's Taylor Rochestie.
Never heard of him? I figured that would be the case.
Rochestie, until this week, led the PAC-10 in assists. Now he is second (by .13 per game). What makes this truly astonishing is that he also leads the league in Assist-to-Turnover Ratio, which almost never happens! He is averaging 3 assists for every 1 turnover. Simply an amazing stat. Compare that to Collison, who average LESS than 2 to 1.
To makes these numbers even clearer, Rochestie has 39 more assists and 4 fewer turnovers than his "vastly superior" and much more hyped counterpart.
Interesting, is it not?
If you dig even deeper, you will notice that in addition to his vastly superior playmaking ability, Rochestie measures up quite nicely with Collison.
Rochestie shoots 48% from the floor, 43% from the 3-point ling, 82% from the free throw line, and averages 10.7 ppg and 3.2 rebounds per game. Collison shoots 48% from the floor, 47% from the 3-point line, 90 % from the free throw line, and averages 14.3 ppg and 2.6 rebounds per game.
Those are nearly identical stat lines for two point guards on Top-25 teams. Why is one widely praised and the other widely ignored? I'll let you answer that for yourself.
I've not gone into detail about the other white athletes who have "star power" if not for their lack of the required dark skin; players such as Washington's Ryan Appleby who knocks down more 3-pointers per game than anyone else in the league, or Washington State's Aron Baynes who hits 60% of his shots and likely has the most dunks of anyone in the conference.
Heck, any of five players could make a case as Washington State's most valuable, but I don't have to tell you that it is their only black starter who gets the acclaim.
Yes, despite the fact that he doesn't lead the team in scoring, or rebounding, or assists, or anything other than steals, WSU's Kyle Weaver (the lone black player who gets significant playing time for the Cougars) is universally held to be "their best player."
Weird how all this stuff works. Isn't it?
