By Dane Miller, SuperWest Sports
January 29, 2024
As a voter for the Pac-12 Players of the Week, my choices may occasionally differ from the official selections.
Either way, I want to share my picks and give brief explanations of why I voted the way I did for the Freshman and Player of the Week.
My Summaries appear below.
Player of the Week — Jordan Pope, Oregon State
Jordan Pope scored 31 points against Arizona and knocked down the game-winning three at the buzzer. He followed it up with a 19-point outing against Arizona State. That averages out to 25.0 ppg.
And he did it while shooting 17-for-28 (60.7 percent) from the field and 6-of-13 (46.2 percent) from three. The sophomore guard also totaled 11 assists across the two games and went 10-for-12 (83.3 percent) from the line.
I briefly considered Arizona’s Caleb Love for his performance against the Ducks and UCLA’s Dylan Andrews. But there’s no way anyone other than Jordan Pope should win the award this week.
Freshman Player of the Week — Myles Rice, Washington State
Only three other players were nominated (Kanaan Carlyle, Mo Krivas, and Cody Williams) and all three of them lost a game last week.
Rice, on the other hand, played on a team that went 2-0 with both victories coming against quality opponents. The freshman averaged 13.5 ppg with a 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
His 17 points against Colorado were the difference in the game and Rice remains the Pac-12’s leading freshman scorer.
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