Dane Miller's Week 3 Pac-12 Hoops Players of Week Votes


  By Dane Miller, SuperWest Sports

   November 27, 2023

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 — Fardaws Aimaq, Cal

This week’s Player of the Week vote was the toughest so far this season. My vote came down to Cal’s Fardaws Aimaq and USC’s Boogie Ellis.

Despite the Bears losing all three of their games at the SoCal Challenge, I went with Aimaq due to his three-straight double-doubles. The Cal Big Man averaged 18.3 points per game and 14.3 rebounds. He shot 57.9 percent from the field while averaging 33 minutes per game.

Aimaq is tenth nationally in rebounds per game and tied for first with five double-doubles on the season. Production like that can’t be ignored, even if his team went 0-3.

Freshman Player of the Week — Sebastian Mack, UCLA

Sebastian Mack emerged in Hawaii. The UCLA freshman averaged 19.0 points per game against elite competition. He put up 25 points against Marquette and 16 points against Gonzaga.

Mack shot 43.6 percent from the field at the Maui Invitational while going 20-for-22 (90.9 percent) from the free throw line. At this point in the year, Mack is the most important player on Mick Cronin’s roster.

He averaged 33 minutes per game in Hawaii and is the engine of UCLA’s offense. I also considered Colorado’s Cody Williams and USC’s Isaiah Collier. But neither came close to the production Mack put up.