Bay area’s finest — Stanford’s Powell and Cal’s Crabbe — top two in Pac-12 productivity for the week

Stanford’s Dwight Powell is this site’s player of the week in the Pac-12

Two leading Pac-12 player of the year candidates — Stanford power forward Dwight Powell and Cal wing player Allen Crabbe — put on a display in the state of Arizona last weekend.

The Pac-12 selected Crabbe, a junior, as its player of the week because of his 31-point, seven-rebound performance in the Golden Bears’ 77-69 upset over the Wildcats on Sunday.

The WILDABOUTAZCATS.net player of the week, as determined by a productivity rating (see glossary for explanation), has Powell, another junior, as being slightly better in a split of the Arizona schools. Powell followed his 24-point, 10-rebound performance against Arizona with 22 points and 10 rebounds in the Cardinal’s 62-59 win at ASU on Saturday.

Powell posted a productivity rating of 1.099 (78 productivity points in 71 minutes) while Crabbe had a rating of .986 (73 productivity points in 74 minutes). Also under consideration was Arizona point guard Mark Lyons (58 productivity points in 62 minutes against Stanford and Cal) and Oregon State’s Roberto Nelson (69 productivity points in 64 minutes against Colorado and Utah).

Nelson, a junior guard, leads the Pac-12 overall in productivity with a rating of .771 through 11 games. He has led the Beavers in scoring in six of the past eight games, and leads the Pac-12 in scoring in conference games at 18.6 per game (Crabbe is second at 18.5). Nelson has had only one game in single digits in the last 19 games. He has scored at least 20 points in four consecutive games.

Mark Lyons tops the Wildcats with a .626 productivity rating An interesting battle is brewing for the league’s most productive point guard between Lyons, a senior, and ASU redshirt freshman Jahii Carson. Lyons’ productivity rating of .626 now tops Carson’s rating of .608. Last week, Carson led all conference point guards with a .644 rating and Lyons was at .565. Carson struggled against Cal and Stanford, posting only 30 productivity points in 70 minutes. Cal’s Justin Cobbs is the third most productive point guard in the Pac-12 with a .459 rating. ***** UCLA freshman wing player Shabazz Muhammad is gradually climbing the ranks of the most productive in the league. After last weekend’s sweep of the Washington schools at Pauley Pavilion, Muhammad ranks No. 8 with a .675 rating. He started the season hovering around the .550 mark. UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad is shown here sulking rather than celebrating after UCLA beat -Washington on a last-second shot by teammate Larry Drew II (ESPN) Against the Huskies and Cougars, Muhammad tallied 51 productivity points in 67 minutes. He wishes he had a chance to post more but senior point guard Larry Drew II stole his thunder with a game-winning jumper against Washington at the buzzer. Video replays show Muhammad yelling for the ball before Drew’s shot and not celebrating with his teammates after the shot went in the basket. “Yeah, I wanted the ball,” Muhammad told reporters after the game “But Larry is such an aggressive player. When the ball went up, I knew it was going to be good. “Everyone was on him and attacking him. I was like, I know Larry is going to have something broken or he’s going to have some scratches. I was going to wait until he got up to congratulate him.” Congratulate him? … It should not be about Drew or Muhammad. It should be about the Bruins, shouldn’t it? UCLA and USC play marquee games against the Bay area schools starting Thursday night. Muhammad will play against Crabbe and Powell will face a stiff challenge against USC’s athletic frontline. Good weekend of Pac-12 hoops ahead, including a rematch of Colorado and Arizona on Thursday and a good matchup of Oregon at Washington on Wednesday night. PLAYER OF THE WEEK [table “” not found /]

PAC-12’s TOP TEN [table “” not found /] [table “” not found /] This Week (Tucson times): Wednesday ARIZONA STATE at UTAH 6 p.m. P12N OREGON STATE at WASHINGTON STATE 8 p.m. P12N OREGON at WASHINGTON 9 p.m. ESPN2 Thursday UCLA at CALIFORNIA 7 p.m. ESPN2 ARIZONA at COLORADO 8 p.m. P12N Series: COLO leads, 9-8. Streak: ARIZ 1 (last, 92-83 OT at ARIZ) USC at STANFORD 9 p.m. ESPNU Saturday UCLA at STANFORD 2 p.m. ESPN2 OREGON at WASHINGTON STATE 5 p.m. P12N ARIZONA STATE at COLORADO 7 p.m. ESPNU OREGON STATE at WASHINGTON 9 p.m. FSN Sunday ARIZONA at UTAH 1 p.m. P12N Series: UTAH leads, 28-24. Streak: ARIZ 6 (last, 60-57 at ARIZ) USC at CALIFORNIA 8 p.m. FSN

PRODUCTIVITY LEADERS
Players listed are top six in minutes played in Pac-12 games
GLOSSARY:
S: Number of starts.
PP: Productivity Points (Points, assists, rebounds, steals, blocked shots, FGs made, FTs made added together and then subtracted by missed FGs, missed FTs, personal fouls and turnovers)
MIN: Minutes played
PR: Productivity rating per minute played (Productivity points divided by minutes played)

Site publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner

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