The Pac-10 makes a big deal about how there's some shadowy East Coast bias conspiracy against them all the time, but honestly, the Pac-10 basketball just isn't as consistently nor top-to-bottom good as other conferences. I think what causes this thinking though is the Pac-10 does seem better than most other conferences at creating NBA-style talents. Whereas a guy can be a top player in the ACC or SEC and end up overseas, the Pac-10 superstar is NBA-ready. Not sure if this is due to the west coast style of living, or what. I do know that with the tournament starting tomorrow, while every conference tournament this side of the Mississippi has had it's Wikipedia page updated for this year's tournament through this morning, including little shit ass obscure conferences, nobody's touched the Pac-10 2010 tourney page since February. So there is obviously a senseless passion issue involved in the Pac-10's lack of national respect. No senselessly passionate followers, no rabid curiosity is ramped up, and then casual people are less likely to be tricked into thinking it's the real-deal Holden Caulfield. But without further ado, here are the top fourteen dudes who has scoreded the most points the past four Pac-10 tournamental weekends (plus where they is now)...
#1: Darren Collison (UCLA guard; 119 points in Pac-10 tourneys '06-'09) - A constant contributor in all four years of college on a team that went to the Final Four three straight times. That's fucking crazy. He seemed like he was around for nine years because of this. Now, he plays for the New Orleans Hornets. The Hornets/Charlotte Bobcats/Oklahoma City Thunder/Memphis Grizzlies are just a giant clusterfuck of teams that could be the same ones inside my head. I honestly couldn't pick their uniforms apart if you took the distinguishing wording off of them.
#2: Malik Hairston (Oregon guard; 118 points in Pac-10 tourneys '06-'08) - Hard-working ass bitch, straight blue collar style guard, who after finishing college in 2008, was drafted by the Suns but traded to the San Antonio Spurs. Has made the cross-state trek between the Spurs in the NBA and the Austin Toros in the D-League multiple times since then, yearly, and currently is back on the Spurs roster, but you might want to double check that in a week, because only once has he gotten more than 10 minutes on the NBA court this season.
#3: Tajuan Porter (Oregon guard; 101 points in Pac-10 tourneys '07-'09) - Still in college; will speak upon him tomorrow.
#4: Ryan Anderson (California forward; 99 points in Pac-10 tourneys '07 and '08) - Man, maybe there is an east coast bias in the media, because I never even heard of a Ryan Anderson. But he's some sort of three-point machine cyborg whiteboy who only played two years in college, did a year with the Nets, and now plays with the Orlando Magic, coming off the bench.
#5: Ayinde Ubaka (California guard; 97 points in Pac-10 tourneys '06 and '07) - Okay, here's another guy that rather than talk about him like I knowed him, let me just run you through his post-collegiate team allegiances. 2007: ASCO Slask Wroclaw and Energa Czarni Slupsk (both in Poland) and Deutsche Bank Skyliners (Germany). 2008: Antwerp Diamond Giants (Belgium), came back to the states for the NBA Summer League, and round out the year in the D-League with the Anaheim Arsenal. Started 2009 by getting waived from the D-League, so he bounced to the strangest named team I've come across, a German team called the New Yorker Phantoms, and then when this past fall's basketball season arrived, he hit a third continent, going to Australia to start for the Gold Coast Blaze. Yeah.
#6: Taj Gibson (USC forward; 93 points in Pac-10 tourneys '07-'09) - Brooklyn-bred bad ass who started all three years he played at USC, and was around during the O.J. Mayo year, where they ended up being exposed as having paid Mayo to come to USC, which would lead one to believe they probably paid Gibson as well. A great shot-blocker and defensive-minded player, Gibson was drafted into the NBA by the Chicago Bulls where he is an integral part of their ever-evolving collection of can't miss young talent that never seems to jibe together successfully to any large extent.
#7: Anthony Goods (Stanford guard; 91 points in Pac-10 tourneys '06-'09) - I do not remember this guy, and after four years at Stanford, all he's done is kick it on the Bakersfield Jam of the D-League. But back in 2005, while still in high school, he played on something called the Compton Magic Travel Team... Oh, I looked it up; it's an AAU team based in Compton, high profile as fuck, sponsored by Adidas. Nice to see these corporations giving back to the hood, isn't it?
#8: Leon Powe (California forward; 80 points in Pac-10 tourney '06) - Oh man, Leon Power was a role-playing budding blue collar bench star for the Celtics in their championship run a couple years back. Now he's on the Cavaliers roster, but only contributing about four points in 10 minutes a night.
#9: Josh Shipp (UCLA guard/forward; 79 points in Pac-10 tourneys '07-'09) - also part of three Final Four teams, although the first one in 2006, he was on the end of the bench in plain clothes due to a hip injury. Shipp now plies his trade for Bornova Bid in Turkey, and has already played in the Turkish All-Star game in fact.
#10: Jeff Pendergraph (Arizona State forward; 77 points in Pac-10 tourneys '06-'09) - You wanna talk about the growth of the Arizona State program, you could probably start the conversation around Pendergraph, who was a four-year starter and set records for games played and started and is in the school's top six all-time for points, rebounding, blocks, field goal percentage, and free throw percentage. He was drafted by the Sacramento Kings but ended up on the Portland Trailblazers bench.
#11: James Harden (Arizona State guard; 77 points in Pac-10 tourneys '08 and '09) - Pre-NBA draft hotness last year after his sophomore year with the Sun Devils, and was taken third overall in the draft by the Oklahoma City Thunder. He has been inconsistent and probably hasn't lived up to his draft status, but whatevs, he got paid.
#12: Aron Baynes (Washington State center; 75 points in Pac-10 tourneys '06-'09) - West coast teams get Australians like a motherfucker, where you can find a big nearly 7-foot tall whiteboy to bang in the paint with a blue collar ethic because he's so bedazzled by American pussy. Baynes was that up in Washington, and after finishing up his eligibility last year, he finds himself in Lithuania balling for Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius.
#13: Brook Lopez (Stanford forward/center; 71 points in Pac-10 tourneys '07 and '08) - One half of those two big butt ugly twins that played for Stanford, Brook is the more successful one, who is an up-and-coming star on the worst team in the NBA and perhaps of all-time, at least by wins, in the New Jersey Nets. At least now that he's grown his hair out some, it can hide his mongoloidic face and perhaps he can get his NBA-style multiple baby mamas on.
#14: Gabe Pruitt (USC guard; 71 points in Pac-10 tourneys '06 and '07) - Another guy holding onto that dream, who has bounced a bunch between the NBA (mostly the Celtics, including their championship year in 2008, although also the Knicks) and the D-League (almost always the Utah Flash, but also the Los Angeles D-Fenders). He is currently on the Utah Flash team now.
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