Pac-12 weekend preview

They are, without doubt, the two highest-profile matches in the nation this week: Washington's visit to the Bay Area.

On paper, the UW/Cal match Friday night is the bigger deal. Last season, Cal swept the Huskies home and away, then eliminated them at Hec Ed Pavilion in the Elite 8. The Golden Bears eventually advanced to the national championship match, where they lost to Penn State.

The Bears still have the multi-talented and eminently-likable Tarah Murrey; they still have Kat Brown and Robin Rostratter. What they don't have is last season's national player of the year, now-graduated Carli Lloyd. Lloyd was not just a great setter, she drove Washington crazy with setter dumps and attacks. In two conference matches against UW, she had a combined 10 kills on 19 swings with no errors. It will be interesting to see if the Bears miss that weapon this season.

No team has defeated Jim McLaughlin-coached Washington teams as often as Stanford. Many of the losses have been by the smallest of margins; when these two teams play, serve and serve receive usually decides the match. This year, the Huskies are one of the national leaders (#5) in aces per set.

Washington Huskies huddle
[Volleyblog Seattle photo by Leslie Hamann]

Only once have the Huskies swept both of these teams in the Bay Area: in 2005 when Washington won the national title. Can they do it again? While history suggests no, we're gonna guess yes, both in four sets.

Oregon's early success is quickly fading, and its matches in LA could either make it a contender or a pretender. Here's guessing the latter, in 0-3, 0-3 fashion.

Arizona will likely pick up two wins in the Rockies; ASU, Utah and Colorado will battle to avoid the very bottom of the standings. We'll say Utah beats ASU, and ASU beats the Buffaloes.

Pac-12 Players of the Week face Huskies next

The Cal Bears took two of the three top Pac-12 honors this week, earning top offensive and defensive players of the week.

California's Tarah Murrey

Cal’s Tarah Murrey, a leading contender for conference player of the year, won the offense award for her 19 kills and 15 digs in a sweep of Oregon, plus her 18 kills and 20 digs in a four-set win over Oregon State.

Bears’ junior middle blocker Kat Brown had 15 blocks for the weekend, hitting a combined .562.

#4 Cal hosts #2 Washington Friday night in a regional televised showdown billed as the national match of the week.

Madi Kingdon had a match-high 16 kills during Arizona’s 3-2 upset of UCLA and was named freshman of the week.

And speaking of Arizona …

The Wildcats beat the Bruins despite UCLA’s advantage on the stat sheet, including kills (63-59), hitting percentage (.256-.239), service aces (8-4), digs (69-62) and blocks (9.0-6.0). UCLA came into the match rated #2 in the nation.

Never-shy Arizona Coach Dave Rubio, whose team hasn’t been a #1 or #2 team since before Bill Clinton met Monica Lewinsky,  scored the quote of the week:

“UCLA didn’t come in here juiced and we are good enough to push a team like that. We played a lot better during the difficult moments, and that put us in a position to win.”