THE AP PUNDITS HAVE DONE IT AGAIN!! BUT NOTHING THEY PRINT WILL DIMINISH THE GLOW OF WHAT'S GOING ON IN MAPLES PAVILION!!

The latest AP All American team is so predictable and myopic it came close to spoiling my morning. How many PAC12 players made the team? How many Stanford players? If you guessed zero for both questions - you were right. Did they include the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament? Nope. Of course not. Haley Jones plays so many thousands of miles away from the center of everything that her games start at 11PM and end at 1AM. Who watches?  The PAC12 is somewhere out west of the Rockies. No one who counts thinks about them. 

You can probably guess the first five.

Paige Bueckers    UConn

Aliyah Boston      South Carolina

Caitlin Clark        Iowa

NaLyssa Smith      Baylor

Rhyne Howard    Kentucky

Someone once said, "It isn't where you start - it's where you finish that counts." 

Lexie Hull will lock down Paige Bueckers in Minneapolis, out work her, out hustle her, out score her and out play her. The eastern pundits will say, "Hmmm."

Haley Jones will outperform Rhyne Howard in every statistical category this season and lead Stanford to another Championship. The eastern pundits will say, "Hmmm."

Ashton Prechtel will frustrate, out score, and out play Aliyah Boston in Columbia and Minneapolis. The eastern pundits will say, "Hmmm."

NaLyssa Smith will be overshadowed in every respect all season long by Cameron Brink. The eastern pundits will say, "Hmmm."

Caitlin Clark will continue to do half the shooting and half the scoring for an Iowa team that will go nowhere. If shooting is what counts she probably belongs on the All American team.

Many times in this space I've reminded all of us that the eastern sports media types won't give us the respect we deserve. We have to continue to outperform their favored teams and their chosen players - until it becomes obvious to everyone that the PAC12 is America's best conference and has the best players. Then the AP will no longer be able to invoke their near-sighted eastern fantasies.    

The other AP update this week ranks the 2022 recruiting classes. Would you believe that the PAC12 has six of the top ten classes. 

1. Oregon Ducks

2. UCLA Bruins 

3. Oregon State Beavers

4. UConn Huskies

5. Stanford Cardinal

6. Arizona Wildcats

7. Minnesota Golden Gophers

8. Duke Blue Devils

9. Louisville Cardinals

10. Washington Huskies

 See what I mean when I say the magnetic poles of the women's NCAA basketball world are reversing? Many of the best female collegiate basketball players are turning down the eastern schools and coming west to the PAC12. What does the AP headline for the article say? "UConn Huskies trail three PAC12 teams." They don't say, "Out of the five power conferences the PAC12 has six of the top ten recruiting classes for 2022. The ACC has two, the Big 10 has one, and the mid-major Big East conference has one. 

If Kiki Rice (#2 recruit for 2022) is listening, "Come to the top team in the top conference, Kiki. Stanford is listed as one of the top five universities in the world by every rating agency - and happens to also have one of the best women's basketball programs in the country. Join Lauren Betts (#1 recruit for 2022) and Talana Lepolo (#70 recruit for 2022) and help us stay at the top of the NCAA women's basketball world. 

LET'S GO CARDINAL!! ONE WEEK TO GO TO THE OPENING TIP!!