Five Pac-12 women’s basketball teams ranked again

• COMPLETE RELEASE (PDF) | MEDIA GUIDE

• As of Jan. 7, only four teams in the country remain undefeated and OREGON STATE and UCLA are among them. Playing on the road this week, both the Beavers and Bruins are riding their best starts in program history, each entering the week with a 14-0 overall record.

• Hall of Fame head coach, Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer is on the verge of yet another significant milestone. Entering the weekend with 499 Pac-12 regular-season victories, she is looking to become the first women’s basketball coach in NCAA history with 500 conference wins in a single league. VanDerveer is in her 34th season at the Stanford helm and has collected over 1,000-career wins.

• Five Pac-12 teams are ranked in the polls for the 10th-consecutive week. OREGON leads Pac-12 teams at No. 2/2 in the Associated Press and USA Today/WBCA Coaches polls with Oregon State closely behind at No. 3/3. STANFORD is in the top five in both rankings at No. 5 and No. 4. UCLA makes a small jump to No. 8/9 in the polls, while ARIZONA remained at No. 8 in the writers’ poll and slipped to No. 19 in the coaches poll.

• With Oregon’s Ruthy Hebard and Sabrina Ionescu already joining the 2,000-point club this season, WASHINGTON STATE’s Borislava Hristova looks to be next. One of the most prolific scorers in Pac-12 history, she enters the week with 1,986 points and looks to become the first Coug in program history to reach the threshold and the 23rd in Pac-12 history.

• The only rivalry game of the week, the Cougs and WASHINGTON close out the Apple Cup in Seattle on Saturday on Pac-12 Network. WSU is coming off a dominating victory for its first win in Berkeley since 2011. The Huskies, who lost the first meeting between the teams, head home for the first time in league play after opening Conference slate on the road, going 2-1.

• WASHINGTON STATE’s Chanelle Molina was voted Pac-12 Player of the Week after averaging a league-best 27.5 points per game for the week on 71.8 percent shooting. Oregon State’s Taylor Jones was tabbed the Pac-12 Freshman of the Week for the third time. She was also tabbed the USBWA National Freshman of the Week.

• With Pac-12 play in full swing, it looks to be a battle of the board. Six teams rank in the top 30 in rebounding margin, Oregon State leading the way with a +13.8 rpg margin, which ranks fourth in the nation. Other Pac-12 teams ranked in the top 30 are: 10. Arizona State (+11.9); 11. Oregon (+11.8); 16. Colorado (+9.9); 25. California (+8.8); 28. California (+8.6).

• Arizona is limiting its opponents to just 47.1 points per game and 31.0 percent shooting, leading the country in scoring defense and ranking third in defensive field goal percentage. The Wildcats’ opponents have scored less than 60 points in all but one game. Half the league boasts some of the stingiest defenses in the country, all six ranking in the top 35: 1. Arizona (47.1), 8. Oregon State (52.9), 20. Reogon (54.9), 23. Arizona State (55.2), 31. UCLA (55.8), 35. Washington (56.5).

UPCOMING SCHEDULE

* game times local to site; P12N indicates Pac-12 Networks; Live stream of games is available at pac-12.com.

ROAD TO NEW ORLEANS
Teams across the country will be focused on getting to New Orleans this season, the site of the 2020 NCAA Women’s Final Four on April 3 and 5. To get to New Orleans, teams will have to go through regional sites in Greenville, S.C., Fort Wayne, Ind., Portland, Ore., and Dallas, Texas. Oregon State hosts the Portland Regional for the second year in a row from March 27-March 30, 2020, with specific dates to be announced. The first and second round of the tournament will take place on 16 campus sites with the top-16 seeds hosting, March 19-22, 2020.. The top 64 teams will learn their fates in the broadcast of the annual selection show on Monday, March 16, 2020.