s a voter for the Pac-12 Players of the Week, my choices may occasionally differ from the official selections.
Either way, I want to share my picks and give brief explanations of why I voted the way I did for the Freshman and Player of the Week.
My Summaries appear below.
Player of the Week — Pelle Larsson, Arizona
Based on my own criteria of only voting for a player on a team that went 2-0, my options were automatically reduced to just three players: Pelle Larsson, Lazar Stefanovic, and Jaylen Wells.
Stefanovic only averaged 11.0 points per game so it was easy to eliminate him from contention. Wells was highly efficient from three and was arguably the reason why Washington State beat both of the Oregon schools.
But Larsson’s career-high 27 points against Utah in triple overtime was my deciding factor. The Arizona guard averaged 22.5 points per game while shooting 60.7 percent from the field.
The Swede had eight assists against the Utes and followed it up with a 7-for-11 shooting night against Colorado. It was UA’s first win in Boulder since 2015 and performances like that deserve recognition.
Freshman Player of the Week — Sebastian Mack, UCLA
This week’s vote is a toss-up between UCLA’s Sebastian Mack and Washington State’s Myles Rice. Their numbers are essentially identical. Both averaged 14.5 points per game and each led their teams in pivotal road victories.
In situations like these, I tend to vote for the player that faced tougher opponents. But it’s not clear if winning at Oregon is more challenging than winning at Stanford, so that turned into a wash.
In the end, my own human element was the deciding factor. I have voted for Rice repeatedly this season and there is finally another player worthy of the award.
So, I went with Mack to switch it up. Maybe that’s not the best way to vote, but it’s a long season, and voting for the same player every week gets a little old.