Roundup: Championship weekend for the Pac-12
A ton of conference championships were decided over the weekend, so let’s start with golf, as Oregon men’s golf won the Pac-12 title, buoyed by individual medalist Wyndham Clark.
On Saturday, Stanford women’s tennis won the first-ever Pac-12 tournament title a week after winning the regular-season crown. Props to USC for taking home the men’s trophy.
Hats off to UCLA women’s water polo for winning the MPSF tournament, defeating Stanford 6-3 in the championship game and holding the Cardinal scoreless in the second half.
Meanwhile, USC women’s lacrosse won the MPSF title by defeating Colorado 16-11 to nab an auto-bid to the NCAA tournament. The 16-3 Trojans carry a 10-game winning streak into the NCAAs.
A program-record eight Utes were selected in the 2017 NFL Draft, Kyle Goon notes. Utah had the most players drafted this year out of any Pac-12 school.
In case you missed it Friday night, Cal quarterback Davis Webb was selected in the third round by the New York Giants with the 87th overall pick. Jon Wilner adds some more details in the link.
Plenty of Pac-12ers latched on as undrafted free agents after the draft, including former Oregon State defensive back Devin Chappell, who signed with the Kansas City Chiefs (The Oregonian/OregonLive).
Meanwhile, Jacob Thorpe reports that Gabe Marks signed a free-agent deal with the New York Jets and Robert Barber inked with the Carolina Panthers.
Pat Rooney lets us know that Colorado’s Derrick White was invited to the NBA pre-draft combine in Chicago May 9-14. White led the Buffs with 18.1 points and 4.4 assists per game.
Chris Mannix of Yahoo! Sports extols Isaiah Thomas’ playoff exploits in leading the Boston Celtics to the second round and a 1-0 series lead over the Washington Wizards. On Saturday, Thomas went to his sister’s funeral in Washington. On Sunday, the former Husky went for 33 points and nine assists in the Celtics’ 123-111 win over the Wizards in Boston.
Here’s the Pac-12 Networks recap of Arizona softball’s 8-0 win over rival Arizona State in five innings. Thanks for the voiceover, Kate Scott and Teri Goldberg.
Not a traditional Arizona State athletics link, but I’d like to use this space to thank Paola Boivin, former reporter and columnist at The Arizona Republic, for her contributions to the link roundup over the 56 and a half months that it has been in existence (it’s been that long already?). Read Boivin’s final column for The Arizona Republic here before she dives full-time into teaching sports journalism at the Cronkite School at Arizona State.