Ty Abbott Named Pac-10 Player of the Week (By Default)

Our congratulations go out to Ty Abbott, who won the Pac-10 Player of the Week award for January 4-10. The junior shooting guard scored 17 points in each of the Sun Devils' victories this past weekend against the Huskies and the Cougars.

His best effort may have come on Sunday afternoon, putting together a double-double with 17 points and 11 hard-fought rebounds against a much bigger Washington State squad.

Abbott has looked more and more confident as the season has progressed, an indication that he may be emerging as a leader on this year's team. Without the imposing duo of James Harden and Jeff Pendergraph, the lack of scoring has fallen on Abbott and Rihards Kuksiks.

An interesting quote from the press release:

When Abbott scores in double-digits, ASU has a record of 30-7 (.811), including 18-3 (.857) over the past two seasons.

How about that? Ty Abbott is crucial to our success!

Kuksiks, who scored 27 points against Washington, would have been a lock for this award if he hadn't been invisible against the Cougars, scoring only 7 points on 3 for 7 shooting.

The Sun Devils get back into action against the Oregon Ducks (10-5, 2-1 Pac-10) on Thursday in Eugene. Look for more coverage in the next few days as the Sun Devils try to gain some ground in the conference standings.

In other news, Joe Lunardi's Bracketology only has one Pac-10 team in the field of 65. That will change, but this conference sure does stink in 2010.

Over here at SBNation, our bracketologists also have the Pac-10 sending one team: California, which would be an unsightly 11 seed. Embarrassing.