California @ Stanford preview
T-Mobile Arena
Last Meeting ( Feb 7, 2021 ) California 70, Stanford 76
Two teams with revenge motivation will meet in the first round of the Pacific-12 Conference tournament Wednesday night when sixth-seeded Stanford takes on 11th-seeded California in Las Vegas.
The winner will advance to a quarterfinal matchup with third-seeded Colorado on Thursday.
The setup for Wednesday's Stanford-Cal duel is nearly identical to last year, when the Bears, seeded 10th, surprised the seventh-seeded Cardinal 63-51 on what turned out to be the final night of the tournament.
The Pac-12 canceled the remaining three rounds of its annual event the next day because of the pending COVID pandemic. Cal had been slated to play second-seeded UCLA in the quarterfinals.
Stanford (14-12, 10-10) didn't have to wait a full year to exact a small measure of revenge, sweeping Cal (8-19, 3-17) 70-55 on the road and 76-70 at home in consecutive conference games in February.
No doubt, completing the sweep -- at the same site as last year (the T-Mobile Arena) -- would trump any previous satisfaction the Cardinal have achieved, especially if it created momentum to carry into a matchup against a Colorado team that thumped them twice in the regular season.
The key to Stanford's potential success at the event, according to coach Jerod Haase, is good health. The Cardinal finished the regular season with four straight losses, three without star Oscar da Silva and the most recent also without Daejon Davis and Bryce Wills.
The Cardinal have not announced the status of any of the three. Then again, they haven't even disclosed the players' injuries, saying only that da Silva has a "lower extremity" issue, while Davis and Wills were "banged up."
"I'm hopeful that we will have a full roster," Haase said. "Not only a full roster, but a roster where we can be cohesive with everything."
Getting da Silva back would be the key. The senior led Stanford in both scoring (18.8 points per game) and rebounding (6.8) this season, having padded his point total with 23 points in the home win over the Bears, after bumping both numbers up with a 24-point, 11-rebound double-double in the victory at Cal.
The Bears also have lost four straight. With 11 losses in their past 12 games, they've put themselves in a position where the next defeat will make them a 20-game loser for the third time in the past four seasons.
Not all news has been bad for the Bears of late. Two productive seniors -- Makale Foreman and Grant Anticevich -- have announced they will take advantage of new NCAA rules and return for one additional season.
A third senior, Ryan Betley, a graduate transfer from Penn, remains uncommitted, meaning Wednesday could be his final game for Cal.
"I just want to take a little time off basketball, maybe play a little golf," he said after scoring 13 points in what might have been his final home game in Cal's regular-season finale against Oregon. "Being 23 years old now and already gone through my five years, I just want to see what makes sense for my next step."
--Field Level Media