ASU Basketball: 2018 Pac-12 Tournament Preview
By Trevor Booth
No. 5 Stanford vs. No. 12 Cal
The Bay Area rivalry will take over in the opening round of the Pac-12 Tournament.
The Stanford Cardinal and the California Golden Bears will meet for the third time this season Wednesday, where the winner will both advance in the tournament and take the 2-1 split of the season series.
The teams first met on Dec. 30, where the Bears stunned the Cardinal by erasing a 17-point deficit on the road to pull off an improbable 77-74 victory.
The Bears tallied 53 points in the second half as key buckets from Don Coleman and Darius McNeill lifted Cal with a 27-8 run in the final 8:33.
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In the Feb. 18 rematch, no such lead was safe. Neither team led by more than eight points for the entirety of the game, and the Cardinal held only a three-point lead in the final minute.
However, thanks to a blocked shot from Josh Sharma and clutch free throws from Dorian Pickens, the Cardinal avoided a late run from Don Coleman to hold on to a 77-73 win on the road.
The key to this game will be who’s able to win the war on the glass. Stanford won the first two battles by margins of +3 and +8, efforts that kept them ahead for the majority of each game.
Cal will have to rely on big men Marcus Lee and Kingsley Okoroh to stay out of foul trouble in order to compete with Stanford down low. If they have to resort to their perimeter players to spark comeback efforts, it could be hard to close the game down the stretch.
Likewise, the Cardinal will need a better performance out of Kezie Okpala. He averaged just 10 points on 4-of-15 shooting in the two regular season games. Without him, the Cardinal may become too reliant on Travis and Humphrey to do all the scoring work.
With the rivalry factor involved, it’s safe to say that this rubber match should be just as exciting.
Stanford and Cal will tip-off Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. MT with the winner advancing to take on No. 4 UCLA.