Last night was as March as games not broadcast on CBS get. Every game saw a tie or lead change in the final five minutes (if not the final two minutes) and EVERY SINGLE ROAD TEAM WON. I’m not going to data mine to see if there has been a three pronged road sweep on a single night this Pac-12 season. But considering there have been only 44 road wins across 100 Pac-12 games, I don’t think we’ve seen it. Welcome to March.
Arizona @ Oregon State
I don’t know if this was a trap game or what it projected to be but I do know that there are some damn fine ball players on that Oregon State roster. They have size all over and Roberto Nelson is a scorer. Unfortunately, this was my mom’s analysis of the game, “It looked like one team had a plan and the other didn’t.” Well guess who won? Arizona did and was fortunate to do such if you’re asking their coach. He cited the Wildcats’ inability to rebound and so I present to you the expected rebounding numbers and the actuals and subsequently how Oregon State stayed in that game:
Colorado @ Stanford
If we break the game into quarters, the Colorado Buffaloes have been outscored by 45 points in the third quarter during conference play this season. That’s an average of about 2.7 points per game and worse on the road: -3.5 points, -25 collectively. Conversely, the Stanford Cardinal come out of the half and are plus 21. It’s a theme worth diving deeper into at another time but here is how last night’s battle for a bid played out:
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | |
| Colorado | 12 | 21 | 13 | 13 |
| Stanford | 11 | 17 | 13 | 15 |
In what appears to be that critical third quarter, the Buffs managed to play things even, maintain their lead, and subsequently close the game. Oh, and this was critical at 2:01
DWIGHT CHARGES WITH FOUR FOULS OVER JOSH SCOTT WITH FOUR FOULS. THAT WAS LIKE TWO LIONS FIGHTING FOR A GAZELLE
— Adam Butler (@pachoopsab) March 6, 2014
Utah @ California
Numbers don’t lie:
Oh, and what’s going on at Cal?
A freakin’ nightmare, that’s what’s going on at Cal. A complete crisis of confidence, lack of belief, whatever you want to call it, this team is fighting itself now. Every mistake results in heads down, every missed shot makes them hesitate to take the next one. One of the most disheartening collapses in my 35 or so years of watching Cal hoops. Trying not to be despondent heading to Vegas, and hoping for a miracle reawakening Saturday against the Buffs, but frankly, I see no signs of it.
I continue to hear more and more about confidence and leadership on this team. I’m surprised. I also have to perhaps agree with previous poster, Marc, in that the great Monty has got to wear some of this. Alas, there’s still season yet to be played. Colorado has rarely pieced together back-to-back quality road games. I’m going to be in attendance.
Any recommendations for bars where I can watch the Arizona-Oregon game OUTDOORS before heading in to Haas? Neptunes have TVs out there?
I think Jupiter (on Shattuck) may be the best bet. Neptunes seems kinda far, but I haven’t been. Oh, and I would agree some of this is on Monty. These kids aren’t as tough as the guys he succeeded with in the past, and he is hardly the warm and fuzzy coddler type!
I think I got my planets wrong. Jupiter was where I wanted to be. Monty would yell at me.