After a dominating win over division rival Stanford last night, the CU Buffs continue their track towards a spot in the 2016 NCAA Basketball Tournament. However, they’re not the only Pac-12 team looking to make an appearance in the classic college tournament.
As of now there are eight Pac-12 teams who are scheduled to play in the tournament, which will begin on March 15. Joining Colorado is No. 18 Arizona, No. 23 Oregon, Oregon St., California, Utah, UCLA and potentially Washington, who is battling for a spot with Syracuse.
“There’s a lot of competitive basketball being played in the conference right now,” Adam Munsterteiger from Buffstampede.com said, who joined Notaro and Big Dee on Mile High Sports AM 1340.
And he’s right. The standings in this conference are impressive to look at. You have Oregon and Washington with a 5-2 in-conference record, after their wins last night; Utah and Colorado are now 5-3; and then there’s Arizona, USC, Cal and Stanford, who are all 4-3 or 4-4. Even Oregon St. and UCLA, who are 3-4, are putting up fights inside this conference.
That being said, in order for CU to keep their tournament hopes alive, they are going to have to continue playing good, aggressive basketball like they did last night, putting up 91 points on the Cardinal.
The Buffs should have great momentum from Wednesday night’s victory as they head into Sunday’s game versus the California Golden Bears, a team who they lost to earlier this season. Cal will be coming off of a loss in Utah, a team they had beaten at home previously this year.
Colorado will be hosting Cal, giving them the advantage this time around. Although Cal will be looking for a win in order to prevent back to back losses, CU is focused on getting as many wins, especially home wins, as possible before the start of the March tournament.
The Buffs will want to mimic their play from the first half of Wednesday night’s game, where they allowed only 28 points and put up 42 of their own. Adversely, something they’ll want to cut out is the amount of turnovers and steals they gave up. However, when they’re making 13 of 19 (68.4%) from three-point range, turning the ball over a few times isn’t as painful.
This game is certainly an important one for CU, as they have only five home games left before the tournament. Not only that, but beating Cal at home will set a good tone for the Buffs before traveling to Oregon next Thursday to take on the Ducks and then the Beavers.
Listen to the full discussion on how stacked the Pac-12 is and CU’s chances of getting into the NCAA Tournament in the podcast below.
Catch Notaro and Big Dee Monday-Thursday from 6p-8p on Mile High Sports AM 1340 or stream live any time for Denver’s biggest lineup covering what’s new and what’s next in Colorado sports.