Battle for 4th Place and perhaps more…

[Minnesota Ute]

It would be exceedingly difficult to catch Oregon or Arizona at this point, however watching UCLA against WSU last night, UCLA is vulnerable.  They may drop another game or two, so tonight is YUUUGGGGEEEE.  We take care of the ball, we stay out of foul trouble and stay healthy, we win.

We have better players overall, man for man, I would take our squad over theirs.  But foul trouble does worry me because the PAC12 Refs love the California schools it seems, well, not sure about Stanford, but UCLA, USC, & Cal.  UCLA’s game was a joke last night.  Gigi was all over Hawkinson grabbing pulling elbowing, they call offensive foul on Hawkinson.  UCLA guards would just drive in out of control mowing people over, blocking foul.  They shot 19 FT to WSU’s 10, but ultimately it was the 14 turnovers that did WSU in.  Anyway, I’m rambling, but for cripes sake, just go out and pound the Bears, LET’S GO!!

[TheJuggernaut]

UCLA still has USC and Oregon at home, and they still play @ Arizona, so third place is absolutely a possibility for us. I’m kind of thinking third place is going to end up coming down to our game with them, and our inability to close it out and get the tiebreaker, but they could end up with two or three more losses, which would give us a great opportunity to take third.

The key tonight is definitely foul trouble, more specifically David Collette staying out of foul trouble. Maybe I’m looking at this through homer goggles, but I feel like Collette has had an unfair amount of ticky tack cheap fouls called on him. A couple of the early fouls in the Oregon game, that got him a seat on the bench for a long stretch, were pretty ridiculous. He has to avoid that tonight. Cal’s two centers – Okurah and Rooks – are a couple of unathletic stiffs, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Collette have a huge game, assuming he stays out of foul trouble. A second key is keeping Rabb off the offensive boards. Someone has to get a body on him immediately once the shot goes up, he makes a living on putbacks and getting fouled after an offensive rebound. This is going to be tough if we’re in a zone, though.

Biggest game of the season to this point, if we can get a W tonight we set up really well for a nice run to finish the regular season and get a prime spot in the PAC tourney. Lose and we’re dangerously close to fifth place – we absolutely do not want to finish fifth, not only would we miss out on a first round bye in the PAC tournament, we’d draw the 12th place team, Oregon St, and playing them last weekend, even with the win, dropped our RPI 16 spots. We do not want to finish fifth.

[Minnesota Ute]

I’m not going to panic if we lose because as I’ve said repeatedly, we can still split with Cal, lose to Oregon, and still finish fourth. That said the caveat is that we NEED to win all the games we are supposed to win. With Colorado beating Oregon in Boulder, I’m getting nervous about that game. With Colorado’s resume being decent coming into conference and that win or Oregon, that game could shape up to be a big time bubble buster game.

[Minnesota Ute]

If we assume that UCLA, Cal & USC are our competition for 3rd or 4th, a look at each team’s hard games remaining:

USC: Oregon, @UCLA, @Arizona (already has 4 losses)

UCLA: Oregon, USC, @Arizona (3 losses)

Cal: Utah, @Arizona, Oregon, @Utah (3 losses)

Utah: @Cal, @Oregon, Cal (3 losses)

So to me, this is all to our advantage.  The interesting thing is that the Buffs could be the big turd in the punchbowl.  They play us @ Boulder and Cal twice, so we really need to win in Boulder and have them beat Cal at least once if not twice.  

 

[TheJuggernaut]

Agree we’re in the driver’s seat for fourth, and we’re certainly within shouting distance of third.

I also agree there’s no need to panic with a loss tonight, but a win would be so huge and in looking at remaining schedules, if we got the W tonight it would take a pretty sizeable meltdown for us to finish lower than fourth.

[Tony (admin)]

Fantastic discussion. Great reading. I can’t help thinking we will lose one game we should win but that’s the sceptic in me. But maybe we’ll win one we would likely lose. 

[Minnesota Ute]

I’m that will not happen because our only opportunity to win one we would likely lose is @Oregon, and I am very very very skeptical that we can steal that one.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we give them another dog fight, and then Colorado comes in and knocks them off again after they shoot their wad beating us.  The only other game that you might consider in that vein is tonight since we are effectively tied with Cal in the standings and we are on the road.  We need to NOT lose any WFT games.

[TheJuggernaut]

This team has just about exceeded my expectations for the season (18-20 wins, NIT). I’ve been most impressed with the way this team has played on the road, our only road losses are Xavier (shorthanded – no Barefield or Collete) and Arizona, and we were competitive in both. I believe this team is tough enough mentally to get wins at Cal, Stanford, and Colorado (and of course Oregon St). Until we beat Oregon, anywhere, I’m going to chalk that game up as a loss.

In short I don’t think we’re going to see a WTF loss from this team. As for our remaining schedule I’m leaning to a loss tonight and at Oregon, we finish the PAC schedule 13-5, get the 4 seed, win one game in the PAC tournament and get to the semis, where we lose to Oregon or Arizona and finish up 23-9 (13-5). I think that gets us in the 9-11 seed range in the NCAA tournament.

[Minnesota Ute]

Agree for the most part, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see us sneak into a 7 or 8 seed if the season plays out like that, which I agree, it is better than possible we end up 23-9. If it plays out like that, 8 of our 9 losses will be to (then) top 25 teams. Not sure if Xavier will end season in top 25, they have been struggling. Won a barn burner with Seton Hall just the other night.

[TheJuggernaut]

Yep, if it plays out like that our losses would all (minus SF) be to great/really good teams. I was torn last night watching USC-UW, I wanted USC to lose to get them further out of the race for fourth place, but they’re by far our best win to date, so them winning is good for us.