Colorado Preview: Two of Pac-12's Hottest Teams Meet in Vegas

It seemed preposterous a week ago, but 12th seeded Cal and 5th seeded Colorado come into the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas as two of the hottest teams in the conference. They face one another Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. each on a three-game win streak, The Buffaloes (19-11. 10-8) Pac-12 appeared to hit a wall two weeks ago when they dropped games to Washington State and Washington. But they came back to close the conference season by beating Utah, UCLA and USC.

The ascension of the Bears (8-22, 3-15) was most unlikely. They broke their school-record 16-game losing streak by taking down No. 25 Washington, the regular season champ, then followed it up by beating Washington State and Stanford in Maples Pavilion.

“I am very happy with the way we finished conference play with three wins,” Cal head coach Wyking Jones said in a conference call Monday in what had to be a huge understatement. “It kind of all came together. We started the chemistry on the offensive end. It came together at the right time. Looking forward to the matchup against Colorado on Wednesday.”

He might want to be careful with what he looks forward to. Before they stubbed their toe in Washington, Colorado had won six in a row. Going back further was a 68-59 victory over Cal at Berkeley. The Bears spotted the Buffs a 18-point lead, came back to go ahead themselves, then wilted town the stretch.

Forward Tyler Bey (1, above), who along with point guard McKinley Wright, was named first team All-Pac-12, was a headache to the Bears that night, with 17 points, 14 rebounds and three blocked shots. “We’ve got to do a better job with him, keeping him off the glass,” Jones said. “Not letting him score inside and getting easy looks inside.”

Bey, who was also voted the conference’s Most Improved Player, leads Colorado at 13.4 points and 9.6 rebounds per game while shooting 56 percent from the field. He is the co-leader in the Pac-12 in double-doubles with 14, including a current streak of five in a row.

“He’s a workhorse, a high energy guy,” Jones said. “He’s an undersized (6-7) post player. And he gets a lot done because he works hard. He has a great motor, he has a nose for the ball. He is a great finisher above the rim.”

Wright is generally regarded as one of the two or three best point guards in the league and his backcourt mate Shane Gatling is a threat from three-point range.

“He’s a guy that can catch and shoot,” Jones said. “You’ve got to run him off the line, can’t give him open looks. I want to say he hit seven at UCLA (Feb. 19). He’s a big-time three-point threat.”

Guard Lucas Siewert led the Buffs in scoring that first game with 18.

As Jones pointed out, the Cal team that lost to the Buffs in January is different from the current version. “Look at our starting lineup,” he said. “We went with Paris (Austin), Matt (Bradley), Justice (Sueing), Roman (Davis) and Andre (Kelly).  The first time we played them Connor (Vanover) only played six minutes. And Darius (McNeill) came off the bench.

Recently Vanover and McNeill have joined Austin, Bradley and Sueing.

“What hurt us the most is that they beat us on the boards. 37-24. They dominated us. We didn’t shoot the ball well, went 5-for-21 from three, shot 23 percent. We’re a better shooting team than that.”

The big (in every sense of the word) difference, of course, is the 7-3 Vanover. He has become a force both on offense and defense.

“I think Connor brings more of a rim protection presence,” Jones said. “He did a really good job protecting the rim in the last game (at Stanford).”

The winner of this game gets No. 4 seed Oregon State with Washington looming in the same half of the bracket. For Cal or Colorado to win the tournament and grab the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA it would have to win four games in four days. That has been done only once since the league expanded to 12 teams, and it was Colorado who pulled it off in 2012.

Buffs coach Tad Boyle thinks his team has a chance to do it.

"It could be us because we're defending, we're rebounding, and we're playing together," Boyle told the Colorado media. "Now, we're going to have to make some shots. We're going to get a little luck. We're going to have to have the ball bounce our way. We're going to have to win a close game or two or three or four. You're going to have to play well down the stretch.

"You're going to have to go win that tournament. The tournament is not going to be given to you. But it could be anybody. And it could be the Buffaloes because we're playing well right now, and I don't think there's anybody in our league we can't beat."

They couldn’t beat Washington in two tries, and the two of the conference teams besides Cal who did, Arizona State and Oregon, are in the other half of the bracket. The Huskies have a clear path.