Two Pac-12 teams that are eyeing a spot in the NCAA Tournament will meet Saturday night when the Stanford Cardinal host the Arizona Wildcats. On the road, Arizona is a 4-point favorite with an over/under of 133 points.
With the way they’ve struggled over the past month, a spot in the Big Dance is far from secure for Stanford. The Cardinal has lost six of its last seven games, dropping them to 16-8 overall and 5-6 in league play.
In fairness, all six of those losses have come by single digits. However, Stanford hasn’t been able to close out games and find a way to win.
Meanwhile, the Wildcats are pushing for the Pac-12 regular-season title as well as a top-4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Arizona has won three of its last four games to get to 7-4 in Pac-12 play, pulling them within half a game of Colorado and Oregon at the top of the conference.
Of course, there are currently six teams within a game of one another atop the Pac-12 standings, so the Wildcats have little margin for error if they want to win the conference title.
The Big Three
Arizona continues to be led by the freshman trio of Zeke Nnaji, Nico Mannion, and Josh Green. All three have hit the ground running with the Wildcats and showed few signs of slowing down as we head down the stretch.
Nnaji scored 21 points in his last time out and has three double-doubles in his last four games. Mannion, despite some off night scoring, propels the Wildcats with 5.5 assists per game. Green, for what it’s worth, has been a little more erratic scoring, but he makes contributions in other areas to affect games.
The question for Arizona is what they’ll get out of their other players. Chase Jeter returned from an injury on Thursday but hasn’t been a big factor this season.
The real X-factor for the Wildcats is senior sharpshooter Dylan Smith. He scored 14 points while shooting 4 of 5 from behind the arc during Thursday’s win but was 1 of 18 from the perimeter over his previous four games.
Injury Report
The fate of Stanford’s season could rest on the team’s injury report. Leading scorer Oscar da Silva is a week removed from a scary head injury. His absence was an issue in losses to Colorado after the injury and Arizona State mid-week when Stanford played without him.
The good news is that Bryce Wills was able to return from injury on Thursday in the loss to Arizona State. However, da Silva is listed as day-to-day and could miss the Arizona game.
Without da Silva, Tyrell Terry is Stanford’s only player who averages over 10 points per game. The Cardinal isn’t particularly explosive offensively at full strength, and the absence of da Silva makes that fact all the more obvious.
If he can’t go, Stanford will need other players to step up, specifically freshman Spencer Jones, who shoots 43% from three-point range and can be a game-changer if he gets how from the outside.
Watch for Fallen Trees
With da Silva’s status up in the air, Stanford is going to have a tough time keeping up with Arizona’s freshmen trio. While the Cardinal has lost a lot of close games recently, a 4-point spread isn’t enough to take a chance on a struggling Stanford team. Bet on Arizona to win and cover on Saturday night.
