Cal Basketball: Bears Can Inch Closer to Pac-12 Tourney Bye With Win at Colorado
The Cal basketball team hasn’t beaten Colorado at Boulder (elevation 5,430 feet) in nine years and the opportunity might not arise again anytime soon, with the schools dashing off to new conferences next season.
But a win by the Golden Bears (11-13, 9-8 Pac-12) over the Buffaloes (18-9, 9-7) on Wednesday night could elevate sixth-place Cal as high as fourth place in the conference standings.
To get there, the Bears also would need some help from Washington, which hosts UCLA on Thursday night. A Cal win at Colorado and a Bruins loss in Seattle would vault the Bears to 10-8 and leave both CU and UCLA at 9-8 with a week-and-a-half left on the regular-season schedule.
From a tangible standpoint, fourth place is significant. The top four seeds in the Pac-12 tournament — March 13-16 at Las Vegas — receive first-round byes into the quarterfinals, meaning those teams only need to win three games to capture the conference crown and automatic NCAA tournament bid. The other eight teams must win four days in a row.
*** Here are the remaining Pac-12 games on the Cal, Colorado and UCLA schedules:
Cal: at Colorado, at Utah, at Stanford
Colorado: vs. Cal, vs. Stanford, at Oregon, at Oregon State
UCLA: at Washington, at WSU, vs. Arizona, vs. Arizona State
*** Here are how those three teams are trending:
Cal: Won 3 in a row and 5 of 7
Colorado: Won 2 in a row but only 3 of 7
UCLA: Lost 2 in a row but won 6 of 8
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Fardaws Aimaq grabs a rebound against UCLA.
Photo by D. Ross Cameron, USA Today
CAL STATISTICAL TARGETS: Cal’s school record for rebounds in a season has stood since Ansley Truitt corralled 382 rebounds during the 1971-72 season.
Can senior Fardaws Aimaq threaten the 52-year-old record?
Aimaq has climbed to No. 8 on the list with 317 rebounds and with 12 more will move to No. 5. That would give him Cal’s highest single-season total in 42 years.
Averaging a Pac-12-best 11.3 boards per game, Aimaq is on pace to reach reach No. 3 on the list at 362, provided the Bears play the minimum four games.
But if they win just once in the Pac-12 tournament, Aimaq would be positioned to climb over Darrall Imhoff (1960) into second place and get within view of Truitt.
CAL’S SINGLE-SEASON REBOUND LEADERS
1. Ansley Truitt (1972) 382
2. Darrall Imhoff (1960) 371
3. Bob Presley (1968) 347
4. Mark McNamara (1982) 341
5. Ryan Andeson (2008) 328
6. Ivan Rabb (2017) 324
7. Darrall Imhoff (1959) 318
8. Fardaws Aimaq (2024) 317
9. Richard Solomon (2014) 307
10. Ansley Truitt (1971) 306
Note: Truitt averaged 13.2 rebounds in ’72 while Bob Presley set the program record of 14.5 per game in 1968.
Meanwhile, Jaylon Tyson (20.1 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.3 assists) is the nation’s only major-college player averaging 20-7-3. No former Cal player — not even Jason Kidd — finished a season with that combination of numbers.
Tyson has scored 542 points this season and with 58 more he’d become just the 10th Cal player to reach 600 in a season.
CAL’S SINGLE-SEASON SCORING LEADERS
1. Lamond Murray (994) 729
2. Ryan Anderson (2008) 697
3. Jerome Randle (2010) 651
4. Leonard Taylor (1989) 649
5. Ed Gray (1997) 644
6. Joe Shipp (2003) 632
7. Allen Crabbe (2013) 607
8. Sean Lampley (2001) 605
9. Jerome Randle (2009) 603
10. Mark McNamara (1982) 593
Cover photo of Jalen Cone, left, and Jaylon Tyson by Darren Yamashita, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
