by Michael Duca

BERKELEY–The Cal Golden Bears are the avis of the Pac 12 their number two and their right behind Arizona and Arizona is only ahead of them because they played one more game which they won that game. Cal is undefeated in the conference and their off to their best start since 2007. They didn’t get off to a great start against Washington State they were trailing early and as head coach Mike Montgomery said “if were not ready to play we can’t play well against anybody.”

They snapped out of it late in the first half and went on a huge run 23-4 and they really put that game in the cooler, this is a team that can do that, they defend on the rebound. If you look at the box score and look at the distribution of the rebounds Cal’s Richard Solomon is going to get ten or 11 a game and David Kravish is probably going to get six or seven or maybe even eight or approach double figures on occasion as the other low post.

Cal’s Tyrone Wallace is averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of six rebounds a game Justin Cobbs gets more than his fair share of rebounds. Everybody is taught by Montgomery to look for the ball, everybody can help rebound you can position yourself and watch how other teams shoot the shoot around and see where the ball tends to come off the iron when they miss.

As you practice as you play, everybody on the floor is aware of the fact that they have a duty to throw themselves on the floor and scrap for the rebound because that’s how you complete a defensive stop if the team shoots misses you got half of a defensive stop the other half is to get the ball.

The Bears have one big test coming up this week, they should be able to handle USC, but UCLA (14-4) kind of annointed themselves as the best team in the conference. If not the best team to compete with Arizona for the top spot and they had their hats handed to them pretty well by Utah. That was a signature win for the Utah program that was completely down in the dumps two years ago.

To beat UCLA is a great win for Utah and a very serious loss for UCLA one that knocked them out of the top 25. You know that the Bruins are going to be pardon the expression loaded for bear this week in games against Stanford and Cal. Their looking to redeem themselves and to get back into the thick of it. So that game at Pauley Pavilion is going to be is going to be a supreme test for the Bears.

This game will be a toss up and it’s no telling who is the hands down winner when Cal gets to UCLA but there is no better X’s and O’s coach than Montgomery. If there are weaknesses on UCLA that can be exploited he’s going to tell his kids what they are and how they going to do it. If they execute this plan that is another thing entirely, but their going to know how to do it.

Michael Duca does commentary on Cal basketball each week for Sportstalk radio