by Michael Duca

BERKELEY–“Excuse me what’s a Ute?” The judge asked the attorney (actor Joe Pecsi) in the movie My Cousin Vinny, the Cal Bears are about to find out this Sunday. I see this game ending after 40 minutes with the Utah Utes (19-4) winning this game on Sunday against the Cal Bears (16-9) by 12 points, the Utes are a big physical team and the Bears don’t fair well against big physical teams.

They were competitive against Texas they were really in any threatening position to win the game and Texas is a big physical team. Arizona is clearly head and shoulders above everybody in the Pac 12 although they are now tied with Utah. The Utes not only can they smell it this is a team that was absolutely dreadful when Larry Krystkowiak took over from Montana.

Krystkowiak is a former Bears head coach Mike Montgomery disciple, Montgomery talked about the fact that he would make that team competitive very quickly and he has done that without having great players. They have taken what he’s got and coached them into being an effective efficent oriented team organization.

No one is expecting the Utes to work terribly hard against Cal this Sunday but Cal has found their three point shooting range this is a team that is not afraid to hoist up 20-25 three point shots a game. They had that game last week where they made more threes than twos. It’s not out of the question if they hang with the Utes because Utah is not a three point shooting club.

The Utes are an inside team with a low post presence, they scored two at a time but if the Bears can score three at a time they’ll hang in. The Bears are coming to Sunday’s game with five straight wins. You never say never, especially in college sports if they Bears can pull this one off. Attitude and heart have a lot to do with it, games are shorter than the pro games, so if somebody goes on a run there might not be time to answer it.

You can’t say for sure I didn’t think Arizona would ever think they’d go into Well Fargo Arena in Tempe and coming out having dropped into a first place tie with Utah in the conference but things happen. Taking a look at some of the players who made things work in the last few games during this streak. Dwight Tarwater is a surprise here this is a kid who had a tough senior year at Cornell and didn’t get to play as much as he wanted to who threw up a three pointer for a winner against UCLA last Saturday.

Tarwater is a graduate student and wanted to use his last year of eligibility at Cal rather than stay at Cornell, Tarwater is not an exceptional player, he’s not exceptionally tall, he’s not quick, he’s not a deadly outside shooter, he’s not a great ball handler, he’s not a terrific center, he’s not a great rebounder but he turns out to be a pretty good basketball player if he plays within Cal head coach Cuonzo Martin’s system.

Michael Duca does Cal Bears commentary each week on http://www.sportrsradioservice.com listen to his podcast on Cal below