by Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–Defensively the Utah Utes (19-4) are one of the top teams in the country ranked at 11th. The Utes have a lot of size and a lot of smart ball handlers and guys that facilitate out of their back court. The Utes are really good defensively, so if Cal (16-9) had seen them before the win streak they would really be in trouble. The Bears still might be in trouble trying to navigate the defense that the Utes present.

Utes seven foot center Dallin Bachyinski is not going to start but the Utes are looking at starting center Jakob Poeltl he’s a seven foot starter. Bachyinski will be coming off the bench and it’s a real adjustment for Utah because Poeltl started previous to this year and Peoltl in the mix Bachyinski is the back up. Once again they both Utah great depth with shot blocking ability and protect the paint.

All these things are going to give Cal issues and now you have the loss of Christian Behrens with his knee issues which will be determined but it will keep him out of Sunday’s game in Utah. This why this is a legitimate top team that that has size and has depth their really smart on how they share the basketball and protect the basketball when they have it.

The Utes are a really good team in the conference play they’ve just been blowing everybody out including Stanford who they beat 75-59 they won that game by 17 but it wasn’t that close you got to look out for the Utes. The Bears will have a tough time to contend with the Utes in the paint, a lot of the work that their going to have to do has to be on the perimeter.

The Bears are going to have to be disruptive to Utah’s guards and try to force some turnovers and get some easy baskets and all that is not as easily done as it is said this Utah team really protects the ball well and they don’t go out and make a lot of mistakes. From Cal’s prospective it might not what they do defensively but what they do offensively.

If the Bears can score and if they can get a lead and if they do get a lead they can protect it. The Utes have a 17 game home win streak and Cal hasn’t beaten anybody like this in the five game win streak they beat some teams that were below them in the standings with the exception of UCLA. This and Arizona tops as Cal’s biggest remaining tasks, on the schedule they didn’t have any luck with Arizona the first time around at home so it’s hard to see Cal doing much better at Arizona.

Morris Phillips covers Cal basketball and is filling in for Michelle Richardson for the NCAA basketball commentary this week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to Morris’ podcast below on Cal hoops