by Matt Harrington

PALO ALTO–The Stanford Cardinal are on a huge winning streak right now they’ve won two straight and won seven of their last eight. They beat Cal for the first time in seven years at Berkeley and the Cardinal are running red hot right now. Their going to be a force down the stretch and you look at where the teams rank in terms of the statistics you have average points Oregon is number one 76.5, Stanford is number three at .73.6.

You look at Oregon on defense their 74.5 and Stanford is going to get their chances to score on Sunday night when they face Oregon, their two evenly matched teams. Their second and third in rebounds, second and third in three pointers, seventh and eighth in field goal percentage, their evenly matched teams all the way down to Oregon star player Joseph Young.

Young who just passed Chasson Randle in the scoring race for the Pac 12 leader. Young is averaging 19.9 points and Randle 19.4 it’s going to be an evenly matched game. The thing that the Cardinal have going is that they have a little of their swagger back this past week. Oregon is red hot their right above Stanford in the standings.

If the Ducks beat Stanford on Sunday their going to lock up a first round bye in the Pac 12 Tournament and third place in the standings, it’s a pivotal thing for both teams, it’s going to be an evenly matched game. It’s going to be a must watch game, it’s going to be a big game in terms of looking at the playoff picture in the Pac 12 and March Madness.

The depth that Oregon has scoring, it’s going to be a challenge for Stanford if Oregon has really staked a claim as one of the top teams in the Pac 12. Some people have ranked Arizona a little bit higher than Utah just based upon the recent string of games. Oregon has proven their a dominate team when they started looking at the 11-5 record.

So it’s going to be a struggle for Stanford to hold Oregon from scoring and Oregon is the high scoring team in the Pac 12. So you know that Oregon is going to put up points. The key for Stanford is to come back and to put up points of their own. Oregon will give you that chance to score. Stanford has to be productive don’t count on the players who are running red hot right now.

Matt Harrington covers Stanford basketball listen to his commentary below on http://www.sportsradioservice.com