Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer won her third national championship by beating Adia Barnes and the Arizona Wildcats in the 2021 national title game in San Antonio. VanDerveer might want to send Barnes a gift one week from now if Stanford is able to win the Pac-12 championship. Arizona just made Stanford’s path to the title a lot more manageable.
Arizona, which beat Utah on Friday, turned around and hammered Colorado on Sunday. Buffaloes Wire has more on the story:
“The No. 21 Colorado Buffaloes just can’t seem to figure out how to beat ranked teams on the road,” Tony Cosolo wrote. “Sunday’s test came in the form of the No. 18 Arizona Wildcats and CU was less than stellar, losing 61-42. With that loss, CU dropped to 21-6 on the season and a concerning 0-4 when playing ranked teams on the road.
“Shooting woes and turnovers were the main pain points for the Buffaloes, as Colorado shot only 28% from the field and turned the ball over 20 times en route to its lowest scoring output of the season. The Buffaloes jumped out to a 9-5 lead in the first quarter, but Arizona went on a 12-1 run to close out the quarter and never looked back.”
Stanford heads into a Monday night home game versus UCLA with a chance to maintain the outright lead in the Pac-12 heading into the final week of the regular season.
Before this past weekend of games, Stanford was tied with Utah and just one game ahead of Colorado. Now the Cardinal lead Utah by one game in the loss column and Colorado by two. If Stanford beats UCLA, the Trees will have a one-game lead over the Utes, two over the Buffaloes.
With Stanford visiting Colorado and Utah on the final weekend of the season, the Cardinal (in the event of a win over UCLA) would just need to split to guarantee a share of the Pac-12 title. If they beat Utah, they will win the league outright no matter what else happens.
Colorado isn’t officially eliminated from the Pac-12 title chase, but the chances are slim to none for the Buffs. If Stanford beats UCLA on Monday night, Colorado would need Utah to lose at home to California to have any chance of sharing the Pac-12 title. Utah beating Cal means that even if Colorado defeats Stanford, the Utes and Cardinal would enter their big showdown ahead of Colorado. Since one of Utah or Stanford would win that game, CU couldn’t catch the winner. It would catch the loser, but not both. CU needed to beat Arizona to stay in the title hunt, but it didn’t.
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