UCLA Basketball: Breaking down the match-ups against Cal and Stanford

Match-up vs. Stanford

While the California Golden Bears did defeat the Stanford Cardinal in the first contest of the season, Stanford pulled away with a 77-73 victory in the second match-up. However, it should be noted how close the game was throughout. Quite frankly, Cal played some of their best basketball against Stanford.

However, chances are that Stanford will kick it up a gear and handle the Golden Bears to face the UCLA Bruins. With UCLA as the fourth-seed and Stanford as the fifth, this looks to be the most intriguing match-up of the second round.

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It is even more intriguing as the two teams split the two contests this season. At home, Stanford put on an offensive clinic to defeat UCLA 107-99. However, in LA, the Bruins were able to respond with an 89-73 routing.

With this game being at a neutral site, the home field advantage is wiped away and the match-up simply comes down to who has more talent. While there may be more UCLA fans than Stanford, it will not be enough to make an overwhelming difference.

Quite frankly, this is going to come down to a scoring battle between Aaron Holiday and Daejon Davis. Holiday led the Bruins in scoring and Davis was third on his club. However, he thrived against UCLA with 22 points in the victory and a game-high 23 in the loss. Holiday scored a team-high 21 in the Bruins win over the Cardinal.

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Thus, if there is one thing to watch out for in the UCLA-Stanford match-up it will be the play of two scoring guards; Holiday and Davis. With the game at a neutral site, I have to give the slight edge to UCLA.