wifeisafurd said:
BeachedBear said:
wifeisafurd said:
blungld said:
It's crazy to me that with 64+ teams making the tournament you still have to be this good and it is still this hard to make it in.
Agreed, but there are a decent number of those 64 spots that are reserved for teams that meet certain criteria such as winning a lower division conference championship tourney. The reality is Cal and most other P4 and Big East schools are competing for fewer spaces than 64. The ACC has the no. 1 team and a few top 25 teams, but has a lot of good, but not great teams like Cal. Tough overall conference. The Big 12 and Big 10 have been 1 and 2 in RPI with the SEC and ACC taking turns on the next two spots, and the Big East then (though the Big East has some elite teams such as UConn. My guess is that Cal will be listed in the Topp 25 as an "other receiving votes" after the SMU win (assuming they take care of business against a weak Pitt team). Win out and win the first ACC tourney game they should be set for the Big Dance and could be somewhere ranked around 25 to 30.
I think the bigger issue is that Cal needs a few teams 'ahead' of them to start tanking. It is not whether Cal is good enough, but more if Cal is better than a few other teams that may have a better record against quads 1 and 2 (I think Cal is still .500 or below in that metric).
I agree that is in the calculus. Of the bubble teams, Cal has the easiest schedule from the analysis I have seen. Built in is we beat who we should beat, and others lose to higher ranked teams. Also, if other bubble teams start making long runs into conference tourneys and Cal is upset in the first ACC game, all bets off. But if Cal
wins four more games, it hard to picture an ACC 24 win team not making the Big Dance.
Agree. Simply said Cal needs to win. 24 should be enough. The conference tourneys are both good and bad possibilities for Cal as you point out. If Cal happens to lose their first game and results from elsewhere are good for other bubble programs it could get dicey.
I think the conference tourneys could be pretty impactful to the final selections. There are a lot of teams with similar resumes.
Also the teams like Miami (OH) and St Louis need to win their tourneys. They are likely in regardless and Cal will want those leagues to be one bid leagues. And generally that is what the bracketologists have in their predictions. Though VCU is a team to watch out for. They are in some brackets and out in others. Much like Cal.
