Harky4 said:

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BearlyCareAnymore said:

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As I said earlier in the season, the ridiculous nonconference schedule could really hurt us. If Cal had replaced every team on the schedule ranked below 250 with a team 50 points higher, they would have easily won all those games and I believe they would be on the comfortable part of the bubble right now. And there was no excuse playing Dominican.

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A Quad 4 centric non-conference schedule should never be repeated if we desire to compete with Quad 1 (and even the top Quad 2) teams in the post season's Big Dance.

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sorry but sometimes seeding feels like something shakespeare wrote, but different somehow..

BearSD said:

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BearlyCareAnymore said:

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6956bear said:

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6956bear said:

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BearlyCareAnymore said:

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vaderbear95 said:

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What about Santa Clara's wins versus ours are you so impressed with BearlyCare? They beat one tourney team, St Mary's, twice. That's good.

But are those wins better than beating UNC, SMU, Miami, UCLA?

And yeah their early season SOS was better than ours, which has been hurting us. But of course they lost to an absolutely terrible team in Loyola-Chicago.

Santa Clara probably gets in w/ this second win over St Mary's. They're a pretty good team. But I would put our wins up against theirs.

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They have a harder schedule
They have a better record.
They were much better against Quad 2.
They have one really bad loss that you guys are harping on. Most teams can have a really bad night. No one thinks that makes them as bad as that. Definitely not the committee. Their worst loss is worse than our worst loss. And then we have a bunch more bad losses. Consistent bad losses is worse than one bad loss.
We chose not to challenge ourselves and instead racked up wins against awful opponents.

This is all captured by their significantly better NET and KenPom. You guys are looking at individual games through a subjective and massively biased lens and arguing against an objective, non-biased algorithm. The algorithm isn't the end all, but it is pretty good. If it were close, you might have a point. When it is like 30 points difference you do not.

There is zero chance that the committee would take the grief for leaving out a mid major from a good mid major conference with a 15-3 conference record and 30 points higher in KenPom to replace them with a 65-71 ranked also ran ACC team with a 9-9 record.

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Cal is being punished for playing so many really weak non conference opponents. Santa Clara actually played more cupcakes overall than did Cal. Santa Clara played 18 quad 3 and quad 4 games. Cal played 15. Cal has more quad 1 wins but Santa Clara better in quad 2.

Cupcakes are cupcakes. All the better teams beat the Q3 and Q4 teams they play. I do think Santa Clara belongs in the tourney. I do not think the Cal argument is why Santa Clara and not Cal. But more why VCU who played 20 Q3 and Q4 teams and have 4 Q1 and Q2 wins combined. Or why is Stanford ahead of Cal with 3 Q3 losses before yesterday and had lost both games to Cal.

VCU is in a majority of bracketologists predictions. And Stanford was considered in by over 30 until last night.

Auburn, Indiana, Oklahoma and Texas all have a lot of losses. Same with Cincy. Cal has more Q1 wins than all but Texas. Texas also has a Q3 loss.

My concern is that playing Q1 and Q2 games seems to matter more than actually winning them. Cal has a thin resume but so do many of the teams they are supposedly in contention with. That is what the bubble is. A bunch of pretty good teams that finish mid in P4 leagues or play in a mid major like VCU does. VCU is 1-5 vs Q1. And beat nobody ranked higher than 49 in the NET. Cal has 4 wins better than that. VCU's best win is South Florida on a neutral court and played 20 Q3 and Q4 games.

Anyone make these numbers look however you want them to. Cal is on life support in regards to making the tourney. But I am concerned that these bracketologists favor a 15 loss Auburn team or had Stanford a team that Cal beat both times and had 3 Q3 losses above them. Or VCU in the field. CBS had both VCU and Stanford in the field as of yesterday.

I readily acknowledge Cal needs a lot of help to make the tourney and may need to beat Duke. But in comparison with many of the teams on the bubble it is actually pretty close.

The schedule is a problem. Cal needed to challenge themselves more. But they largely beat the teams they were supposed to outside of Pitt. And were as competitive or more so in Q1 games when looking at other bubble type teams.. Playing a bunch of Q1 games in conference and losing them (many by double digits) is being rewarded by the NET.

And can someone explain to me how Missouri is 60 in the NET. And Auburn is 40. Missouri is 10-11 in q1 and Q2 games. And beat Auburn head to head. Yet Auburn is 20 points ahead in the NET. Auburn is 7-14 in Q1 and Q2 but has a 20 point lead on Auburn in the NET. Missouri has no Q3 or Q4 losses and Auburn has 1.

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And today they now show Cal as in playing VCU in Dayton. The point of all this is that different folks see these results and NET rankings etc differently.

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As I said earlier in the season, the ridiculous nonconference schedule could really hurt us. If Cal had replaced every team on the schedule ranked below 250 with a team 50 points higher, they would have easily won all those games and I believe they would be on the comfortable part of the bubble right now. And there was no excuse playing Dominican.

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Those nonconference opponents were not just 50 points too low on average. It's 100 points or more. Replacing a #250 team with a #200 team, for a game played in Berkeley, would still have been a Quad 4 game.

Most of those "Quad 4" games should have been "Quad 2" in order to boost the resume sufficiently. Look at all the teams with at least 10 losses that are ahead of Cal in the NCAA NET rankings. Pretty much all of them have more Quad 1 and 2 games combined and more wins in those games.

The quad definitions are:

QUAD 1
Home: 1-30
Neutral: 1-50
Road: 1-75

QUAD 2
Home: 31-75
Neutral: 51-100
Road: 76-135

QUAD 3
Home: 76-160
Neutral: 101-200
Road: 136-240

QUAD 4
Home: 161-353
Neutral: 201-353
Road: 241-353

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I'm not convinced the Quad designations are as important as claimed. It's a nice shorthand, but there is no way that beating #75 on the road is the same as beating #1 at home. Beating Wake on the road is not remotely in the ballpark of beating Duke at home.

We could play Stanford in tbe nit at Haas. That would be epic

Well now we do not have to worry about the brackets anymore. Until the NIT bracket is unveiled.

Well obviously a really tough loss today making our tourney odds real slim. Really wish sometimes we could just catch a break every once in a while. Feel like we gave up like 1/3 open threes but they legitimately couldn't miss from deep. They had a 32.7% and a 31.7 percenter hit multiple contested fading threes which was pretty soul crushing to watch. Also side note they need to adopt the NBA's review policy on out of bounds plays. It has happened so many times this season we have watched fouls lead to out of bounds reviews getting overturned.

Yeah I agree I just wish for once in a big game the opponent could just be cold from three. Like even when we played a good 25 seconds they would just drill a fading leaner or a contested three.

Yeah agree w/ you Redless. We get bodied inside and are a bad rebounding team which has hurt us all season long. Would be great to get a few bruisers so we don't get out-physicalled next year.

Shoot. Really tough to lose this one. How many times have I said that as a Cal fan? At least this season we put ourselves to be in it and play meaningful games until the very end.

Sometimes it's tough to say, but Go Bears! Still rooting for you...

RedlessWardrobe said:

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All season long the real defensive problem wasn't giving up threes, but instead our complete lack of strength and physicality inside the key. Our forwards are not strong enough to defend, Dort is average at best ...

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Could be better and probably will be better next season. Either way I'll take 18 rebounds any day.