Of course we'd like to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd, but 4th (with a 1st round bye in Las Vegas) seems like the realistic goal this year. UCLA, Arizona and Oregon are far ahead of the rest of the conference on KenPom ratings and have done well in conference so far.

Cal is 4th best on KenPom and has already won their only game against USC (which wins Cal a tie-breaker with USC), so we're looking good for 4th. USC and Utah are probably our main competition for 4th.

4-0 +22.27 Arizona (beat Cal)
4-0 +21.04 Oregon (beat UCLA)
3-1 +23.32 UCLA (beat Cal, lost to Oregon)
2-1 +10.74 Utah (lost to Arizona)
2-1 -02.07 Washington St. (lost to Oregon)
2-2 +14.00 California (lost to UCLA and Arizona, beat USC)
2-2 +12.99 USC (lost to Cal and Oregon)
2-2 +04.00 Arizona St. (lost to Cal)
1-2 +04.64 Washington (lost to Oregon)
0-3 +10.03 Colorado (lost to Utah, Arizona and ASU)
0-4 +04.42 Stanford
0-4 -06.87 Oregon St.

I'd be satisfied with anything in the top half of the standings.
I'm still not expecting much. (Easier to be pleasantly surprised.)

R90;842788939 said:

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Of course we'd like to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd, but 4th (with a 1st round bye in Las Vegas) seems like the realistic goal this year. UCLA, Arizona and Oregon are far ahead of the rest of the conference on KenPom ratings and have done well in conference so far.

Cal is 4th best on KenPom and has already won their only game against USC (which wins Cal a tie-breaker with USC), so we're looking good for 4th. USC and Utah are probably our main competition for 4th.

4-0 +22.27 Arizona (beat Cal)
4-0 +21.04 Oregon (beat UCLA)
3-1 +23.32 UCLA (beat Cal, lost to Oregon)
2-1 +10.74 Utah (lost to Arizona)
2-1 -02.07 Washington St. (lost to Oregon)
2-2 +14.00 California (lost to UCLA and Arizona, beat USC)
2-2 +12.99 USC (lost to Cal and Oregon)
2-2 +04.00 Arizona St. (lost to Cal)
1-2 +04.64 Washington (lost to Oregon)
0-3 +10.03 Colorado (lost to Utah, Arizona and ASU)
0-4 +04.42 Stanford
0-4 -06.87 Oregon St.

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I'm guessing, short of a Pac12 tourney title, 4th will be needed to make it to the NCAA tourney. The conference RPI isn't strong enough to get 5 at-large teams in.

Civil Bear;842789006 said:

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I'm guessing, short of a Pac12 tourney title, 4th will be needed to make it to the NCAA tourney. The conference RPI isn't strong enough to get 5 at-large teams in.

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Unless Coleman emerges as a spot up shooter (and decent defender who doesn't massacre people and get booted), and we can hit our FT's, we are likely going to suffer a setback too many. I'm seeing NIT.

Bird doesn't seem like he's going to carry us over the top with NBA level play, Moore will be a freshman, Moute and Domingo are now on the bench, Singer shot 2 of the UGLIEST shots of his career, and Mullins a stud Ivy Leaguer (but an Ivy nonetheless). But hey, we'll always have Galen Center! :p

Civil Bear;842789006 said:

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I'm guessing, short of a Pac12 tourney title, 4th will be needed to make it to the NCAA tourney. The conference RPI isn't strong enough to get 5 at-large teams in.

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If 5 Pac-12 teams finish in the RPI top 50, they'll all get in. I'm expecting UCLA, Arizona, Oregon, Cal and USC all to be in the bracket baring significant injuries, a meltdown and/or a run of really bad luck in close games.

R90;842789021 said:

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If 5 Pac-12 teams finish in the RPI top 50, they'll all get in. I'm expecting UCLA, Arizona, Oregon, Cal and USC all to be in the bracket baring significant injuries, a meltdown and/or a run of really bad luck in close games.

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Lots of games (for ALL) left to play! Let's wait and see.
And enjoy the ride!

concordtom;842789031 said:

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Lots of games (for ALL) left to play! Let's wait and see.
And enjoy the ride!

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+1. Starts this week by taking care of business at home. We should win both games by double digits baring the guy from Washington pulling a Hardin from ASU.

Civil Bear;842789006 said:

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I'm guessing, short of a Pac12 tourney title, 4th will be needed to make it to the NCAA tourney. The conference RPI isn't strong enough to get 5 at-large teams in.

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I don't think the committee is going to consider the RPI of respective conferences to determine selection. Perhaps in seeding, the conferences that performed well in the non-conference schedule will receive a boost (like the PAC-12 did last season, which benefited us). If 5 PAC-12 teams this season have the resumes ("quality" wins, road and neutral wins, and whatever other criteria the committee seems to increasingly consider) vs. other teams nationally, I think 5 is possible despite the bottom half of the conference being dreadful and having poor ratings. It really depends on how the other conferences play out. If those other conferences get top heavy, it plays to our advantage. The less bubble teams, the better.

Right now KenPom projects Cal going 20-10 (11-7 PAC-12 record). The remaining games the system projects Cal to lose are @Oregon, @Arizona, vs.Oregon, @Utah, and @Colorado. Despite 11-7 being a good conference record, that likely won't get it done for us since we blew all of our key non-conference games (SDSU, Seton Hall, Virginia) combined with the lack of opportunities for "quality wins" in the conference. However, it might do the job for USC, which has wins over SMU, Texas A&M, and BYU. A&M and BYU might be NIT teams, but those wins are better than any non-conference win we have.

Basically, Cal can't mess up (lose at home and/or lose the road games we'll be favored in) and probably has to split the Mountain trip. That would get us to 12-6 if we have no blunders. Crazy that 11-7 might get us left out and certain combinations of 12-6 might either have us comfortably in or on the bubble. That's how slim our margin for error is.

socaltownie;842789115 said:

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+1. Starts this week by taking care of business at home. We should win both games by double digits baring the guy from Washington pulling a Hardin from ASU.

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Like, you mean, the projected #1 pick in next year's nba draft?
Naw, he couldn't do anything like that.

socaltownie;842789115 said:

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+1. Starts this week by taking care of business at home. We should win both games by double digits baring the guy from Washington pulling a Hardin from ASU.

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I think you mean Eddie House, and his 61 point game for ASU at Harmon.

cal is 64 in RPI today (up 30 spots before USC win)
stanford is actually ahead of us in the RPI

Aaron says we can run the table.

That's the weakness of RPI and why--despite what internet posters write--the committee doesn't live and die by it. Our RPI is largely dependent on how SDSU, Virginia, Seton Hall, etc. play the rest of the way.

Our conference is pretty soft, UCLA, Oregon, Arizona and that's about it (USC is not quite ready for primetime). We could easily finish 4th if we continue to play like we did in South Central the other night.

UrsaMajor;842789575 said:

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That's the weakness of RPI and why--despite what internet posters write--the committee doesn't live and die by it.

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Has anyone actually said that?

When was the last time a Pac team with 11 conference wins failed to make the NCAA tournament?

bleu0;842789781 said:

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When was the last time a Pac team with 11 conference wins failed to make the NCAA tournament?

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2012. Four teams with 11-7 or better didn't make it.

Washington (14-4) -- Regular Season Champion
Oregon (13-5)
Arizona (12-6)
UCLA (11-7)

Cal (#37) was the only PAC-12 team in the RPI Top 50 that season. It was probably the only reason we were selected, as we had no RPI Top 50 wins that season.

Remember the good old days when going 10-8 in conference was enough for a possible bid?

Strykur;842789835 said:

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Remember the good old days when going 10-8 in conference was enough for a possible bid?

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Like last season, when a 10-8 team (Colorado) and two 9-9 teams (USC and Oregon State) got in. The good old days.

The conference collectively simply didn't position itself in the non-conference to have a scenario where 6-7 bids are possible. We definitely didn't do jack to help the conference (or ourselves) out.

tsubamoto2001;842789165 said:

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I don't think the committee is going to consider the RPI of respective conferences to determine selection. Perhaps in seeding, the conferences that performed well in the non-conference schedule will receive a boost (like the PAC-12 did last season, which benefited us). If 5 PAC-12 teams this season have the resumes ("quality" wins, road and neutral wins, and whatever other criteria the committee seems to increasingly consider) vs. other teams nationally, I think 5 is possible despite the bottom half of the conference being dreadful and having poor ratings. It really depends on how the other conferences play out. If those other conferences get top heavy, it plays to our advantage. The less bubble teams, the better.

Right now KenPom projects Cal going 20-10 (11-7 PAC-12 record). The remaining games the system projects Cal to lose are @Oregon, @Arizona, vs.Oregon, @Utah, and @Colorado. Despite 11-7 being a good conference record, that likely won't get it done for us since we blew all of our key non-conference games (SDSU, Seton Hall, Virginia) combined with the lack of opportunities for "quality wins" in the conference. However, it might do the job for USC, which has wins over SMU, Texas A&M, and BYU. A&M and BYU might be NIT teams, but those wins are better than any non-conference win we have.

Basically, Cal can't mess up (lose at home and/or lose the road games we'll be favored in) and probably has to split the Mountain trip. That would get us to 12-6 if we have no blunders. Crazy that 11-7 might get us left out and certain combinations of 12-6 might either have us comfortably in or on the bubble. That's how slim our margin for error is.

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You are right. I take it back. There is a scenario were if all the bottom 7 teams are BDW's the conference could get 5 at large births. I guess what I meant was that Cal will likely need to play well enough from here on out that they finish 4th or better to make the tourney.

R90;842789021 said:

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If 5 Pac-12 teams finish in the RPI top 50, they'll all get in. I'm expecting UCLA, Arizona, Oregon, Cal and USC all to be in the bracket baring significant injuries, a meltdown and/or a run of really bad luck in close games.

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It's Utah that is the 4th best team in the conference, followed by SC and Cal.

SFBearz;842793825 said:

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It's Utah that is the 4th best team in the conference, followed by SC and Cal.

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Whatever the result of this game is, they look like an NCAA team to me. They don't have the resume right now, but with a full roster, they look good.

Utah had two - inexplicable - bad decisions in the closing seconds of their loss to UCLA. The far out turn around when there was ample time to drive. And then the long pass to a player to take a two point shot at the buzzer when Utes were down three. Also surprised that Coach Alford had enough sense to use the fouls to lessen time for Utah to play for the last shot.

Utah got robbed with 40 seconds to go.
Ball totally fouled on a dunk rebound and no call. Woulda been Utah up by 1, instead ucla ball on rebound and ucla up 1.
Ripoff.

Probably good that Utah lost. They only have to play Arizona, UCLA and USC once each, which gives them an inside track for the 4 seed. Our games with the Utes effectively count double if they do end up being tougher competition for 4th than USC.

R90;842793935 said:

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Probably good that Utah lost. They only have to play Arizona, UCLA and USC once each, which gives them an inside track for the 4 seed. Our games with the Utes effectively count double if they do end up being tougher competition for 4th than USC.

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Yes that schedule advantage for Utah is another reason to think they end up 4th.

tsubamoto2001;842789165 said:

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I don't think the committee is going to consider the RPI of respective conferences to determine selection. Perhaps in seeding, the conferences that performed well in the non-conference schedule will receive a boost (like the PAC-12 did last season, which benefited us). If 5 PAC-12 teams this season have the resumes ("quality" wins, road and neutral wins, and whatever other criteria the committee seems to increasingly consider) vs. other teams nationally, I think 5 is possible despite the bottom half of the conference being dreadful and having poor ratings. It really depends on how the other conferences play out. If those other conferences get top heavy, it plays to our advantage. The less bubble teams, the better.

Right now KenPom projects Cal going 20-10 (11-7 PAC-12 record). The remaining games the system projects Cal to lose are @Oregon, @Arizona, vs.Oregon, @Utah, and @Colorado. Despite 11-7 being a good conference record, that likely won't get it done for us since we blew all of our key non-conference games (SDSU, Seton Hall, Virginia) combined with the lack of opportunities for "quality wins" in the conference. However, it might do the job for USC, which has wins over SMU, Texas A&M, and BYU. A&M and BYU might be NIT teams, but those wins are better than any non-conference win we have.

Basically, Cal can't mess up (lose at home and/or lose the road games we'll be favored in) and probably has to split the Mountain trip. That would get us to 12-6 if we have no blunders. Crazy that 11-7 might get us left out and certain combinations of 12-6 might either have us comfortably in or on the bubble. That's how slim our margin for error is.

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I say we beat Colorado at their home....lose to Oregon twice, and @Zona and @ Utah...win the rest and we are in..