Two spots behind Alabama.

Cal received 23 votes: up from 0 in last week's poll.


2024-25 Women's College Basketball Rankings - ESPN

SFCALBear72 said:

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Two spots behind Alabama.

Cal received 23 votes: up from 0 in last week's poll.


2024-25 Women's College Basketball Rankings - ESPN

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aand according to espn's ratings our next opponent is one place worse..

Bears & Cardinal received 23 and 18 votes, respectively.

In the meantime, we have dropped to #31 in our NET ranking (still not bad), probably due to our low victory scoring margin against #213 Pacific. For better or worse, the NET system does heavily weight the scoring margins.

That's why Mulkey runs up the score against cupcakes. Really, anything beyond 20 point gap should be ignored in the calculations.

smh said:

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SFCALBear72 said:

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Two spots behind Alabama.

Cal received 23 votes: up from 0 in last week's poll.


2024-25 Women's College Basketball Rankings - ESPN

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aand according to espn's ratings our next opponent is one place worse..

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I know we played 'Bama at home, but as usual there is a bias in the rankings. Fact is, we beat them and honestly they hadn't beach any team of significance.
Of course over time this plays out the way it should be. I'm hoping that Friday the team comes out a little looser against furd than they did against Bama. That first half, our players' underperformed, and I really think it was more self inflicted than the opponents' effect.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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smh said:

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SFCALBear72 said:

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Two spots behind Alabama.

Cal received 23 votes: up from 0 in last week's poll.


2024-25 Women's College Basketball Rankings - ESPN

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aand according to espn's ratings our next opponent is one place worse..

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I know we played 'Bama at home, but as usual there is a bias in the rankings. Fact is, we beat them and honestly they hadn't beach any team of significance.
Of course over time this plays out the way it should be. I'm hoping that Friday the team comes out a little looser against furd than they did against Bama. That first half, our players' underperformed, and I really think it was more self inflicted than the opponents' effect.

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SEC bias. They have 7 teams in the Top 25.
AP voters are folks in the media with those in the South looking out for their various teams.

It will be interesting to see how we fare in the Coaches poll which is released tomorrow.

11 votes in the Coaches poll this week (12/10). First time this season Cal has received any votes.

With 11, we are tied with Florida State and 10 more votes than Stanford (1).

By the way, has Cal ever been above Stanford in rankings? Ever?

Friday's game means a LOT.

If Cal can beat Stanford, they have three non-conference games and their first two ACC games are against Clemson and SMU on the road. Looking at the upcoming schedule, Cal 'should' win their next 5 games after Stanford. Should.

If Cal loses to Stanford, these games are worth a lot less (in my opinion). Yes, they need to win them but their next quality opponent is NC State at home. If Cal wins all their games going into the NC State game...

Which is why Friday is of supreme importance.

If Cal can beat Stanford AND NC State, they are set up for a pretty strong season.

Loss to Stanford puts high hopes into jeopardy and Cal may be bubbling again because the schedule gets pretty difficult, facing at least 6 teams ranked or getting votes (as of now) out of their last 14 regular season games.

I have concerns about Cal's quality depth...and if the Bears can beat Stanford, the young players (Donez, Abigor, ZK, Maul, Mafua) can maybe get some playing time to see if they can help against what 'should' be decent but lesser competition. Maybe some depth questions can be answered. Utopian scenario.

I'm a bit stressed about Friday because it sets the framework for what the rest of the season could be.

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I'm a bit stressed about Friday because it sets the framework for what the rest of the season could be.

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Well, maybe. In Cal's best season (a rather different season from post-pandemic ones), they lost and won a game each to Stanford: https://calbears.com/sports/womens-basketball/schedule/2012-13

That was a really fine team, who nonetheless lost a game they should have won, against UCLA, at the Pac-12 tournament. (And another against Louisville in the national semis.) We'll see; I still think it's too early to stake the team's season on ONE game, however symbolic the opposition might be.

BearBint said:

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Quote:

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I'm a bit stressed about Friday because it sets the framework for what the rest of the season could be.

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Well, maybe. In Cal's best season (a rather different season from post-pandemic ones), they lost and won a game each to Stanford: https://calbears.com/sports/womens-basketball/schedule/2012-13

That was a really fine team, who nonetheless lost a game they should have won, against UCLA, at the Pac-12 tournament. (And another against Louisville in the national semis.) We'll see; I still think it's too early to stake the team's season on ONE game, however symbolic the opposition might be.

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I guess my point is if the Bears beat Stanford tomorrow and take care of business in the five subsequent games, it sets the table for a strong season, especially after just beating Alabama. Being 15-1 at that point with a couple of quality wins? Then the NC State game REALLY means something.

If a loss tomorrow, they have to wait until the NC State game to be back in the spotlight (and the attitude of the outside world may be 'same old, same old' and the Alabama game was a blip).

I like this team. They seem to have good chemistry and enjoy playing with each other. They give effort. I'd like to see them have a good run THIS season because as we've just seen with football, the transfer portal means NOTHING is stable.

I think tomorrow's game has big implications for the path forward of this team, for this season.

this game is also important because it's against our rival stanford who has won 90 percent of the recent games

we won one game on a walk basket, and have been close in other games, but they have typically been in the top 5 or 10 in the nation.

This year they don't have a dominant player like they've had in prior seasons

To me the key of this game and most games is keeping Michelle out of foul trouble

She changes the game on both sides of the court, and the drop off is pretty big