The case for Cal in the tournament- and what seed?

Cal should be in the tournament. In my mind there is no doubt. I’m not going to whine about the “snubs” from CBS and other sources- in my mind that’s useless. Instead, I’ll try and provide you several facts that (in my mind) prove that Cal belongs in the tournament.




1.We won a major BCS conference. No team that has pulled that off has ever been left out of the tournament.

2.We have the “Evan Turner” excuse. For a bunch of our key losses, we were missing Theo Robertson or Jorge Gutierrez. I’d argue that we would’ve beaten New Mexico with Robertson. I believe we lost to UCLA without Gutierrez, and the outcome could’ve been different had he been there.

3. We played some of the best teams in the country and held our own for awhile. We were close with Kansas for a half, Ohio State we were within 10 in the second half, and we were a few plays away from beating New Mexico.

4. It’s not our fault that the Pac-10 is horrible like it is. We took care of business, and won the conference. Again, we won a BCS/major conference, which is still of decent quality.

5. We’ve beaten some good teams, which people don’t give us credit for. We beat ASU and Washington. Both are either NCAA or NIT clubs.

6. We almost won the conference tournament. I don’t see how a 3 point loss bumps us from a 7 or 8 to out of the tourney altogether.

7. Look at our RPI. A top 20 team in the RPI does not, and should not be left out of the tournament.

8. Our two “bad” losses have a somewhat reasonable; UCLA we lost on a completely fluky shot and were missing a key contributor, and Oregon State was on the road and they always give us trouble. Try and find a team that doesn’t have a similar slip-up.



On to what seeding. In my opinion, we deserve a #7 seed. Remember, we’re the winner of a major conference, our strength of schedule is in the Top 10, and we have a top 20 RPI. I think that would qualify us as one of the 28 best teams in the country. Maybe I’m seeing this through homer glasses; but I see a team that’s held their own against some of the nation’s best and have only one healthy bad loss (OSU). I don’t think there is many teams that can say that. And if we do get that 7, it’s probably as the bottom one; I’m not going argue we’re a top 25 club.



Hopefully we’ll get my dream seed, and into the tournament. Go Bears!