The Cal game is huge

[Coreyc04]

The loss to Oregon has put the Utes up against the wall the rest of the way. They must sweep Cal now to guarantee a tournament birth. 

[PlainsUte]

Agree, need to take care business with Cal.   Could also make some noise in the Pac-12 tournament, with a couple of upset wins.   I can see them beating UCLA and maybe Arizona if things fall into place.  But, yes, disappointing they can’t get a high quality conference win, even at home.

[Minnesota Ute]

I don’t get that at all.  I was watching some of the analysis this weekend and saw that USC was projected as in, Cal was in first 4 out, and Utah was in the second 4 out.  That makes no f’ing sense at all.  

USC was 13-0 in non-conf, but 5-4 in conf.  They beat next to nobody in non-conf, with maybe the best victory being SMU or A&M.  In conference they have lost to Cal and Utah, in addition to Oregon and Arizona.

Cal was 9-3 in non-conf with losses to SDSU, Seton Hall, and Virginia, and no notable wins and 6-3 in conf with losses to AZ, UCLA, & Oregon.  Their best win is USC who was ranked at the time, but see above.

Neither of these teams have done ANYTHING.  Meanwhile, neither have we were also 9-3 in non-conf but our losses were to Xavier, Butler, and inexplicably SanFran.  Both Xavier and Butler are legit, although X has lost 2 of their last 4 which may signal a drop out of the top 25.  And in conf we are 6-3 with losses to AZ, UCLA, & Oregon. I will grant you that we do not have a signature win, but to argue that our season is worse than either Cal or USC is pattently ridiculous.  But all that said, you are correct, if we lose to Cal, things won’t be simple.  However, IF we split with them, we should still be able to finish 3rd in the conference and have a resume that will get us in just under the wire because I can’t see the committee justifying Cal or USC’s resumes ahead of ours. Especially if we go 1-0 against USC and 1-1 with Cal, along with beating everybody else except Oregon, Arizona, & UCLA.

[Coreyc04]

I think Cal and Utah are the same in the eyes of the selection committee. We need to sweep them to show that we are better than them. It’s pretty apparent to me.

[TheJuggernaut]

We need to sweep Cal, and win out (minus our game in Eugene), to guarantee us the four spot. There’s a possibility, if we go 8-1 over our last 9, that we nudge UCLA out of the third spot, but I’d say that’s unlikely, especially since they own the tiebreaker over us. We ABSOLUTELY do not want to get stuck in the 5 spot for a couple of reasons – one is we wouldn’t get a first round bye in the PAC tournament, two is we’d play the 12th place team, Oregon St – playing them last weekend dropped our RPI 16 spots, even with the W. We do not want to play Oregon St in the PAC tournament.

Our road to the NCAA tournament starts Thursday, we can still get an at large without sweeping Cal, but that would mean we’d probably have to get a W vs Oregon or Arizona in the PAC tournament, I don’t have a whole lot of confidence we’d beat either of those in Vegas.

Finish the season 8-1 (L at Oregon), get the four spot (maybe 3) in the PAC tournament, beat the 5th/6th place team (Cal/USC) playing their second game in two nights, play Oregon/Arizona in the semis (an L to either would still boost our RPI and SOS), and hope for a final RPI somewhere in the low 40’s, possibly even high 30’s. Of course getting a W in Eugene or beating Oregon/AZ in Vegas would give us some wiggle room, but I just don’t see either happening.

We also need to cheer for the favorites in the smaller conference tournaments, upsets resulting in tournament champs that wouldn’t otherwise get a bid means one less at large available for us.

[Tacoma Ute]

Don’t worry. I picked Cal in the contest so that should just about guarantee we win. 🙂

[Tacoma Ute]

I fear the UCLA loss will be our undoing. That bad no call when Kuz got hammered may make a huge difference in our postseason fortunes.