As the major conferences tip off the tournaments this week, most RPI top 20 teams are vying for top seeds. But one of those teams, California, is simply trying to play its way into the NCAA Tournament.
If the Golden Bears fail to win the Pac-10 tournament and the conference’s automatic bid, they will become one of the biggest storylines of Selection Sunday — regardless whether the committee extends them an invitation or relegates them to the NIT. Regular-season champs that don’t win their conference’s automatic bid are guaranteed an invite to the NIT, so the Bears know they’ll be playing in some sort of post-season tournament. But they have their sights set on the Big Dance.
However, their hopes rely on a flimsy résumé. The Bears’ strong RPI, No. 19 as of March 7, is the product of a brutal non-conference schedule that included games against Syracuse, Ohio State, New Mexico, Kansas and Murray State, with four of those games played away from Berkeley. Cal played only one non-conference opponent ranked lower than No. 170. Although the Bears took on a great non-conference slate, they failed to produce any big wins, losing every game against a top 50 non-conference opponent.
Entering this past weekend, Cal didn’t have a single win against an RPI top 50 team. After the weekend started, Washington crept into the top 50 — ranked No. 50 — so Cal can claim one win right now. But that’s not exactly the impressive marquee win that selection committee members supposedly treasure. On the flip side, Cal has a couple of bad losses at Oregon State and in Berkeley against UCLA. The team’s loss at USC is the third loss to teams outside the RPI top 100.
If you strip away conference affiliation and strength of schedule, Cal’s profile most closely resembles Siena’s. The 26-6 Saints, of the Metro Atlantic Conference, are ranked No. 38 in the RPI, as of March 7, and have no wins against the RPI top 50, five wins against teams ranked No. 51-100 in the RPI, and two losses to teams outside the RPI top 100. Although Siena has five more wins and one fewer bad loss than Cal, no one seriously considers Siena to be a viable candidate to receive an at-large bid if the Saints don’t capture the MAAC automatic bid.
The Bears would enter unprecedented territory if they remain in the RPI top 20 and fail to receive an at-large bid. In 2006, the Missouri State Bears, ranked No. 21, had their hearts broken when they became the first team ranked in the RPI top 25 to not receive an NCAA Tournament invitation. In the past 16 years, eligible teams in the RPI top 30 have made the tournament in all but three seasons.
Cal’s RPI is over-inflated because of the team’s tough schedule. Although the Bears undoubtedly faced some of the best teams in the country, including four teams likely to receive No. 1, 2 or 3 seeds, they failed to prove that they are capable of beating those teams. The selection committee has plenty of factors to consider when picking at-large teams. But it seems that teams should receive more credit for whom they beat rather than to whom they lose. And based on that criteria, Cal smells more like an NIT team than one of the 34 teams most worthy of an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.
