California (13) @ St Mary’s - 12/08/18

[Shades]

Moraga, CA - 5:00 PM ET
TV: None

Video:
West Coast Conference Official Athletic Sites (free)

Live stats:
SIDEARMLiveStats

 

[Shades]

Another potential upset special with free live video.

 

[Shades]

6-2 SMC 2 min in. Cal already taking a timeout.
First round draft prospect Anigwe looking bad early on.

 

[Plebe]

Cal is so grossly overranked at #13.

 

[Shades]

Cal is so grossly overranked at #13.

I’m hoping that’s the case so that #14 team can keep crawling up.

 

[Plebe]

Whoa. Cal had tied the game at halftime, but I just checked in and St. Mary's is now up by 15 in 3Q.

As I said, so overranked.

 

[Shades]

Down to a 5 pt lead here in the 4th

 

[UcMiami]

Cal is so grossly overranked at #13.

What Uconn fans seem to forget is that consistency in WCBB is really rare (actually in most team sports either gender and every level.) Uconn has a bad game against a bad opponent rarely, and even when they do, they win by double digits. Other good teams (and even really good teams) consistently throw in serious clunkers every year and frequently lose when they do. There is a reason why Uconn owns more undefeated seasons than the rest of WCBB combined and if you include undefeated until second weekend of the NCAAs it is even more lopsided.

No idea about the rankings for Cal and others because I haven't seen enough, but ...
#3 Oregon beat #15 Syracuse by 2
#4 Baylor beat #17 ASU by 6 and unranked SDSU by 6
#5 Louisville beat #17 ASU by 2
#6 MissSt beat #18 Marquette by 5
#7 Maryland struggled against unranked Georgia and Georia Tech by 7 and 13
and it generally doesn't get better from there with the rest of the top 25.

 

[Shades]

Cal ties it up at the end of regulation. Going to OT.

 

[Plebe]

St. Mary's has really choked this one away. Left Anigwe wide open on a pick and roll to allow her to tie the game and send it to OT. Cal has all the momentum at this point.

 

[Plebe]

What Uconn fans seem to forget is that consistency in WCBB is really rare (actually in most team sports either gender and every level.) Uconn has a bad game against a bad opponent rarely, and even when they do, they win by double digits. Other good teams (and even really good teams) consistently throw in serious clunkers every year and frequently lose when they do. There is a reason why Uconn owns more undefeated seasons than the rest of WCBB combined and if you include undefeated until second weekend of the NCAAs it is even more lopsided.

No idea about the rankings for Cal and others because I haven't seen enough, but ...
#3 Oregon beat #15 Syracuse by 2
#4 Baylor beat #17 ASU by 6 and unranked SDSU by 6
#5 Louisville beat #17 ASU by 2
#6 MissSt beat #18 Marquette by 5
#7 Maryland struggled against unranked Georgia and Georia Tech by 7 and 13
and it generally doesn't get better from there with the rest of the top 25.

I'm well aware of the inconsistency thing. Cal just isn't a top 20 team. They might not even be top 30.

 

[DaBball]

What Uconn fans seem to forget is that consistency in WCBB is really rare (actually in most team sports either gender and every level.) Uconn has a bad game against a bad opponent rarely, and even when they do, they win by double digits. Other good teams (and even really good teams) consistently throw in serious clunkers every year and frequently lose when they do. There is a reason why Uconn owns more undefeated seasons than the rest of WCBB combined and if you include undefeated until second weekend of the NCAAs it is even more lopsided.

No idea about the rankings for Cal and others because I haven't seen enough, but ...
#3 Oregon beat #15 Syracuse by 2
#4 Baylor beat #17 ASU by 6 and unranked SDSU by 6
#5 Louisville beat #17 ASU by 2
#6 MissSt beat #18 Marquette by 5
#7 Maryland struggled against unranked Georgia and Georia Tech by 7 and 13
and it generally doesn't get better from there with the rest of the top 25.

Wasn’t UConn tied with an unranked, average-at-best St. John’s team after 3Q? SJ lost to a terrible Wake Forest team by 5 and beat bad Yale, Ole Miss, and Purdue teams by 4, 5, and 6. Besides that, UConn is pretty consistent about not letting it close against bad teams.

 

[Shades]

81-78 Cal final in OT

Heartbreaking finish for SMC.

Anigwe 24 pts (9-24), 12 reb, 3 ast, 4 TO, 1 stl, 3 blk

 

[LoTrader]

Cal won, at Saint Mary's home court. Cal still undefeated. Cal could be 9-0 when they play UCONN.

 

[Plebe]

Cal won, at Saint Mary's home court. Cal still undefeated. Cal could be 9-0 when they play UCONN.

Here are Cal's nonconference opponents, other than UConn:

Houston (beat them by a point)
Penn State
BYU
Pacific
Tulane
San Diego
Cal State Northridge
St. Mary's
UC Santa Barbara
Harvard

 

[LoTrader]

Evidence that Cal's ranking should be better than #13? Rankings across the board will look a bit more respectable by Dec. 24 (with exception of Maryland and NC State who don't have any competition through Dec. 24).

 

[Plebe]

Evidence that Cal's ranking should be better than #13? Rankings across the board will look a bit more respectable by Dec. 24 (with exception of Maryland and NC State who don't have any competition through Dec. 24).

What evidence are you referring to? Barely beating St. Mary's in overtime?

 

[LoTrader]

What evidence are you referring to? Barely beating St. Mary's in overtime?

Plebe, just having some fun. I also think Cal is not ranked where they should be, but there are multiple teams that are not ranked where they should be. Until Cal plays UCONN, and, starts PAC-12 play, Cal is likely to have a perfect record.

 

[Shades]

SMC isn’t the worst team in the world.
On their home court, a team like Cal wouldn’t want to take them for granted. I had a feeling this game would be worthy of a thread.

SMC had a RPI of 43, SOS of 72 before this game.

Before this game, Cal had a RPI of 2 and SOS of 8, better than UConn’s RPI this morning of 3 and SOS of 12.

They don’t pass the eye-test of a #13, but I guess that ranking isn’t all that unfair. ‍♂️

 

[Plebe]

SMC isn’t the worst team in the world.
On their home court, a team like Cal wouldn’t want to take them for granted. I had a feeling this game would be worthy of a thread.

SMC had a RPI of 43, SOS of 72 before this game.

Before this game, Cal had a RPI of 2 and SOS of 8, better than UConn’s RPI this morning of 3 and SOS of 12.

They don’t pass the eye-test of a #13, but I guess that ranking isn’t all that unfair. ‍♂️

Uh, the RPI this early in the season is nearly meaningless. It has Cal #3, Iowa State #5, South Dakota State #6 ... while Baylor is #15 and Mississippi State is #19.

I never said St. Mary's was a bad team, but when this is your best win of the season, you know you've had a very weak schedule.

 

[jonson]

SMC isn’t the worst team in the world.
On their home court, a team like Cal wouldn’t want to take them for granted. I had a feeling this game would be worthy of a thread.

SMC had a RPI of 43, SOS of 72 before this game.

Before this game, Cal had a RPI of 2 and SOS of 8, better than UConn’s RPI this morning of 3 and SOS of 12.

They don’t pass the eye-test of a #13, but I guess that ranking isn’t all that unfair. ‍♂️

I realize that comparative scores are problematic, but (by comparison) Oregon beat St. Mary's at St. Mary's by 24 (and didn't play particularly well at that) and Oregon State beet them by even more than that in Corvallis. So it's my guess that Cal has a ways to go to earn anything close to their current ranking.

 

[Shades]

Uh, the RPI this early in the season is nearly meaningless. It has Cal #3, Iowa State #5, South Dakota State #6 ... while Baylor is #15 and Mississippi State is #19.

I never said St. Mary's was a bad team, but when this is your best win of the season, you know you've had a very weak schedule.

Yeah, you’re definitely right that RPI this early isn’t too useful. But it was just so weird seeing Cal at #2 and with a great SOS after talking about how worthy they might be.

I see they’re replacing RPI as a metric for determining NCAAT selection. I wonder what kind of interesting results they’ll get.

The new index has been dubbed the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET for short. An NCAA release said it “relies on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses.”

NCAA replaces RPI with new March Madness selection metric

 

[Plebe]

I see they’re replacing RPI as a metric for determining NCAAT selection. I wonder what kind of interesting results they’ll get.
NCAA replaces RPI with new March Madness selection metric

Only in men's basketball, for now:
The NET, explained: NCAA adopts new college basketball ranking to replace RPI | NCAA.com

 

[DefenseBB]

Maybe I am a cynic, but other than her magical run in 2013 at 32-4 when they made the Final Four (with Joanne Boyle's recruits and players), Lindsay is underwhelming as a coach. Her overall record is 168-76, and 79-48 in conference. However the last 3 years have been 56-42 overall, 21-33 in PAC-12 games. That's not an elite coach.

Last year, in non-conference games, she started 9-2 with their only losses to UConn and Missouri (and also the only real teams on their schedule). She ended 12-9 for overall 21-11. Meh. To me this is not a top 25 team and seems to by riding the strength of OTHER PAC-12 teams, not really on their own merits.

Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford and even Arizona St all seem very legit to me. USC and Utah need show me something when they play good teams as their schedules have been pretty light on strength. After that, maybe Cal can ride Anigwe to a top 5 PAC-12 finish. The UConn game will not be close.

 

[LoTrader]

I believe USC (Pac-12 version) is much better than Cal. We'll see, but I see Cal battling for the #5/#6 spots in PAC-12.