Cal Boosts Its NCAA Tournament Hopes by Beating SMU

Cal gave its NCAA tournament hopes a boost Wednesday night when the Bears beat SMU 73-69 before a crowd of 4,411 at Haas Pavilion.

Cal coach Mark Madsen called this win "an important step" toward making the NCAQA tournament for the first time in 10 years.

Justin Pippen scored 24 points for Cal (20-8, 8-7 ACC) and 19 of those points came in the second half against SMU (19-9, 8-7). Chris Bell added 20 points.

Most respected NCAA tournament projections this week put the Bears right on the cusp of making the 68-team field, and getting a 20th victory and beating a team of SMU's caliber push the Bears up a few notches on the bubble. This win certainly did not assure Cal an NCAA tournament berth, but it helped a great deal.

"This is meaningful because our goal has always been, since we got here, and we said it, is to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament," Cal coach Mark Madsen said. "We said it early on. We clearly defined it.

"We're not there yet. We're not in the NCAA tournament. We have a long way to go to make it, but this was an important step."

Cal held a six-point lead with 3:43 to go, but the Mustangs erased that in a hurry and took a 65-64 lead with 2:23 left. SMU stretched its lead to three points, but two free throws by John Camden at the 1:39 mark, and Justin Pippen’s bucket with 1:04 remaining put Cal ahead by a point.

Two more Pippen free throws with 18.4 seconds left made it a three-point game but Jaron Pierre Jr. hit two foul shots for SMU with 12.5 seconds left.

Two more Pippen fouls shots with 12.5 seconds left made the margin three points again, and SMU’s Jermaine O’Neal Jr. missed a corner three with four seconds to go.

Lee Dort, who returned to action after a seven-game absence, made one foul shot with 2.9 seconds left to make it a four-point game. Dort finished with three points, 10 rebounds and one block in just 22 minutes off the bench in his return.

Dai Dai Ames had a tough night. He went 1-for-10 for a season-low two points before fouling out 3:03 remaining. He previous season low was seven points. But the Bears survived anyway to reach the 20-win level.

The last time Cal won 20 games in a season was 2016-17, when the Bears went 21-13. That was also the last time the Bears finished with a winning conference record.

Free throw shooting hurt SMU, which was 11-for-26 from the line. Cal made 12 of 15 free throws, and made 7-of-8 in the final 1:39, missing only the last one after Cal had increased its lead to four points with 2.9 seconds left.

Cal's players and Madsen joked that the presence of football coach Tosh Lupoi and many of the players, including Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele made have made the difference in the foul shooting.

Something must be affecting Cal's opponents on the line, because Cal leads the ACC in free-throw percentage defense -- if there is such a thing. Cal opponents were making only 65.5 percent of their free throws before Wednesday. After SMU's miserable performance at the line, it's down to 64.5 percent. Cal's last four opponents -- SMU, Stanford, Boston College and Syracuse -- shot a combined 63-for-113 from the foul line. That's 55.8 percent, which is poor foul shooting at any level.

"We beat ourselves tonight, missed 15 free throws," SMU coach Andy Enfield said.

The Bears struggled offensively in the second half when SMU went to a zone defense. Cal led by seven points early in the second half, but SMU took a 46-45 lead when center Samet Yigitoglu converted a follow shot with 13:52 left in the second half.

The game remained close thereafter with Cal's success at the foul line playing a critical role in improving Cal's chance to land an NCAA tournament berth.

Cal was listed as the last at-large team to be included in the NCAA tournament field in the CBS Sports’ projections posted Wednesday morning, but nearly every other projection, including ESPN’s Bracketology, put Cal in the First Four Out category as of Tuesday.

Entering Wednesday’s action, Cal had a NET ranking of 59, and a WAB (Wins Above Bubble) ranking of 51, both of which are typical bubble numbers.

SMU had won four its five previous games but began Wednesday with a 3-5 road record. The Mustangs seem to have an NCAA tournament berth in hand unless they completely collapse in their final few games.

SMU entered the game with a NET ranking of 30, and home victories over top-30 teams count as Quad 1 wins, However, the SMU loss to Cal presumably knocked the Mustangs out of the top 30, so it would no longer be a Quad 1 win for the Golden Bears.

Cal began the day with four Quad 1 wins, which is an impressive number, especially since one of those victories is a Quad 1A win.

Bell scored 15 points on 6-for-8 shooting in the first half, which ended with the Bears holding a 38-33 lead.

Cal’s top two scorers, Justin Pippen and Dai Dai Ames, struggled offensively in the first half, combining to shoot 3-for-14 for seven points.

The most impressive plays of the half were provided by Dort just before halftime. First he emphatically swatted away a shot attempt by Jaron Pierre Jr., then Dort slammed home a follow shot with two seconds left in the

Cal faces Pitt (10-18, 3-12 ACC) in the Bears’ final regular-season home game on Saturday, then Cal plays Georgia Tech (11-17, 2-13) and Wake Forest (14-14, 5-10) on the road next week before the ACC tournament starts March 10 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

NOTES

SMU was favored by 3.5 points over Cal in Wednesday’s game.

Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele took a bow at center court during a timeout late in the game, and he led the crowd in a Cal cheer.