Stanford Loss Boosts Cal's NCAA Tournament Hopes -- Slightly

The debate about whether Cal has any chance to earn an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament starts with the premise that the ninth-seeded Bears (21-10, 9-9 ACC) must beat eighth-seeded Florida State (17-14, 10-8 ACC) in Wednesday’s 4 p.m. (Pacific time), second-round ACC tournament game in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A Cal win in that game probably would not put the Bears into March Madness either, but a loss would end any discussion, leaving Cal as a prime candidate to play in the National Invitation Tournament.

However, the Bears' NCAA hopes got a slight boost on Tuesday when 15th-seeded Pittsburgh upset No. 10 seeded Stanford 64-63 in the first ACC tournament game. Stanford and Cal were both believed to be on the NCAA bubble heading into the ACC tournament, but the Cardinal was considerably closer to an at-large berth than Cal in virtually everyone's NCAA tournament projections. Stanford's loss probably put the Cardinal at the same bubble level at Cal, with both teams outside of the 68-team NCAA tournament field at the moment.

All things considered, an NIT berth would not be a bad consolation prize for a Cal team picked to finish 16th in the 18-team ACC in the preseason poll and has its first winning season since 2016-17.

Florida State is favored by 3.5 points against Cal, according to FanDuel, and a victory over the Seminoles would earn Cal a quarterfinal matchup with No. 1-ranked Duke.

Even though Duke will be without starting point guard Caleb Foster (foot surgery) and probably will be without starting center Patrick Ngongba (foot) as well, the Blue Devils are heavy favorites to win the ACC tournament.

FanDuel places the odds of Duke winning the tournament at 0.28-to-1, which is the same as 7-to-25, implying a 78.3 percent probably that Duke will be the conference tournament champion.

Cal, by contrast, is a 300-to-1 shot to win the ACC tournament, according to FanDuel. That equates to a 0.3 percent chance to win four games in four days to become the ACC tournament champion and earn an automatic NCAA tournament berth.

Beating both Florida State and Duke would open up debate about whether Cal deserves an NCAA tournament berth. But at the moment that is a long shot at best.

Entering play on Tuesday, Stanford was considered to have better chance of earning an at-large NCAA berth than Cal, even though the Bears beat the Cardinal twice this season.

The Bracket Matrix site tracks the NCAA tournament projections of 105 sites, and as of Tuesday morning, 31 of those sites has Stanford in the 68-team field, and none has Cal in. But that was before Stanford lost to Pitt, which has a NET ranking of 109.

CBS Sports is the most optimistic of Cal’s at-large chances, making Cal the First Team Out in its Tuesday morning projections.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has Cal as his last team in his Next Four Out category on Tuesday morning, meaning Cal would have to pass eight teams to get an at-large bid.

Joe Lunardi projections the morning of May 10 | Joe Lunardi twitter

Andy Katz of NCAA.com did not include Cal in his First Four Out grouping on Tuesday morning, but he did have Stanford in that group.

The immediate issue for Cal is Florida State, which poses a much bigger problem now than it did when the Bears played the Seminoles on January 28 in Tallahassee, Florida.

Coming into that game, Florida State had lost seven of its previous eight games, had an 8-12 overall record and a 1-6 ACC mark. Cal lost by two points when the Bears’ Justin Pippen missed an open three-point shot at the buzzer.

That victory started Florida State on a late-season surge in which the Seminoles won nine of their final 11 games and became one of the hottest teams in the conference.

“One of the best teams in the conference in the second half of conference,” Cal coach Mark Madsen said. “They kind of changed their style of play early on.”

The star in the Seminoles’ recent run has been point guard Robert McCray V, who leads the team in scoring at 15.6 points per game, but has averaged 19.3 points on 44.1 percent three-point shooting over the last six games.

“You look at McCray, he’s a guy that can get downhill, get into the paint,” Madsen said. “They’re long, they’re athletic, they try to force turnovers.”

Cal needs to win Wednesday’s game to keep the NCAA tournament debate going, which would lead to the possibility of the Bears upsetting Duke.