Why North Carolina Star Caleb Wilson’s Broken Hand Is Bad for Cal

North Carolina announced Thursday that star freshman Caleb Wilson has a broken bone in his left hand and will be sidelined indefinitely.

That’s bad for Cal (17-8, 5-7 ACC) and the Bears’ hopes of getting a berth in the NCAA tournament, even though Cal won’t play Tar Heels again in the regular season.

OK, we’re going to get into the weeds with this explanation of why it hurts the Bears, but bear with us.

Cal currently has a NET ranking of 63, which is low for a team hoping to get an NCAA tournament bid.

The best thing Cal has going for it in the eyes of the selection committee are the Bears’ four Quad 1 wins, which are more than most bubble teams and are significant selection criteria.

Quad 1 wins are: any homecourt win over a team ranked in the top 30 of the NET ranking, any neutral-court win over a top 50 team, and any road win over a top 75 team.

Cal’s home win over North Carolina (No. 25 NET), neutral-court win over UCLA (No. 39 NET) as well as the road wins over Miami (No. 36) and Stanford (No. 69) are Cal’s four Quad 1 wins at the moment.

But those rankings change daily and, as a result, so can the number Quad 1 wins.

If North Carolina drops out of the top 30, Cal’s home win over the Tar Heels no longer counts as a Quad 1 win. And with Wilson sidelined, North Carolina’s chance of remaining in the top 30 is reduced.

We don’t know how many games Wilson will miss, but each game he is sidelined, his 19.8 points and 9.8 rebounds per game will be missed, and North Carolina’s record could suffer.

Wilson played all 40 minutes and scored 23 points in the upset of Duke.

The Tar Heels have seven games left before the ACC tournament, and they will want Wilson to be completely healthy for the postseason, so they are unlikely to rush him back into action.

Three of UNC’s remaining games are against ranked opponents, and two others – North Carolina State and Virginia Tech – will pose challenges.

Cal needs North Carolina to stay in the top 30 to get that Quad 1 win. Of course, Cal also needs Stanford to stay in the top 75 to keep that Quad 1 win, but that’s a different story.

Cal can render this Quad 1 quandary moot by winning a lot of its remaining games.

The Bears dropped off the bubble and the First Four Out category with its loss to Syracuse, but they can get back to the bubble, starting with a victory over Boston College on the road on Saturday, a home win over Stanford the following Saturday, and a home win over SMU (NET ranking No. 34) on February 25.

It’s unlikely that Cal’s berth in the NCAA tournament will come down to whether it has three or four Quad 1 wins, but Cal has been living on the cusp for several weeks now, and every little factor could matter when the final at-large berths are handed out.

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