Cal’s Home Loss to Pitt Did Not End Bears’ NCAA Tournament Hopes

Cal’s hopes for an NCAA tournament berth remain alive -- although they are on life-support.

Cal’s home loss to lowly Pitt on Saturday brought a feeling of resignation to Golden Bear fans, who believed that defeat delivered a death blow to Cal’s chances to earn its first berth in March Madness since 2016.

Certainly a 16-point loss at home to a team that had a NET ranking of 123 at the time is a major blemish on the Bears’ resume at a time when they could least afford it.

However, the people who make their living projecting the NCAA tournament field have not completely dismissed Cal.

Joe Lunardi of ESPN, the most respected Bracketologist, would have projected Cal to be included in the 68-team field if the Bears had won Saturday’s game. But even with the loss, he listed Cal third among the First Four Out Saturday night.

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— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) March 1, 2026

That puts the Bears within reach of an NCAA berth if they perform well in their final two regular-season games – road games this week against Georgia Tech and Wake Forest – and the ACC tournament.

What’s more interesting is that CBS Sports’ projections Sunday morning still had Cal in the NCAA tournament field, giving the Bears a No. 11 seed and a preliminary-round game against New Mexico..

Most projections have Cal out of the NCAA tournament at the moment, but several have the Bears right on the cusp. -- close enough to provide hope.

Cal had a rooting interest in 11 Saturday games involving bubble teams that might affect the Bears’ prospects, and only four of those results helped Cal: losses by Seton Hall, Virginia Tech, Auburn and USC.

Two other games – Texas over Texas A&M and New Mexico over San Diego State – both helped and hurt Cal because all four teams were on the bubble.

Two other bubble teams – Ohio State and Indiana – play games Sunday, and both will be underdogs against Michigan State and Purdue, respectively.

A Saturday result that could help Cal in an indirect way was Wake Forest’s win over Syracuse.

Wake Forest is ranked 68th in the NET at the moment, and if Cal beats the Deacons on the road in the Bears’ final regular-season game Saturday and Wake ends up ranked in the top 75, it would give Cal another Quadrant 1 win.

Likewise, if SMU, currently ranked 35th, would move up to the top 30 between now and Selection Sunday on March 15, it would give Cal another Quad 1 win.

As of Sunday, Cal has four Quad 1 wins, but adding Quad 1 wins via Wake Forest and SMU, would give Cal six Quad 1 wins – assuming North Carolina (currently 26th) stays in the top 30, UCLA (currently 40th) stays in the top 50, and Stanford (currently 65th) stays in the top 75.

Lunardi said Saturday he believes that good wins count for more in the minds of the 12 selection committee members than bad losses.

Cal’s loss to Pitt was the Bears’ first defeat against a Quad 3 or 4 team, and looks bad, but it would be difficult to keep a team with six Quad 1 wins – including one Quad 1A win -- out of the NCAA tournament.

But there is bad news for Cal too.

The timing of Cal’s loss to Pitt was not good. If that defeat had occurred in December, it can be forgotten by the time selections are made. But that kind of ugly defeat on February 28 is tough to ignore.

Also, Cal’s NET ranking dropped to 64, which is low for a bubble team, and its WAB (Wins Above Bubble) ranking is 52 with a -0.24 rating, putting the Bears just below the average for bubble teams.

The computer average used by the selection committee ranks Cal 67th and gives the Bears just a 13 percent chance to be selected as an at-large team.

On Saturday morning ESPN Analytics gave Cal a 44.6 percent chance to make the NCAA tournament if it beat Pitt, and just a 29.5 percent chance if it lost to the Panthers.

Two other factors should be noted:

---Selection committee members make subjective assessments of teams, especially bubble teams, and if Cal looks impressive over the final two weeks it could make a difference.

---If a team that would not get an at-large NCAA bid wins a major conference tournament to get an automatic NCAA berth, it will bump an at-large team from another conference out of the field.

Of course, Cal could earn an automatic NCAA tournament berth by winning the ACC tournament, but that probably would require getting past Duke, the top-ranked team in the country

Bottom line, Cal finds itself behind in its pursuit for an NCAA tournament berth, but the race is not quite over.