Our UC brethren to the south did a tremendous favor for the Bears yesterday afternoon: they notched an impressive upset against Washington. Now the Bears' title hopes are in their own hands. A win at Maples will give Cal a share of the Pac-12 title, their second in three years.
"We have a chance to finish first. To me, that's always been a big deal," Cal coach Mike Montgomery said this week, dismissing talk about the NCAA tournament.
Cal (23-7, 13-4) must beat the Cardinal (19-10, 9-8) in both teams' regular-season finale in order to pull even with Washington (21-9, 14-4).
A victory also would give the Bears the No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 tournament, which begins Wednesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and will determine the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid. Cal owns the tiebreaker over UW because of its 69-66 victory over the Huskies on Jan. 19 in Seattle.
...Cal was scheduled to be on the practice floor Saturday during the UCLA-Washington game, which was televised beginning at 11 a.m. Players joked earlier in the week that Montgomery probably did that on purpose to keep their focus on their own business.
"It's all about Stanford. It has to be that way. They are our rival," Cal
senior Harper Kamp said. "It's a huge game for us, it always is, no matter what the situation, no matter what our record. It's going to be fun and we want to beat them."
After the jump rugby scores as time expires to defeat Utah and ESPN breaks down the physics of Joe Ayoob's world record paper airplane toss.
Football
- Mychal Kendricks speaks about his experiences at the Combine.
- The Eagles will designate DeSean Jackson as their franchise player.
- ESPN uses science(!) to dissect Joe Ayoob's record-shatttering paper airplane toss.
- The Bears opened the Cal State Fullerton's DeMarini Invitational with an 8-1 win over Florida International.
- Cal was merciless in its 8-0 mercy win over Southern Mississippi.
- Cal defeated ECU 11-3.
- The Bears capped a perfect weekend with a 5-1 win over Northwestern. Cal's record is now a perfect 16-0.
- Jake Anderson's penalty kick as time expired gave the Bears a 23-22 win over Utah. Jack Clark was pleased that they Bears could eke out a win against a much more physical Utah team.
- Alex Morgan scored two goals as the US Women's National team won its opener at the 2012 Algarve Cup.