Golden Nuggets: Cal Makes a Push for an NCAA Bid

Winners of 5 of their past 6 (including two top-10 upsets), the Bears are movin' on up. It looks like it may no longer be too soon to start talking about potential NCAA tournament bids. Here's a roundup of the latest brackets.

• Lunardi's latest bracketology has good news and bad news. Bad news: Cal has to endure another play-in game, this time against Villanova. Good news: the Bears will play in San Jose if they advance past the play-in!
• ESPN gives Cal a 5.7% chance at making the Sweet 16 and a 0.4% chance at making the Final Four. So you're saying there's a chance...
• Cal is an 11-seed (facing off against Minnesota in Dayton, OH) in CBS latest bracket.
• The Bears move up to a 12-seed in Yahoo's bracket.
• Cal is "in the mix" in Sports Illustrated's latest assessment.
• I'll save you the agony of going through another one of their ridiculous slideshows: BleacherReport has the Bears alongside ASU as the Pac-12's bubble teams.
• SportingNews doesn't even consider Cal a bubble team.

Of course, the women's team is much better positioned to excel in this year's tourney:

• This week's bracketology keeps the Bears as a 2-seed in the Oklahoma City region. Cal's toughest competition in that region is the top-seeded Bears of Baylor, led by Brittney Griner. Stanford is a 1-seed, which suggests that the Bears can claim a 1-seed if they defeat Stanford in the Pac-12 tourney. It happens and the Bears take the top seed in the Spokane region, they'll play the first weekend across the Bay at Maples.

Football

• Uncle Ted highlights Maynard's 5-TD outing against UCLA as one of the top Pac-12 performances of 2012.

Basketball

• The no. 6 Bears earned their first win at USC in four years. Layshia Clarendon did what Layshia usually does to lead the Bears to a 72-64 win.
• Cal bolstered its postseason hopes with a dramatic 76-68 win over USC.
• Faraudo follows along in a game filled with runs. Fortunately the Bears had the last run, a 25-7 advantage over the final six minutes to steal a win.
• During the post-game press conference Monty said he shoved Crabbe to motivate him and get the team to stop playing softly. Crabbe said he has no hard feelings abuot the incident.
• Monty and Sandy Barbour issue statements on the Crabbe shoving brouhaha.
• Monte Poole called the push "shameful."
• Larry Scott issued a statement reprimanding Monty. Fortunately, neither Cal nor the Pac-12 have announced a suspension.
• Cal is conspicuously absent from Jay Bilas' rankings of the top-68 NCAA men's teams.
• Allen Crabbe won Pac-12 Player of the Week for the second consecutive week.

Track and Field

• Alysia Montano beat the American 600m record by nearly three seconds. Montano ran a blistering 1:23.59.

Tennis

• The men's team wrapped up the ITA National Men's Team Indoor Championships with a 3-4 loss to no. 8 Oklahoma in the consolation round.

Gymnastics

• Despite losing to no. 4 Stanford 435.350-426.450, the tenth-ranked Bears set a new team-high score.

Baseball

• After beating Michigan in extra innings in consecutive games, the Bears scored a run in the bottom of the ninth to defeat Michigan 2-1.

Golf

• Cal finished second (out of thirteen teams) at the Peg Barnard Invitational.

Softball

• The Bears finished the sweep at the Easton Desert Classic with a 9-2 win over Portland State.