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Golden Nuggets: Is the Pac-12 In Danger of Losing Power-5 Status?

Jaylen Brown is tearing it up in the playoffs. Is anyone surprised?

By Nik Jam
Pac 12 Championship - Stanford v USC
Yeah, I don’t like looking at this either. At least it was against the Furd?
Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

Football

  • The sky is falling again! The media loves to pick on the Pac-12 and now comes a new article from CBS Sports. The article suggests that due to wide financial gaps between the Pac-12 and other Power-5 conferences, we may soon be thinking about the FBS Playoff by talking about the “Power-4” instead. Other evidence includes the fact that FS1 didn’t show a Furd game because of a racing event that went long, because networks regularly cut away from events in progress to show other events, right? It’s kinda a lame article, is what I’m saying, but it was an interesting read anyway and Carol Christ makes a cameo!
  • CBS Sports says Cal has the sixth easiest schedule in the Pac-12 due to having Washington, Oregon and Stanford at home.
  • In case you’re interested, find out the Pac-12 South teams Cal will play every year for the next eight seasons.
  • This might be the first article I’ve posted from new Scout beat writer Shannon Carroll. Find out the two 3-star high school players that have recently received offers from Cal.

NBA

Baseball/Softball

  • Cal Softball begins postseason player today, but last weekend the Bears honored their four seniors. Here’s a video remembering them.
  • Cal baseball put themselves back in postseason contention by sweeping the pretty-good Arizona Wildcats at home last weekend. However, I should point out that the postseason projections I’ve read still don’t even have Cal in their “first four out” let alone the field of 64. This is mainly due to their poor RPI (the result of a very bad non-conference schedule, curse Bakersfield and Brown for stinking it up since Cal went 8-0 against them) so hopefully the Bears pull off an upset at Creighton today and this weekend. (or the people actually in charge of picking the teams have different standards)
  • Here’s an old article that’s finally up online (It’s from the Cal Sports Quarterly Magazine’s Spring edition) about “new” baseball coach Mike Neu. Find out more about his journey to Cal.
  • Here’s the full Pac-12 Network segment on Andrew Vaughn helping out victims of the North Bay Fires. (Of which he was one of them)

Misc.

  • Just because the Rugby 15s got blown out in the Championship game, does not mean they did not have a successful season.
  • Women’s Gymnastics star and Astrophysics major Sofie Seilnacht wants to work for NASA and win a Nobel Prize, and that was why she chose to play for Cal. Given our history, it was a really good choice.
  • Meanwhile, Karla Popovic has graduated in business administration and plans on starting her career in business administration (with the goal of helping people in asset management or private equity) and will “retire” from tennis.
  • Lauren Martinez is this week’s Muscle Milk Student-Athlete of the Week after a Cal-record breaking performance in the Pole Vault event last weekend.
  • Women’s Golf HC Nancy McDaniel was given the WGCA Kim Moore Spirit Award, given to a player or coach that (as the name suggests) exemplifies the spirit of the game of golf. Her fight against cancer was chronicled in an Inside the Lair article I had posted in last week’s GN.
  • Five teams earned perfect APRs this year and received public recognition from the NCAA. Congrats to Women’s Golf, Lacrosse, Volleyball and Men’s and Women’s Tennis!

Beat Creighton and Northwestern!

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