Colorado plays its way out of NCAA Tournament conversation with horrific loss to Cal
The Colorado Buffaloes haven’t been officially eliminated from the NCAA Tournament, but they’re certainly off the radar right now and won’t merit any discussion as a serious candidate unless or until something changes.
If there was any lingering uncertainty about Colorado’s NCAA Tournament resume, that uncertainty was smashed by an 80-76 loss to the California Golden Bears on Saturday. The setback in Berkeley — to a team which entered the game with a 1-13 record — is a crusher for any bubble team. Yes, we’re still two and a half months until Selection Sunday, but for a Colorado team which already has some not-very-good losses (UMass, Grambling, Washington) on the ledger sheet, a loss to Cal is worth at least two seed lines for selection purposes. If Colorado was, hypothetically, the 18th or 19th team outside the at-large field before this game, the Buffs are now close to being the 30th team outside the field.
They probably went into this game needing at least one win over UCLA or Arizona, plus more good wins against the third through fifth teams in the Pac-12, to carve out a path to the NCAA Tournament. Losing to Cal virtually guarantees that CU must beat both the Bruins and Wildcats (or beat one of them twice) and win other games against the upper half of the Pac-12 to make the NCAA Tournament.
Good luck with that.
This is good news for USC. The Trojans aren’t likely to make the NCAA Tournament, but they’re not unlikely to make it, either. They’re a 50-50 case at this point. However, their odds do go up with other Pac-12 teams losing ground. Colorado isn’t currently a threat to take an at-large bid away from USC. The Pac-12 has UCLA and Arizona as tournament locks. Then comes a trio of teams with legitimate at-large chances.
USC is one of those teams. Colorado is not.
Arizona State and Utah are the other two teams. Utah had a great weekend, sweeping Cal and Stanford on the road. Arizona State lost at home to Arizona.
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