Bay Area Sports Blog

The Bay Area has one less representative in the NCAA tournament after Cal was dominated by Duke in a 68-53 second-round loss this afternoon. The Bears got out of sync when Patrick Christopher missed the game’s first few minutes with a cut, and Duke was too efficient the rest of the way.

What to do after a crushing loss like this? Ponder college basketball’s place in the world. That’s what one Twitter user did, calling on the philosophy of Daniel Kahneman, an Israeli Nobel Prize winner. Somehow we don’t think Texas A&M fans were doing this after losing to Purdue, they probably just got drunk.

In the whole “reasons Cal will/won’t win in the NCAA tournament” debate, we forgot one key element: Time. The first-round game Friday against Louisville was supposed to be at 10 p.m. EST, 7 p.m. PST. The game was pushed back 20 minutes because of a clock malfunction. And when it did start, the Golden Bears outscored the Cardinals 12-0 to start the game, increased that to 22-4 and held off tired Louisville the rest of the way.

Bring on Duke. Maybe they could start that game at 11:30 p.m. EST.

The only real debate about the game was whether Jerome Randle’s halftime buzzer beater was better than the Houston halftime buzzer beater that followed moments later. You can judge. But we’re all winners here.

San Jose and the St. Mary’s Gaels both starred in what is being hailed by basketball chroniclers as the “Greatest Opening Day” in the history of the tournament. All hail the greatest opening day ever! Bow in worship. To HP Pavilion.

San Jose, especially, was excitement — you might say madness? — central. It started with Murray State’s buzzer-beating upset of Vandy (Dan Belluomini’s Final Four choice, ouch). Then there was Isaiah Thomas’ amazing three-quarter-court shot after the whistle for Washington, followed by Quincy Pondexter’s winner in the final seconds for the Huskies. Montana gave New Mexico all it wanted in the nightcap and almost pulled off the second 14-3 upset of the day.

As for local teams, St. Mary’s handled Richmond and it took Bill Raftery only six-plus minutes of gametime to bring out the “Enter Samhan” joke. I had 10 minutes in my pool, damn.

Cal plays tonight and probably envies the St. Mary’s bracket. It’s looking like a tough road for the Golden Bears, tough enough that even Cal fans are giving 50-1 odds that the Bears make the Sweet 16. Still, there are some reasons they could win. Without further ado, we give Cal the “3 reasons” treatment:

CAL WILL MAKE THE SWEET 16 BECAUSE:

They shoot their free throws good (and are smart enough to tell you that last word should be “well”). If the Bears can get to the line, they came into the tournament ranked 11th nationally in free throw percentage at 75.7 percent.

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California rolled to a 90-74 win over Oregon in the quarterfinals of the Pac-10 tournament behind 22 points from Pac-10 POY Jerome Randle.

The opening game of the evening session between Stanford and Arizona State was nearly as lopsided, but not in the way most would have predicted.  The Cardinal’s 70-61 win wasn’t exactly a “monumental upset” as color man Marques Johnson referred to it in the second half, but with Arizona State in serious need of a win–or two–in Los Angeles to improve its NCAA tournament standing, few could have seen this coming.

Johnson was his usual entertaining self, like in the video above, where he puts an Allen Iversonesque spin on the Stanford Tree.

The Tree, for now, is Jonathan “Shu Fry” Strange. Come spring quarter, Strange will be replaced by Ben “Bollox” Cortes, who sprouted earlier this month after a spirited campaign that included turning himself into a human pinata.

Cal plays UCLA tomorrow. Stanford will play the winner of the Oregon State-Washington game. If Cal and Stanford play the same way they did today, we could be looking at a Bay Area showdown in the title game.

First, congrats to the St. Mary’s Gaels, who made Gonzaga look silly in the WCC finals tonight to avoid the bubble drama from last year. Between the USF win in January and tonight’s dismantling, the Bay Area teams have given tourney foes plenty of fodder for beating Gonzaga. An early-round Zags exit? It’s college basketball, who knows. Whoa there, early March Madness pool latent frustration!

Second, congrats to Cal’s Jerome Randle, Pac-10 Player of the Year. He’s been destined to win since the seventh grade, so it’s about time.

Finally, congrats to former Golden Bears linebackers giving back. First it was Scott Fujita, who left New Orleans (for Cleveland) with a going-away present of half his playoff bonus. Half of that money went to Haiti relief, the other half to help New Orleans.

Then Zack Follett one-upped Fujita by stepping into a cage with a for-reals lion. He’s taking the “playing for the Detroit Lions” thing to its logical conclusion. Actually this video is meant to encourage donations for the Cat Haven Wild Animal Park near Fresno (Follett is from the area). Fast-forward to the 2:55 mark for some tense moments with the big cat.

While this might fire up support for the park, it’s certainly firing up the Detroiters who love their crazy linebacker. Says “Joey Ballgame“: “Dude is putting in time with the pride during the off season, f—– awesome. Can we make Zack captain and let him come out of the tunnel riding a lion before each game?” Yes, please.

…delivering Pac-10 titles to schools who have waited for, like, ever to win one. He did it at Stanford and did it even faster at Cal, as the Golden Bears cut down the nets earlier today after clinching at least a share of the crown. The fans packed the stadium, the confetti fell, Jerome Randle smiled, Montgomery was hoarse, it was awesome.

Just how good is Montgomery at what he does? Follow the lines of this basketball to see. He won a Pac-10 title at Stanford for the Cardinal’s first in 36 years, and this year’s title for Cal is its first in 50 years. Washington State (69 years) just prepared a generous offe…no they didn’t.

Cal took to the court tonight in snazzy/not snazzy (depending on your sartorial inclinations) silver jerseys and beat Arizona 95-71 at Haas Pavilion. The jerseys, celebrating the Jordan brand’s 25th anniversary, were luckier by the Bay than they were in North Carolina. The Heels lost to Florida State in the uniforms and fans were none too pleased: “UNC sleep for the streets with these silver jerseys! and they look real bobo in the face!”

What he said.

With two games left the Bears have a chance to clinch a share of the Pac-10 title Saturday against Arizona State. But the prospect of their first Pac-10 title in 50 years doesn’t seem to be enticing the fans to come out. Both the star point guard and the public address announcer begged fans to attend the games against the Arizona schools, and the guys over at Cal Golden Blogs have practically popped a brain canal trying to attack the issue. Said Cal’s Jerome Randle before tonight’s game: “I hope we come in here and there’s not one seat empty.”

There were a few empty seats tonight — the crowd was 10,545 and a sellout is 11,877 — but not a total embarrassment considering tipoff was at 6 p.m. Maybe all the fans came out for the silver jersey, and the hopes that it might spawn a new nickname:

Rivals ranked their Top 25 recruiters for the Class of 2010 this week and Cal defensive line coach Tosh Lupoi was named Recruiter of the Year. Not too shabby for a guy in his second year on the job. Here’s some of what Rivals had to say about Lupoi, a De La Salle graduate who played defensive line for parts of five injury-marred seasons for the Bears from 2001-20005:

The numbers on Lupoi’s resume from this recruiting season speak for themselves – two five-star players and four four-star players. While that matches what others on this list accomplished, what’s more impressive about Lupoi’s results is his haul came from five states…Lupoi got several national prospects to take a long look at Cal, and many of them are moving across the country to Berkeley.

So how does the youngest full-time coach in the Pac-10 do it? Is he one of the few people on the recruiting trail who knows how to use Twitter? Does he regale recruits with stories from the Insight, Holiday, and Las Vegas Bowls? Is it just hard to say no to a dude named Tosh?

Chris McCain, one of Lupoi’s big gets, described Tosh as “down to earth and cool” to SI.com. “Even though I was committed to Oregon, he stuck with me,” McCain said. “He was still close with me. He told me I always had a home there. I really respected the dude. He’s real young, too, and I can relate to him.”

Lupoi told CalBears.com that part of his success stems from knowing who to target.

“If you’re promoting a hot product you have the ability to pass others up quickly,” he said.

Poinsettia Bowl appearance — so hot right now. No, really, Tosh. How do you do it?

Clearly, Quincy Pondexter, Jerome Randle, and Landry Fields are three of the biggest playas in the Pac-10. Third grade, Jerome? Pimp. A closet, Landry? Kinky. They’re also the leading contenders for Pac-10 Player of the Year honors, which should probably be split three ways if this unbelievable scenario plays out.

Stanford has had one Pac-10 Player of the Year (Josh Childress), while Washington has had two (Brandon Roy and Christian Welp). Four Bears (Jason Kidd, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Ed Gray, and Sean Lampley) have won the honor.

Here’s a closer look at the candidates.

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One by one, the faxes rolled into the Stanford football office this morning, National Letters of Intent from high school football players across the country on what amounts to Christmas for college football coaches — National Signing Day.

One by one, Cardinal head coach Jim Harbaugh, tweeted in delight about his presents.

I see you, 404! (DE Henry Anderson)

I see you, 917! (S Ed Reynolds)

I see you, 317! (LB Blake Lueders)

I see you, 612! (LB A.J. Tarpley)

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