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Last night on Twitter, I posted the Pac-12's updated nonconference records: 1-23 against the RPI top 50 (the one is Stanford over Colorado State) and 8-41 against the top 100.

By any interpretation, those numbers are horrific. The Pac-12 does not have one marquee win all season and the Sun Belt, as a conference, has been more imposing in both of those subcategories. Even California, with an RPI of 35 as of Monday, has zilch in the way of at-large legitimacy, and the league leaders keep dropping games, further weakening their causes.

So how is it that two Pac-12 teams are in this week's bracket and two others very easily could have squeezed in? Because you have to have 37 at-large bids to complete the bracket and we're assuming, for now, that there are no upsets in smaller conference tournaments. That means that the cutline is as weak as it possibly can be,...

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Related Topics: ncaa basketball, California Bears, Pac-12