AP Photo

There have been plenty of conversations about the Pac-12 possibly being a one-bid league—the conference’s weakness has been thoroughly explained already—but there’s a little bit of history to take into account.

In 2009-10, California won the regular-season title with a 13-5 league record. The Golden Bears were 23-10 overall with a solid RPI of 20, but they didn’t have a single non-conference win against an RPI top 50 team (and only one of those wins, against RPI 41 Washington, in league play). When they were knocked off by Washington in the championship game of the Pac-10 Tournament, there seemed to be a legitimate case for leaving them out of the NCAA Tournament.

But the tournament selection committee slotted the Bears safely into the big dance with a No. 10 seed. Winning the regular-season title mattered to the committee then,...

Read Full Article »

Related Topics: ncaa basketball