California (19-8) (NET: 59)
5-4 (Q1), 1-4 (Q2), 5-0 (Q3), 8-0 (Q4)
There hasn’t exactly been a great quantity of successful ACC teams recently, but this year’s been a better showing from the league as a whole. California is certainly part of that showing with a nice record and signs of life from Mark Madsen and company.
After all, the Golden Bears have five Quad 1 wins and that certainly gives them far more attention on the bubble than some of these other teams. They beat UCLA in San Francisco back in November, got an impressive upset win over North Carolina, and added road wins at Stanford and Miami late in January. They also got a big one over SMU this week that likely won’t be Quad 1 for long.
What stings a little bit is the lack of consistency, as the Golden Bears only just clawed back to .500 in the ACC. While there aren’t any really bad losses, they were dropped by Clemson just a few weeks ago and had a very winnable opportunity at Syracuse slip through their fingers. California also got significantly outworked by true ACC contenders like Louisville and Virginia in 20-point losses.
It’s a little weird that the only Quad 2 win for the Golden Bears came a few days ago against rival Stanford, but they do have one more chance to build up this resume. Their regular season finale at Wake Forest is a Quad 1 opportunity and another great performance really would help get them on the right side of things.
Cincinnati (15-13) (NET: 51)
2-10 (Q1), 5-2 (Q2), 1-0 (Q3), 7-1 (Q4)
Although recently left for dead thanks to early struggles in the Big 12, Wes Miller and this squad aren’t quite out of the running yet. The Bearcats own a few very brilliant wins that keeps their resume afloat, especially compared to some of the mid-majors around them on the bubble.
Mid-January saw an important Quad 1 win over Iowa State, but the Bearcats topped that last week with a stunning 16-point road upset at Kansas. Cincinnati grabbed their fourth straight win in the process and has a few other nice performances in the Big 12, toppling teams like Baylor and UCF this season.
At some point the record really works against them, but as you can see it’s more than just the record. That Quad 4 home loss against Eastern Michigan is likely the nail in the coffin for the Bearcats unless they can grab national attention again here in the final weeks of the season. Fortunately, they’ve avoided other pitfalls, but being just 7-8 in the Big 12 isn’t ideal.
Home against Oklahoma State this weekend is unmistakably a must-win game. After that, Cincinnati has two more Quad 1 chances, facing a suddenly beatable BYU team at home before heading to TCU. If the Bearcats were to win out, they’d have a legitimate argument to be in the Tourney field and would look much better at 10-8 in the conference.