games

Ads by Eonads banggood 18% OFF LightInTheBox Magic Cabin Hat Country LLC HearthSong 15% Off Your First Purchase! Code: WELCOME15 Stacy Adams

Cal faces South Florida in NCAA play-in game - San Francisco Chronicle

game - Google News
Google News
Cal faces South Florida in NCAA play-in game - San Francisco Chronicle
Mar 12th 2012, 03:35

Cal might have been relegated to a play-in game to start the NCAA Tournament but the Bears are looking at it as a chance to play on after finishing the season in a slump by losing three of their last four.

Then, too, the Bears are buoyed by the fact that one of last year's Final Four participants, Virginia Commonwealth, had to win a play-in game to join the party of 64.

"You dream of this moment," guard Justin Cobbs said Sunday after watching the selection show at Haas Pavilion with his teammates and coaches. "It's 68 teams trying to live the dream. The bad losses are gone. Now everyone is 0-0, (hopefully) playing six or seven games to live the dream."

At 24-9, Cal will play South Florida (20-13) of the Big East Conference on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, for the right to enter the tournament proper as the No. 12 seed in the Midwest region, there to face No. 5 Temple (24-7) on Friday in Nashville, Tenn.

Cal was one of only two Pac-12 teams to make the tournament, along with conference tournament champion Colorado (23-11).

"I guess you should have known that was coming with the way everybody has been talking about us," coach Mike Montgomery said. "I feel bad for the Pac-12. I think it's better than that. I think it's more competitive. That having been said, we're glad that we made it. Obviously, it could have gone another way."

Since the Midwest region was the last one unveiled, Cal had to wait until 53 other teams had been selected until its name was finally called, creating anxiety in an upstairs room at Haas.

"It was pretty tense," forward Harper Kamp said. "Once we saw our name, we were definitely relieved. It says a lot about how you finish the year. I think our selection was affected by that."

The Bears finished with a pair of losses to Colorado in a span of 12 days, sandwiched around a loss at Stanford and a victory over the Cardinal in the Pac-12 tournament quarterfinals. Considering the Bears were handed a play-in game, they might not have made the tournament at all if they had not beaten Stanford in the rematch.

"Thank goodness we did," Montgomery said.

As for South Florida, the Bulls are a defensive-oriented team averaging 59.2 points per game while giving up 56.9, meaning their games tend to be close and low scoring. No South Florida player scores in double figures but it has seven players averaging between 6.8 and 9.6 points per game.

South Florida lost to Notre Dame 58-53 in overtime of the Big East tournament.

The Bulls have some size with 6-foot-10 Augustus Gilchrist (9.6 ppg, 38 blocks), 6-8, 243-pound Toarlyn Fitzpatrick (8.0 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 32 blocks) and 6-8, 237-pound Ron Anderson Jr. (7.2, 5.5).

Cal enters the tourney as the 45th overall seed in the 68-team field. South Florida is 47th.

"Now it's up to us to prove we do belong, we are a decent basketball team and the conference is pretty good," Montgomery said. "We're trying to prove something about ourselves. It's us taking advantage of an opportunity to play."

Or play-in, as the case may be.

John Crumpacker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Twitter: @crumpackeroncal. jcrumpacker@sfchronicle.com

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

0 意見:

Post a Comment

Random article