02-26-2015, 10:46 AM
Thanks for starting this topic, winflop, but I don't think that the remainder of this season is a litmus test for Johnny Dawkins.
Will 4-2 in its final six games be enough to get Stanford in? Who knows? If there are enough upsets in other conference tournaments a victory at UA may not be enough.
I was hoping that the team could at least earn a bye in the Pac-12 tournament, but that is looking unlikely.
Let's assume that UA and Utah are out of reach (mathematically possible, but the odds are greater that I will spontaneously combust).
Current #3 Oregon is 11-5 with games @Stanford and @OSU.
Current #4 Stanford is 8-6 with games vs OSU, vs UO, @ASU and @UA.
Current #5 UCLA is 9-7 with games vs WSU and vs U$C.
Let's assume that Stanford manages to beat OSU, UO and ASU and loses to UA. The Cardinal would be 11-7. That means that either (1) UO would need to lose @OSU or (2) UCLA would need to lose one of its final two games at home for Stanford to finish in the top four (UCLA holds the tiebreaker over Stanford and Stanford would hold the tiebreaker over UO). Someone with more math skills could do a better job of predicting, but I'm guessing the probability of Stanford earning a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament is less than 0.5.
February is the cruelest month.
Will 4-2 in its final six games be enough to get Stanford in? Who knows? If there are enough upsets in other conference tournaments a victory at UA may not be enough.
I was hoping that the team could at least earn a bye in the Pac-12 tournament, but that is looking unlikely.
Let's assume that UA and Utah are out of reach (mathematically possible, but the odds are greater that I will spontaneously combust).
Current #3 Oregon is 11-5 with games @Stanford and @OSU.
Current #4 Stanford is 8-6 with games vs OSU, vs UO, @ASU and @UA.
Current #5 UCLA is 9-7 with games vs WSU and vs U$C.
Let's assume that Stanford manages to beat OSU, UO and ASU and loses to UA. The Cardinal would be 11-7. That means that either (1) UO would need to lose @OSU or (2) UCLA would need to lose one of its final two games at home for Stanford to finish in the top four (UCLA holds the tiebreaker over Stanford and Stanford would hold the tiebreaker over UO). Someone with more math skills could do a better job of predicting, but I'm guessing the probability of Stanford earning a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament is less than 0.5.
February is the cruelest month.
If there's one thing people have learned in Berkeley, it's that you can't put "Cal football" and "Rose Bowl" in the same sentence. The words just don't fit. You'd be better off linking "covered wagons" with "Mars travel." (Bruce Jenkins, Cal '70, SF Chronicle, Nov. 11, 2017)