Kay Yang/File

On Sunday, two titans will clash in New Orleans for a shot at the NCAA women’s basketball championship game.

The Cal-Louisville matchup at 3:36 p.m. is not that battle.

Both No. 1 seeds, white-hot UConn and Notre Dame blistered their respective opponents in previous rounds. Sunday’s 5:30 p.m. tilt has the potential to be a battle of Goliaths.

But two hours earlier, two Davids will tip off in the undercard matinee not simply for a slot in the championship game but also for the chance to make history.

“UConn and Notre Dame are tried and true — they’ve been there,” said Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb in Wednesday’s press conference. “The fact that us and Louisville broke into the Final Four, I think, is going to be a good for the game.”

For the Bears (32-3), the experience is unprecedented: No Cal women’s basketball team has ever earned a Final Four bid.

Meanwhile, Louisville (28-8) is only the second No. 5 seed to ever reach the Final Four. And if the squad wins, it would be the first team ranked lower than fourth to reach the title game.

It comes as no surprise, then, that the Cardinals have heart-and-soul embraced the role of the underdog this year.

The outsider status is no albatross around Louisville’s neck. The message is clear: With nothing to lose, the team has already gained an incredible victory.

The team stunned the nation when it upset top-seed juggernaut and reigning champ Baylor, 82-81, in the Sweet Sixteen.

It was the toppling heard ‘round the country, the way Gottlieb tells it.

“We have basketball fans (on the team),” Gottlieb said Wednesday. “Everyone was kind of like, ‘Wow, did this just happen?’”

The shock waves reverberated through the next round, in which the Cardinals dismantled Tennessee.

“We ruined the entire party,’’ said Louisville coach Jeff Walz. ‘’We’re the ugly ducklings that ruined the party. No one gave us a chance, and we shocked everybody. It’s a journey, and we’re going to continue.’’

Louisville might have ruined the party, but the team has since proven it certainly can dance.

However, before the Cardinals can potentially upset another top seed, they have to contend with a Cal squad that has consistently met — and sometimes exceeded – the lofty expectations of its coach all year long.

Yet the Bears aren’t underdogs so much as they are upstarts with a lightning-fast rise. In her first year with the program last year, Gottlieb took the team to the NCAA journey for the first time since 2009.

Last fall, Cal opened up the season ranked No. 13 and climbed as high as No. 5. In January, the team even toppled conference rival Stanford, ending the latter’s 81-game conference win streak. The Bears would eventually share the Pac-12 title with the Cardinal — Cal’s first conference title in program history.

If Louisville’s mantra is “nothing to lose,” then Cal’s is “why not us?” The team has known all along that it has what it takes to tackle — and trump — the very best.

“We have been in situations where we’ve had to beat these giants of college basketball, and I think now they feel like,`Why not us?’” Gottlieb said.

But some trumps have come after close calls.

The scores of each of the games in the tournament have been too close for comfort. What looks like a commanding 90-76 win over Fresno State in the opening round sobers up a bit with the caveat that the Bulldogs were a 15-seed.

At the Pac-12 tournament last month, Cal failed to penetrate UCLA’s zone defense and lost in the semifinals.

Hints of that same struggle resurfaced in Monday’s contest with Georgia. Throughout the first half, Cal remained on the outskirts of the key, unable to break through Georgia’s defense. The team trailed for the majority of the game; with seven minutes left in the game, the team was down by 10 points.

Then something clicked.

With mere seconds, left, the Bears tied the game and headed to overtime. Senior guard Layshia Clarendon lit up the stage, scoring 17 of her game-high 25 points in the second half and extra minutes. It wasn’t pretty, but Cal scraped out a 65-62 thriller to live another day.

Those scrapes, undoubtedly, are part of a larger learning curve. In December, the team faced off against No. 4 Duke and fell, 77-63. But in typical Cal fashion, Gottlieb quickly transformed the loss into yet another source of positive motivation.

“I told them after we lost at Duke: ‘We scheduled this game for a reason,’” she said on Wednesday. “‘So that we understand what it takes to beat a team like that.’”

On Sunday, the Bears finally have the chance to prove whether they mastered that lesson.

Contact Annie Gerlach at agerlach@dailycal.org

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Brad Tollefson/The Daily Toreador/Courtesy

Survive and advance. That’s exactly what the Cal women’s basketball team did in Monday night’s game in Lubbock, Tex. — survive.

With 58 seconds left in their second round matchup against the 10-seed South Florida, the second-seeded Bears held a comfortable 68-58 lead. But a series of mental errors by Cal and the ensuing 3-pointers of desperation allowed the Bulls to finish the game on an 12-2 run and send the game into overtime.

Although it took the extra five minutes, the Bears prevailed, 82-78. It wasn’t pretty, but the Bears (30-3) are moving onto the sweet 16 for the second time in program history since the 2008-2009 season.

Cal came out strong behind smart plays from guard Brittany Boyd. At the 14:17 mark, Boyd, who recorded 21 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists in Saturday’s game against Fresno State, shot through her opponents’ passing lane and stole the ball from them, finishing seconds later with an easy layup.

The Cal lead had already grown to seven at 15-8 behind a balanced scoring attack, with every starter scoring by 5 minutes into the contest.

South Florida guard Inga Orekhova was singlehandedly keeping the Bulls (22-11) close. The junior had 11 points in the first 11 minutes, going 3-for-6 from behind the 3-point arc. With 7:14 left in the half, the Bears and Bulls were deadlocked at 22.

Guard Layshia Clarendon gave the Bears’ momentum going into the half with an impressive 3-point play as time expired. In an isolation play, Clarendon dribbled left, pulled up for a jumper in the lane which she hit and earned a foul.

Cal was up 37-32 at the break, behind Clarendon’s 17 points on 7-for-10 from the field. She finished with a team-high 27 points.

The second half began with both teams running the floor. In transition, Boyd sidestepped an opponent to finish gracefully at the rim at the 16:59 mark. Seconds later, Clarendon found a forward Gennifer Brandon streaking down the court for another easy layup.

The momentum was rapidly shifting in the Bears’ favor as they led 44-37, but a well-timed South Florida timeout settled things down.

For the next few minutes, Cal did their best to maintain the fast-paced tempo, but the squad simply couldn’t convert their layups.

Cal could not seal the deal, paving the way for the Bulls’ comeback. With 1.7 seconds left, USF had pulled within three at 70-67 and had one more inbound play. Clarendon fouled Orekhova in the act of shooting a three. Orekhova made the first two, and Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb called a timeout to ice her from equalizing the game.

It didn’t matter.

Orekhova swished the last free throw through, sending the game into overtime. In a shocking turn of events, the Bears were playing for their survival in the NCAA Tournament after holding onto a comfortable lead just seconds earlier.

Despite the setback, Cal went to business as soon as overtime started. The Bears jumped to an early 76-73 in the extra session, and a critical layup in traffic by forward Reshanda Gray pushed the lead to five. The Bulls stayed within striking distance, making the majority of their points from the free throw line.

With 52.2 seconds left and down three, South Florida intentionally fouled Afure Jemerigbe. The junior guard nailed both to push the lead back to five at 80-75.

Following a quick South Florida layup with 29 seconds left, Clarendon got trapped in the corner off the inbound and lost the ball to a tie up with the possession arrow in favor of the Bulls.

Errors committed by Cal had left the door wide open for the Bulls, but they failed to take advantage. The Bulls got tied up on their inbounds, giving the ball right back to the Bears.

Jemerigbe stepped to the line, made one free throw, and that was the game.

Austin Crochetiere covers women’s basketball. Contact him at acrochetiere@dailycal.org.

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Kelly Fang/File

With seconds remaining in the first half against the No. 15 seed Fresno State, the Cal women’s basketball team was leading only by four. The Bulldogs were shooting their way into contention, hanging with the second-seeded Bears.

Fresno State guard Ki-Ki Moore missed a short jumper in the waning seconds. Cal guard Brittany Boyd grabbed Moore’s missed shot, sped down the court, pulled up behind the arc and threw up a shot as the buzzer sounded.

It was nothing but net.

“It was lovely,” said forward Gennifer Brandon. “It gave us momentum. The swoosh, it was just beautiful. There was good energy going into the second half.”

The Bears were still only up 48-41 at halftime, but Cal did not look back in the second half. The Bears (29-3) advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament with a 90-76 victory on Saturday afternoon in Lubbock, Texas.

Boyd orchestrated the Bears’ victory, finishing the night with 21 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists.

“Coach (Gottlieb) told me at the beginning of the week, this is going to be a big game, and I could get a triple-double this week,” Boyd said. “She was right — I was one assist away. But that’s OK.”

In the first half, the Bulldogs (24-9) played as advertised as an excellent shooting team. Fresno State was raining 3-pointers on the Bears, making eight threes in the first frame. The Cal defense seemed to have no answer.

Moore created havoc with her dribble drives and use of screens. As the Cal defense struggled to maintain its defensive assignments, the Bulldogs were camping around the arc waiting to strike.

“When they finally missed a 3-pointer, I literally turned to high-five someone on the side,” said coach Lindsay Gottlieb.

Awakening from a 9-3 deficit from the field, the Bears went on a 10-0 run, capping it off with a jumper from forward Reshanda Gray. Cal was leading 19-13 at the 9:16 mark.

Gray was solid off the bench, finishing the contest with 12 points on 6-for-10 shooting.

However, the Bulldogs kept draining shots in the first half  — making 50 percent of their 3-pointers — to keep the game close. Although the Bears scored on 12 straight possessions going into the half, they went into halftime with only a seven-point lead.

In the second half, Boyd was instrumental in building Cal’s lead. Her endless energy allowed her to set up her teammates for easy scoring opportunities.

On the defensive side of the ball, Boyd helped out the Cal bigs on the glass as she notched nine rebounds.

By the 12:57 mark in the second half, Fresno State was trailing, 61-48. Moore did her best to keep the Bulldogs in the game, nailing a 3-pointer seconds after her team fell down by 13 to pull Fresno State within nine.

“I felt at some points I was watching one of our players,” Gottlieb said of Moore. “It was a terrific performance, and her teammates followed suit.”

The nine-point deficit was the closest the Bulldogs would come to equalizing in the second half. Cal held Fresno State to only four 3-pointers and 30.3 percent shooting overall in the second half.

But nonetheless, Fresno State proved to be more of a challenge than expected in the end.

“I said it from the beginning: Fresno State did not feel like a 15-seed from the moment I watched film,” Gottlieb said. “They certainly didn’t play like one.”

The Bears will now play the No. 10 seed South Florida on Monday.

Austin Crochetiere covers women’s basketball. Contact him at acrochetiere@dailycal.org.

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Michael Tao/Senior Staff

SAN JOSE — As Allen Crabbe and Justin Cobbs go, so too goes the Cal men’s basketball team.

The 12-seeded Bears were going to need excellent performances from their All-Pac-12 duo to upend No. 4 seed Syracuse in their NCAA Tournament round of 32 game on Saturday. Yet, on the biggest stage of their basketball careers, Crabbe and Cobbs simply faded away, combining for 13 points and nine turnovers in Cal’s 66-60 loss to the Orange.

“We didn’t have a lot of people that were playing above their ability,” said Bears coach Mike Montgomery. “We didn’t have a whole bunch of people that rose to the occasion that this was a big game and (they were) going to play better than (they had).”

At HP Pavilion, the promise of a Sweet Sixteen berth for Cal (21-12) was soured by the Orange (28-9). In a game that gave new meaning to the word “ugly,” the Bears turned the ball over 17 times and put Syracuse on the foul line 41 times. The Orange only made a ghastly 63 percent of their free throws, but Cal, looking out of sorts all game against Syracuse’s renowned 2-3 zone, could never sustain a scoring run to prevail.

“We don’t really play teams who are in the zone for 40 minutes,” said Crabbe, who shot 3-of-9 from the field. “We didn’t attack the zone like we should have.

“They keyed on me. The shots that I thought I would probably get weren’t there.”

The Bears, coming off an inspired performance in their second-round win over UNLV Thursday, lazily passed the ball around the perimeter for much of Saturday’s contest, rarely attacking the rim until late in the game. Crabbe did not attempt his first shot until eight and a half minutes had passed. That 3-pointer was his only basket of the half, while Cobbs was scoreless in the first 20 minutes. As such, Cal was lucky to only be down 32-24 at halftime.

Syracuse jumped out to an 11-2 lead to start the game, taking advantage of seven straight turnovers by the Bears. With virtually no production from Crabbe and Cobbs, Cal was led by inconsistent forward Richard Solomon, erratic guard Tyrone Wallace and offensively-limited forward Robert Thurman. Cal had some success finding Thurman down low from high-post feeds, while Wallace slipped through Syracuse’s zone for three first-half buckets. Solomon had nine at the half, including consecutive three-point plays where he just outmuscled the Orange’s big men. Solomon finished with 22 points and 14 rebounds in his best performance at Cal.

“I thought we started the game very, very tentative,” Montgomery said. “I don’t really know what we expected of the zone or what we expected of Syracuse, but we didn’t have the same confidence level that we had against UNLV.”

The Orange opened up the second half on a mission to be the aggressor and drive to the basket. If they made their free throws, they would have ran Cal out of the building. The Bears went 8:38 without scoring a field goal, but Syracuse could not build a lead larger than 14 when it was scoring one point at a time.

A late scoring spree by Cal made the score — and its offensive statistics — look respectable. Crabbe and Walace drained back-to-back threes to narrow the score to 58-51 with 1:52 remaining. A layup by Cobbs 30 seconds later had the Bears only six points down. But turnovers continued to haunt Cal, as the Bears handed the ball over three times in the final two minutes to put an end to their attempt at a furious comeback.

“If we had come out with that in the beginning, it might have been a different game,” said forward David Kravish. “I think we helped give it away.”

Syracuse moves on to regional semifinals on Thursday in Washington D.C. The Bears, meanwhile, saw an improved finish from last season when they lost in the NCAA Tournament play-in game. Crabbe, the Pac-12 Player of the Year, not surprisingly gave no indication as to whether he had played his last game in a Cal uniform. “It would be selfish of me to think about my future,” he said.

Cobbs, meanwhile, talked about taking the positives from this game and this season into the next one.

“The way we stuck together, the way we played as a team, the way we fought in this game … I’m proud of everyone,” he said.

Jonathan Kuperberg covers men’s basketball. Contact him at jkuperberg@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanKupe.

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SAN JOSE — Simply look at the seeding, and No. 12 seeded Cal’s win over No. 5 seeded UNLV looks like your classic first-round NCAA Tournament upset. But was it really that unexpected? Was it that inexplicable that the Bears would pull out the upset?

Cal rode a seven-game winning streak until its final regular-season game against Stanford but dropped its final two games of the season. Still, the Bears carried a significant amount of momentum into the postseason, stepping up their defensive intensity and looking nothing like the team that began the year with losses to Harvard and, coincidentally, UNLV.

Key in the Bears’ transformation from pretender to contender was the improved efficiency of guard Justin Cobbs. Early in the season, Cobbs relied too often on settling for contested jumpers and routinely extended his shot selection from outside 3-point range. The new and improved late-season Cobbs cut out his bad 3-point shooting habits and stepped up in his role as a distributor. Cobbs cut out his inefficient shooting performances and emerged as an above-average secondary option on the offensive end.

The Bears’ capabilities on the defensive end also improved massively down the stretch. After allowing 79-plus points to Wisconsin, UCLA and Colorado early in the season, Cal successfully mitigated opponent scoring to under 70 points per performance for the remainder of the season. By the end of their campaign, their defense ranked among the best in the country, according to kenpom.com.

Their defensive efficiency ranked overall 45th in the country. Cal stifled all short-range attempts; its 2-point field goal percentage against opponents stood at ninth in the entire country. Although the Bears were unable to force many turnovers (321st in the country), their defense did a fantastic job at contesting shots and holding opponents’ scoring totals low.

Most importantly, Cal possessed a bona fide star in Allen Crabbe, a contender for the Naismith Player of the Year. Crabbe, who pulled down the Pac-12 Player of the Year award, averaged 18.7 points and 6.0 rebounds per game in the regular season. When the offense set broke down, Crabbe was able to rise up against shorter defenders and create higher percentage shots than his teammates in isolation situations.

The combination of a capable and intelligent distributor, a stout defense, and a legitimate NBA-prospect leading the offense passes the smell test of a team with the ability to take down any team in college basketball. So when the Bears shut down Rebels’ star forward Anthony Bennett and Crabbe and Cobbs respectively performed their individual roles to near perfection, it’s difficult to see it as much of an upset.

Cal was underseeded as a 12. That isn’t the tournament committee’s fault, however. It would have been outside the committee’s jurisdiction and power to seed a team based solely on their late-season performance. But at the same time, Cal down the stretch resembled a 3 or 4 seed.

They took down Oregon twice, which flexed its defensive muscles against an incredibly talented Oklahoma State in a tournament win. Thursday afternoon. They demolished UCLA by more than 20 points, a team littered with future NBA stars. And they took down an Arizona team on the road that spent most of the season ranked in the top-10 teams in the country. All of these wins occurred within the month of February, leading up to the Big Dance.

Most national pundits will see the Bears’ win on Thursday as a major upset, a flukey out-of-nowhere comet from outer space. Look at the numbers and trends, though, and one emerges with a completely different story.

Contact Michael Rosen at mrosen@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @michaelrosen3.

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Kelly Fang/File

For the past few days, Cal women’s basketball has tried to ignore the constant noise and speculation of a rematch with Stanford.

As the No. 2 seed in the same region as the top-seeded Cardinal, much of the discussion has centered around the possible Elite Eight matchup with Stanford. President Barack Obama added fuel to the rumor when he picked the Bears to make the Final Four.

“One of the first things I said at the selection show was that whatever is said — good or bad — focus on people in the room,” said Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb. “That’s what got us here. Whatever the president says, we’re going to have to block it out.”

While everyone expects big things from the Bears (28-3, 16-1 in the Pac-12), the team still has to make it out of the early rounds, starting with No. 15 seed Fresno State (24-8, 13-3 in the Mountain West) on Saturday at 1:20 p.m.

The last time the Bears saw the court, they lost to No. 11 UCLA in the semifinal of the Pac-12 Tournament 70-58. The Bears tip off in Lubbock, Texas, exactly two weeks since their early exit from the Pac-12 Tournament, but the extra time off has been a blessing in disguise.

“We needed the rest emotionally and physically,” Gottlieb said. “Because we didn’t know who we were going to play, it gave us a chance to get back to who we are.”

For a week, the Bears did not know which team they would face and could not prepare appropriately. Finally, the Monday selection show revealed their opponent would be the Bulldogs.

Fresno State is the most intriguing 15-seed in the tourney. In addition to being one of the hottest teams in the country, the Bulldogs, who won 14 out of their last 16 games, are one of the more atypical teams in the country for their spread-the-floor style and defensive pressure.

Junior guard Ki-Ki Moore acts as the floor general for Fresno State. Moore leads the team with 17.2 points per game, but her ability to find shooters anywhere on the floor allows the Bulldogs’ offense to gel.

From the shooting guard all the way to the center position, Fresno State can shoot. The combination of a dribble-drive point guard and shooters who can spread the floor may create fits for the Bears, especially if the Bulldogs get hot from behind the arc.

“They are unique because they spread you out, and you really have to guard everybody on the perimeter, even the post players,” Gottlieb said.

On the defensive side of the ball, Fresno State ranks third nationally with 13 steals per game due to their full-court pressure defense. In the Mountain West Tournament on March 14 to 16, Fresno State’s starting five scored 92.4 percent of the team’s points.

A No. 2 seed has never lost to a No. 15 seed in the history of the women’s tournament, but Fresno State is not a typical No. 15 seed. The Bears know this and will therefore play with urgency.

“It’s time to start our third season,” Gottlieb said. “This is a team that’s humble but hungry and knows there is a lot more basketball in front of us.”

Austin Crochetiere covers women’s basketball. Contact him at acrochetiere@dailycal.org.

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Tony Zhou/Senior Staff

SAN JOSE — Allen Crabbe clapped his hands, pointed to the crowd and pulled up his jersey, biting the top of it so the “California” on his chest was visible for all to see.

Four days after Crabbe talked about the Cal men’s basketball team’s opportunity to put its name back out there, the Bears did just that on Thursday with a 64-61 win over UNLV in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Cal (21-11) missed four of six free throws down the stretch to allow the Runnin’ Rebels (25-10) to pull within two, but Crabbe, the Pac-12 Player of the Year, sunk a pair with 1.6 seconds left to ice the upset. The 12th-seeded Bears advance to the round of 32 to face Syracuse Saturday at 6:40 p.m.

“The kids really had a proper attitude coming into this,” said Cal coach Mike Montgomery. “We played really hard. I don’t think there was a fear factor … We felt like we could win.”

Crabbe led a balanced offensive attack for Cal with 19 points. Meanwhile, Anthony Bennett, whose monstrous 25-point performance led to the Rebels’ one-point win over Cal back in December, was a nonfactor on Thursday. He scored 15 points on 4-of-11 shooting, struggling to get touches against the Bears’ zone defense.

“I was told to crowd him every time he catches it and faces up,” said forward David Kravish. “In the post, I just put my arms up, and he couldn’t get it over me or I blocked it.”

This was not your typical 12-5 upset. The Bears, playing at nearby HP Pavilion, looked like a team that expected to win, and UNLV was playing catchup for much of the contest.

Unlike in its Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinal loss to Utah, Cal was fired up to start the contest. The Bears got steals on the first two possessions and scored the game’s first seven points.

“We always talk about the first five minutes, as they are the most important,” said Justin Cobbs, who tallied 13 points and six assists on the evening. “It gave us momentum for the rest of the game.”

Forward Richard Solomon was particularly energized, as he led Cal with nine points at the half, including a spinning fadeaway jumper and a rare 3-pointer. Bryce Dejean-Jones and Katin Reinhardt shot a combined 4-for-8 from 3-point range to keep the halftime score even at 28.

Cal opened the second half with a 9-3 run, with Crabbe scoring the first two buckets on curls. Justin Cobbs nailed a 3-pointer to cap off the spurt before UNLV called timeout. The Rebels immediately tied the game at 37 with six unanswered, including another trey from Reinhardt.

Then the Bears went to work, scoring eight in a row. Crabbe continued to be aggressive on offense, and Cobbs nailed a three to keep his team’s lead at eight with 12 minutes remaining.

With no production inside, UNLV continued to shoot from the perimeter in the second half, but Reinhardt and Dejean-Jones cooled off considerably. While the Rebels were taking contested jumpers early in the shot clock instead of working the ball in to Bennett, Cal’s guards were finding center Robert Thurman for four consecutive dunks, slowly building up a lead.

With the Bears up 60-53 with under one minute to go, the game would come down to free throws — and Cal almost blew it. Cobbs and Crabbe both missed front ends of one-and-ones. Then Tyrone Wallace missed two, followed by one from Cobbs. But Cal was fouling too, forcing a lethal outside-shooting team to get its points one at a time. The strategy worked.

“It wasn’t always smooth,” Montgomery said. “(But) we never got to where we were down and out and whatever we were trying to do didn’t work.”

Jonathan Kuperberg covers men’s basketball. Contact him at jkuperberg@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanKupe.

The post Cal men’s basketball upsets UNLV, 64-61, in NCAA Tournament second round in San Jose appeared first on The Daily Californian.

This post will update throughout the day, as we provide you second round action of the NCAA Tournament from HP Pavilion in San Jose.

Jonathan Kuperberg covers men’s basketball. Contact him at jkuperberg@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanKupe.

The post NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Second Round: San Jose Region appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Kelly Fang/File

For most of the season, the Cal women’s basketball team has played second fiddle to Stanford. With the Bears’ placement as the No. 2 seed in the Spokane region, it looks like they might get one more shot at revenge against its Pac-12 foe.

In a packed press room in California Memorial Stadium, all 12 Cal players, dozens of staff and more than a hundred spectators loudly roared at the announcement of the decision.

They are seeded right behind Stanford as the No. 1 Spokane seed. Their first-round matchup places the Bears (28-3) against the No. 15 seed Fresno State (24-8) in Lubbock, Texas, on March 23 at 4 p.m.

No. 6 Cal were expecting a No. 2 seed already, having lost any opportunity to seize the top seed from Stanford after an early upset to No. 11 UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament. The selection committee, however, surprised Cal with its highest tournament seed ever, with the Cardinal at the top of the region.

“It was surprising,” said guard Layshia Clarendon. “I didn’t think we’d come out so early or we’d be in that bracket. When we saw the No. 2 seed, I think you guys got a very genuine reaction of our excitement.”

Most predictions had Cal in national No. 1 Baylor’s Oklahoma City bracket. The Lady Bears from Texas, who won the NCAA tournament last year, are heavy favorites to repeat after going 32-1 on the season.

Baylor is led by senior Brittney Griner, who stands 6-foot-8 and has been the most dominant player in women’s college basketball for several years. Over that period of time, Baylor has been almost unstoppable.

Regardless, the Bears insist they didn’t care what region they were placed in. Looking down the road to an Elite Eight matchup against either Stanford or Baylor, they say, is simply too many games away.

“It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been Baylor — you just get through the first game,” said center Talia Caldwell. “No matter what bracket we would’ve been placed in, we would just look at the first opponent and say, ‘Let’s try to beat them.’”

The Bears will likely be salivating at another chance to best their Bay Area rivals. The Cardinal claimed yet another Pac-12 Tournament title just last weekend after sharing the conference title with Cal.

In their two regular-season matchups against the Bears, Stanford claimed the first, 62-53, at Haas Pavilion in January. Cal settled the score in Maples Pavilion with a 67-55 victory just days later.

For now, though, the Bears’ immediate focus is on Fresno State. The No. 15 seeded Bulldogs earned an automatic bid to the Big Dance via their Mountain West Tournament victory.

The two teams coincidentally last played in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament as well. The Bears won that game and went as far as the Sweet Sixteen, their best tournament run in program history.

That was the last time the Bears made the Big Dance under former coach Joanne Boyle. Since that fantastic run, Cal had spent two disappointing seasons. Last year, incumbent coach Lindsay Gottlieb took the Bears to a short two-game run in last year’s March Madness. They lost to Notre Dame, which was seeded No. 1 in the Norfolk Regional.

For the seniors who came out of the nationally ranked No. 1 recruiting class of 2009, they recognize the difference between the teams of old and current is nothing short of night and day.

While their freshman and sophomore campaigns were far from illustrious, they are valued chapters in building perhaps the best Cal women’s basketball team yet.

“We know what it’s like to work hard and have things not go your way,” Caldwell said. “It made us who we are now, and I don’t think anyone here regrets that.”

Vincent Tzeng covers women’s basketball. Contact him at vtzeng@dailycal.org.

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Michael Tao/File

Last year, Justin Cobbs did not watch any of the NCAA Tournament’s opening weekend games.

After South Florida crushed the Cal men’s basketball team in the play-in game, the Bears’ point guard did not feel like watching basketball for the next week. The wound was still fresh. Still is.

The one-and-done format is part of what makes March Madness so great, but there is another side of it that Cobbs and Cal know all too well. As coach Mike Montgomery said, “there are no do-overs. There is no next game unless we earn the next game.”

“If that doesn’t get your mind going,” Cobbs said, “knowing your season can be over just like that … ” He trails off. “I think we’re very conscious of what’s at stake.”

In arguably the best matchup possible for a 12 seed, the Bears (20-11) open the NCAA Tournament Thursday at 4:27 p.m. in nearby San Jose against a fifth-seeded UNLV team that barely beat Cal earlier in the season.

While Montgomery quipped that it might be faster to fly from Las Vegas than fight through traffic on Interstate 880, the players are excited about what they call a “home” game at HP Pavilion. They are also looking to get the bad taste out of their mouth from their 76-75 loss to the Runnin’ Rebels (25-9) back on Dec. 9.

At Haas Pavilion, Cal rode a balanced, efficient offensive effort to a one-point lead with 11 seconds remaining. Cobbs blocked UNLV point guard Anthony Marshall’s shot attempt, but forward Quintrell Thomas scooped up the airball and laid it in just before the buzzer.

“The layup, that’s all I remember,” said Cal forward Richard Solomon. “Walking into the locker room, we were all really mad. We felt like they got away with one.

“We got a little chip on our shoulders.”

The Bears will have to rebound from their late-season slide to avenge the loss and advance to the round of 32 to face either Syracuse or Montana.

After a seven-game win streak fueled by defense, Cal let the Pac-12 championship slip away with a poor defensive effort in its regular-season finale loss to Stanford. The team claimed it had gotten over it but showed little improvement in a stunning 79-69 overtime loss to No. 10 seed Utah in the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals last Thursday.

Solomon said some of the players took the Utes for granted. “We thought it would be easy,” he said.

They know the Rebels won’t be. Forward David Kravish said the Bears will get “embarrassed” if they come out flat.

Cal will need to figure out how to stop the 6-foot-8, 240-pound freshman forward Anthony Bennett, a projected top-10 pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, who destroyed Cal at Haas Pavilion with 25 points and 13 rebounds. The Bears will not be able to double team Bennett too much, according to Montgomery. “UNLV’s got too many (other) guys capable of scoring 20 points,” he said.

While the matchup may seem seem perfectly scripted for a Cal upset, the Bears are still a 12 seed playing a 5 seed. And while the December loss is still on Cal’s minds, Thursday’s rematch is less about revenge and all about living to fight another day.

“When it’s tournament time, anybody can beat anybody,” Cobbs said. “If you’re playing well at the right time, playing the right way, doing the right things, you can beat anybody. So if we stay focused and believe, the sky’s the limit for us.”

Jonathan Kuperberg covers men’s basketball. Contact him at jkuperberg@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanKupe.

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