College Basketball: Bruin Beaters, Bracket Crashers

It may have been a tough football season, but they were dancing down on The Farm last night.

In fact, they might still be dancing at center court in Maples Pavilion, savoring the Cardinal's 75-68 upset of third-ranked UCLA.

Despite not being ranked, the Cardinal have been lurking in the weeds all season, and Sunday night they reared up and took a bite out of the Bruins. The way that they won it was especially startling: rallying back from a 17-point first-half deficit to cut the lead to seven in the second half, then going on a 15-0 run over the next three and one-half minutes to take the lead for good. They shot 70 percent from the floor in the second half! Stanford coach Trent Johnson showed great coaching chops by moving swingman Lawrence Hill to power forward in the second half to negate UCLA's quickness, and Hill responded with 22 points.

Huge comebacks and lopsided, game-changing runs are not something this hard-nosed UCLA squad gives up. No doubt UCLA got caught looking ahead to the plane ride home, but this was a damn impressive win for the Lelands. Scott Ostler is calling it one of the great wins in Stanford basketball history (yeah, but quick, name another).

Lawrence Hill and the Stanford crazies practiced their new March Madness line dance Sunday night against UCLA. Photo from espn.com.

This win was pretty damn good, but not unexpected. The Cardinal haven't beaten a team ranked this high since 2003, but the Bruins might have figured on a tough time in Maples, especially after Stanford swatted #25 USC 65-50 on Thursday.

And with tonight's win, there might be more dancing in Stanford's future. Like the kind of dancing they do in March. That's right. Tonight's win, a mondo "quality win" in tournament selection parlance, helps solidify the Cardinal's inside track for an invitation to the NCAA championship tournament. This was the marquee win they needed to put them over the top. With wins over #25 USC, then #24 Washington, then #23 Washington State, Virginia, and Texas Tech; a 14-5 overall record; and a 6-3 conference record, all the team needs to do is go .500 the rest of the way in conference play and the tourney is a lock.

Of course, that may be easier said than done when four of the remaining nine conference games are against ranked opponents, but Sunday night's win now makes March Madness a distinct possibility on the peninsula this year.