As best as I can tell, these are the years that the Stanford men have defeated a better seed in the conference tournament:
1990: #6 defeated #3 Cal
2009: #9 defeated #8 OSU
2010: #7 defeated #2 ASU
2014: #6 defeated #3 ASU
And these are the years that the Stanford men lost to a worse seed:
2003: #2 lost to #7 USC
2011: #8 lost to #9 OSU
2013: #8 lost to #9 ASU
If we discard the 8 vs 9 games, Stanford has only been involved in 4 upsets in the 22-year history of the tournament.
1990: #6 defeated #3 Cal
2009: #9 defeated #8 OSU
2010: #7 defeated #2 ASU
2014: #6 defeated #3 ASU
And these are the years that the Stanford men lost to a worse seed:
2003: #2 lost to #7 USC
2011: #8 lost to #9 OSU
2013: #8 lost to #9 ASU
If we discard the 8 vs 9 games, Stanford has only been involved in 4 upsets in the 22-year history of the tournament.
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)