tthompson993 said:

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Just a point of clarification for Sluggo who indicated that we didn't recruit a point guard in the 2021 class. I went to two O'Dowd games last season and Roberson played the point in each game and very well I might add. He scored the ball well and made several good passes to Bowser and Lewis. I said in another post, I believe that Roberson will or probably should be the starting point guard next year by the start of conference unless there is some type of major improvement in Brown's ability to shoot and Hyder's ability to do anything. Roberson is a born leader and that should have real positive impact on next year's team. He is definitely a true 4 star recruit.

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Ugh, the kid was obviously overhyped in his ability to immediately improve the team. I've never seen a true pg pick up his dribble 25-30 feet from the basket so often.

OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Big C said:

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OaktownBear said:

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sluggo said:

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stu said:

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SFBear92 said:

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The reason the team has no talent is because the coach can't recruit. Once again, another excuse.

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IMHO through 2 years he has driven off more talent than he has brought in. The class coming in this fall looks promising but I'll have to see them play and develop. Also I don't see a center.

I think Fox is a competent coach, far better than Jones, but not close to Montgomery's level. I wouldn't expect a competent coach with a less than stellar roster to get us regular NCAA Tournament appearances.

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If you think this new class will materially change the team, go see their highlights on youtube. I like Alajiki, but the other two will need to grow into roles, although they are athletic enough. I realize there is more projection than most years with the shutdown.

---

Forgive me, but I see a lot of people pointing to this class as some sort of turnaround. I know 3 things about recruiting. 1. I have no ability to judge the talent of recruits by looking at them. 2. No one on this board has any ability to judge the talent of recruits by looking at them. 3. The best way to get a sense of the quality of a class is ratings by recruiting services and what other schools have offered them.

Based on that, smart money says we have one recruit who likely develops into a player who could start on a power conference team that finishes in the top half of conference and two players who are likely role players on such a team but will likely develop into starters for us in a few years. I'm sorry, but statistically speaking getting an offer from a last place Power conference team and a bunch of mid majors, or 2 last place Power conference teams and a bunch of mid majors does not lead to turning a program competitive. Of course we need to see what they will do, but some people here are banking on it leading to big improvement and there is nothing that indicates that is the case. There is nothing to indicate that Fox is a coach like Monty that gets more out of his players than their talent would suggest. Fox's recruiting classes have ranked 10th and 8th in conference. That doesn't add up to improvement

---

I don't disagree with any of your points. The question is, what do we do about it? It seems like our best option, all things considered, is to wait 11-12 months and then begin to reevaluate Fox' status.

What about in the meantime? "We" can educate our Athletic Director on how to hire a basketball coach and "we" can move things forward on getting a dedicated practice facility. (notice "we" in quotation marks, as there is little that you or I can realistically do to advance either of those)

Perhaps the larger problem is that nobody really cares. Heck, I find myself caring less than I have just about any time in the last few decades. The team is losing, they are boring and I can't even go to Haas and at least hang out with my old buddies.

So I'm getting through this period on irrational hope: Maybe we'll be better next season! Go Bears!

Don't underestimate a little hope: It's largely what has kept Cal Football and Basketball fans going since as long as I can remember. Did I say "Go Bears" yet? Oh yes, I already did. It's the cry of the hopeful Cal Fan!

---

Personally, the Wyking Jones era made more sense and was a lot more honest. We stop pretending Cal wants to have a good basketball program. We get the cheapest coach we can find. We don't pretend to our fans we are going to try. We roll a team out there because we have to as a conference member. We collect our conference share of the earnings and we live off that and don't expect our fans to fund it or show up. Not saying I like it, but it's honest and makes financial sense. Frankly, I wouldn't bother complaining.

Instead of rolling with that, we decided to plunk down more than an additional $6m over 5 years and hope to con Cal fans into believing they care. Cal will not remotely put a dent in that in extra revenue. So since they decided to spend that money I'm going to complain

---

That's absurd. Come on, OTB.

---

You miss my point.

I'd rather they try and be successful.

Between not trying and not trying but paying $6M in a PR move to pretend to try, I choose not trying. Between last place in conference and paying $6M for last place, I'll keep the $6M

Jones made sense if you accepted it as a purely monetary give up move. Better sense would be to hire someone that might actually get you some success. Hiring a more expensive coach that does not have the attributes to make your program successful makes no sense.

---

How much did we pay Jones? How much are we still paying Jones?

To one of your earlier points about searching . . . If I were Knowlton, I would have one of my staff list EVERY coach in D1 basketball this season and the last few - including their conference. record, compensation and experience. Yes, that's probably 400 rows on a spreadsheet, but could probably be done in less than a day. Then, I would give them some basic parameters to whittle it down to 20-30 names that could be potential candidates. That might take another day. Given a whittled list of a couple dozen coaches, I would spend the next year or so watching some of their games, getting to know their networks and developing a sense of their pros & cons. Then, a year from now (or two), that list may be 4 or 5 names long. At that point, if other powers pushed for a search firm (there may be valid reasons) - I would give the firm my list and ask to vet those and offer a few other options.

I know Knowlton didn't have time at Cal last time and his AF list wasn't a good fit - but no excuses next time.

Civil Bear said:

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tthompson993 said:

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Just a point of clarification for Sluggo who indicated that we didn't recruit a point guard in the 2021 class. I went to two O'Dowd games last season and Roberson played the point in each game and very well I might add. He scored the ball well and made several good passes to Bowser and Lewis. I said in another post, I believe that Roberson will or probably should be the starting point guard next year by the start of conference unless there is some type of major improvement in Brown's ability to shoot and Hyder's ability to do anything. Roberson is a born leader and that should have real positive impact on next year's team. He is definitely a true 4 star recruit.

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Ugh, the kid was obviously overhyped in his ability to immediately improve the team. I've never seen a true pg pick up his dribble 25-30 feet from the basket so often.

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He has no left hand. He also can't change the rhythm of his dribble. Between the two issues he can't be on the ball. He seems okay off the ball. Needs to shoot better.

sluggo said:

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tthompson993 said:

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Just a point of clarification for Sluggo who indicated that we didn't recruit a point guard in the 2021 class. I went to two O'Dowd games last season and Roberson played the point in each game and very well I might add. He scored the ball well and made several good passes to Bowser and Lewis. I said in another post, I believe that Roberson will or probably should be the starting point guard next year by the start of conference unless there is some type of major improvement in Brown's ability to shoot and Hyder's ability to do anything. Roberson is a born leader and that should have real positive impact on next year's team. He is definitely a true 4 star recruit.

---

Watched a few more BOD highlights. Roberson did not seem to be the point in them, though I believe you saw what you saw. He plays somewhat like Tyrone Wallace, who played both on and off the ball. I am not so into positions, but I think he is likely to be off the ball at Cal. I don't think he could run an offense, or do much else for that matter, if Joel Brown was guarding him.

He comes from a great high school basketball program, so everyone knew about him, but yet his only good offer was Cal. So the world voted and did not see the type of player who would beat out Brown as a freshman. Last year he had great leaping ability and good size, and I think being left handed is underrated. But he was not so fluid on the ball and had a slow motion outside shot (that I suspect is unreliable but did not watch whole game footage), almost a push shot. Compared to Bowser, who is am amazing athlete, he did not appear that quick. But that was a year ago and he could definitely have improved.

---

The above is what I'm talking about, slug. It is rare for any but the top ranked PG in a high school class to come in and succeed right away. Even top ranked ones don't. I can point to Ayinde Ubaka who was All American and struggled for 2 years. I can point to Keith Smith who thankfully didn't have to play PG as a frosh, but who looked lost as a frosh and turned out great. It is wholly unrealistic to think that a guy who everyone is recruiting as a 2, who has 2 offers from power conference teams, both in last place, who is ranked 157 nationally is going to walk in and take over the PG job. That while everyone in America who is paid to do this sees him as a 3 star shooting guard, the guy who watches some high school games is telling us he is a 4 star PG starter as a true frosh. That is not to say that Roberson is a bad recruit by any stretch. Those are ridiculous expectations.

The overwhelmingly most likely reality is that the 5 starters next year are on the team right now. That Joel Brown will take his first year of being the PG starter, learn from it and get better. If you want to bank on some optimism, bank on THAT. That is how things work. Especially when the supposed point of Fox is that he will slowly build this program by developing players over time.

What I see is that people who want to be optimistic reveal their pessimism with the constant cycling away from guys actually on the team and talking about HS players coming in and taking over. Because what they are really saying is our team sucks and to maintain their optimism they have to engage in ridiculous fantasies that have HS players developing much faster than anyone has a right to expect basically because the HS guy hasn't proven to suck and in their minds the guy on the team has. They couch it in confidence over the incoming players when they really are displaying a lack of confidence in the current players (who they previously had seen as the hope). It's a repeating cycle of "This guy will be the guy! Oh. He's not the guy. This guy will be the guy!" I am reminded of the number of Cal fans who dissatisfied with the play of a true freshman quarterback who would later be a number 1 pick and play in a superbowl insisted that his job would be challenged by an incoming frosh who would quickly become a safety.

Happy to eat crow on this if I have to. But I'm very comfortable in my supposition that Brown is our PG next year. We've already gone through a lot of people assuming Hyder would supplant him and see how that worked out (and to be clear, most likely Hyder is the backup next year.) Instead of flailing around looking for answers, people should realize, Brown is the answer. He may not be the one you want, but he is the answer. And while I don't think he will set the world on fire, he will be a solid player roughly in line with the other starters on the team.

I have no issue with what YOU are saying. You may claim more expertise than I do, but it does not rise to the level of ridiculous hubris. You have mentioned Celestine, for instance. Well, you may be right about Celestine. And being right means you saw a player that as a freshman is a nice role player off the bench. Not a starter that is solving our problems. You have a different opinion from recruiting services on where Alajiki fits in our class. It isn't an outlandish one. I take it from what you are saying that he could be next year's Celestine. Which is a completely reasonable expectation to have for a freshman not ranked high. If you are going to claim that Alajiki is an impact recruit that starts first year, I'll take issue with that.

If people were really feeling good about the state of this team, they would not be looking for true freshman to come in and start. They'd be looking for further development from the guys on the team.

BeachedBear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Big C said:

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OaktownBear said:

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sluggo said:

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stu said:

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SFBear92 said:

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The reason the team has no talent is because the coach can't recruit. Once again, another excuse.

---

IMHO through 2 years he has driven off more talent than he has brought in. The class coming in this fall looks promising but I'll have to see them play and develop. Also I don't see a center.

I think Fox is a competent coach, far better than Jones, but not close to Montgomery's level. I wouldn't expect a competent coach with a less than stellar roster to get us regular NCAA Tournament appearances.

---

If you think this new class will materially change the team, go see their highlights on youtube. I like Alajiki, but the other two will need to grow into roles, although they are athletic enough. I realize there is more projection than most years with the shutdown.

---

Forgive me, but I see a lot of people pointing to this class as some sort of turnaround. I know 3 things about recruiting. 1. I have no ability to judge the talent of recruits by looking at them. 2. No one on this board has any ability to judge the talent of recruits by looking at them. 3. The best way to get a sense of the quality of a class is ratings by recruiting services and what other schools have offered them.

Based on that, smart money says we have one recruit who likely develops into a player who could start on a power conference team that finishes in the top half of conference and two players who are likely role players on such a team but will likely develop into starters for us in a few years. I'm sorry, but statistically speaking getting an offer from a last place Power conference team and a bunch of mid majors, or 2 last place Power conference teams and a bunch of mid majors does not lead to turning a program competitive. Of course we need to see what they will do, but some people here are banking on it leading to big improvement and there is nothing that indicates that is the case. There is nothing to indicate that Fox is a coach like Monty that gets more out of his players than their talent would suggest. Fox's recruiting classes have ranked 10th and 8th in conference. That doesn't add up to improvement

---

I don't disagree with any of your points. The question is, what do we do about it? It seems like our best option, all things considered, is to wait 11-12 months and then begin to reevaluate Fox' status.

What about in the meantime? "We" can educate our Athletic Director on how to hire a basketball coach and "we" can move things forward on getting a dedicated practice facility. (notice "we" in quotation marks, as there is little that you or I can realistically do to advance either of those)

Perhaps the larger problem is that nobody really cares. Heck, I find myself caring less than I have just about any time in the last few decades. The team is losing, they are boring and I can't even go to Haas and at least hang out with my old buddies.

So I'm getting through this period on irrational hope: Maybe we'll be better next season! Go Bears!

Don't underestimate a little hope: It's largely what has kept Cal Football and Basketball fans going since as long as I can remember. Did I say "Go Bears" yet? Oh yes, I already did. It's the cry of the hopeful Cal Fan!

---

Personally, the Wyking Jones era made more sense and was a lot more honest. We stop pretending Cal wants to have a good basketball program. We get the cheapest coach we can find. We don't pretend to our fans we are going to try. We roll a team out there because we have to as a conference member. We collect our conference share of the earnings and we live off that and don't expect our fans to fund it or show up. Not saying I like it, but it's honest and makes financial sense. Frankly, I wouldn't bother complaining.

Instead of rolling with that, we decided to plunk down more than an additional $6m over 5 years and hope to con Cal fans into believing they care. Cal will not remotely put a dent in that in extra revenue. So since they decided to spend that money I'm going to complain

---

That's absurd. Come on, OTB.

---

You miss my point.

I'd rather they try and be successful.

Between not trying and not trying but paying $6M in a PR move to pretend to try, I choose not trying. Between last place in conference and paying $6M for last place, I'll keep the $6M

Jones made sense if you accepted it as a purely monetary give up move. Better sense would be to hire someone that might actually get you some success. Hiring a more expensive coach that does not have the attributes to make your program successful makes no sense.

---

How much did we pay Jones? How much are we still paying Jones?

To one of your earlier points about searching . . . If I were Knowlton, I would have one of my staff list EVERY coach in D1 basketball this season and the last few - including their conference. record, compensation and experience. Yes, that's probably 400 rows on a spreadsheet, but could probably be done in less than a day. Then, I would give them some basic parameters to whittle it down to 20-30 names that could be potential candidates. That might take another day. Given a whittled list of a couple dozen coaches, I would spend the next year or so watching some of their games, getting to know their networks and developing a sense of their pros & cons. Then, a year from now (or two), that list may be 4 or 5 names long. At that point, if other powers pushed for a search firm (there may be valid reasons) - I would give the firm my list and ask to vet those and offer a few other options.

I know Knowlton didn't have time at Cal last time and his AF list wasn't a good fit - but no excuses next time.

---

We paid Jones $1M per year. His 5 years were guaranteed. I assume we are still paying $1M a year, but I don't know if we paid him a lump sum.

$1M was ridiculous for Jones. He had no prayer of making anything close to that anywhere else. I'm sort of assuming they thought $1M was the minimum they could pay and not be embarrassing. IMO, it was already embarrassing and I wouldn't have paid a dime over $500K.

I don't disagree with what you are saying about searching. Between the chance anything remotely like that is happening and the chance that I win the lottery this week, I'll take the chance that I win the lottery. And I haven't bought a ticket.

He had been here a year last time. Jones was a known commodity. He had all summer to make the list of 20 names and all season to observe. I see no excuse last time and I see no difference this time.

OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Big C said:

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OaktownBear said:

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sluggo said:

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stu said:

---

SFBear92 said:

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The reason the team has no talent is because the coach can't recruit. Once again, another excuse.

---

IMHO through 2 years he has driven off more talent than he has brought in. The class coming in this fall looks promising but I'll have to see them play and develop. Also I don't see a center.

I think Fox is a competent coach, far better than Jones, but not close to Montgomery's level. I wouldn't expect a competent coach with a less than stellar roster to get us regular NCAA Tournament appearances.

---

If you think this new class will materially change the team, go see their highlights on youtube. I like Alajiki, but the other two will need to grow into roles, although they are athletic enough. I realize there is more projection than most years with the shutdown.

---

Forgive me, but I see a lot of people pointing to this class as some sort of turnaround. I know 3 things about recruiting. 1. I have no ability to judge the talent of recruits by looking at them. 2. No one on this board has any ability to judge the talent of recruits by looking at them. 3. The best way to get a sense of the quality of a class is ratings by recruiting services and what other schools have offered them.

Based on that, smart money says we have one recruit who likely develops into a player who could start on a power conference team that finishes in the top half of conference and two players who are likely role players on such a team but will likely develop into starters for us in a few years. I'm sorry, but statistically speaking getting an offer from a last place Power conference team and a bunch of mid majors, or 2 last place Power conference teams and a bunch of mid majors does not lead to turning a program competitive. Of course we need to see what they will do, but some people here are banking on it leading to big improvement and there is nothing that indicates that is the case. There is nothing to indicate that Fox is a coach like Monty that gets more out of his players than their talent would suggest. Fox's recruiting classes have ranked 10th and 8th in conference. That doesn't add up to improvement

---

I don't disagree with any of your points. The question is, what do we do about it? It seems like our best option, all things considered, is to wait 11-12 months and then begin to reevaluate Fox' status.

What about in the meantime? "We" can educate our Athletic Director on how to hire a basketball coach and "we" can move things forward on getting a dedicated practice facility. (notice "we" in quotation marks, as there is little that you or I can realistically do to advance either of those)

Perhaps the larger problem is that nobody really cares. Heck, I find myself caring less than I have just about any time in the last few decades. The team is losing, they are boring and I can't even go to Haas and at least hang out with my old buddies.

So I'm getting through this period on irrational hope: Maybe we'll be better next season! Go Bears!

Don't underestimate a little hope: It's largely what has kept Cal Football and Basketball fans going since as long as I can remember. Did I say "Go Bears" yet? Oh yes, I already did. It's the cry of the hopeful Cal Fan!

---

Personally, the Wyking Jones era made more sense and was a lot more honest. We stop pretending Cal wants to have a good basketball program. We get the cheapest coach we can find. We don't pretend to our fans we are going to try. We roll a team out there because we have to as a conference member. We collect our conference share of the earnings and we live off that and don't expect our fans to fund it or show up. Not saying I like it, but it's honest and makes financial sense. Frankly, I wouldn't bother complaining.

Instead of rolling with that, we decided to plunk down more than an additional $6m over 5 years and hope to con Cal fans into believing they care. Cal will not remotely put a dent in that in extra revenue. So since they decided to spend that money I'm going to complain

---

That's absurd. Come on, OTB.

---

You miss my point.

I'd rather they try and be successful.

Between not trying and not trying but paying $6M in a PR move to pretend to try, I choose not trying. Between last place in conference and paying $6M for last place, I'll keep the $6M

Jones made sense if you accepted it as a purely monetary give up move. Better sense would be to hire someone that might actually get you some success. Hiring a more expensive coach that does not have the attributes to make your program successful makes no sense.

---

That's absurd. Come on, OTB.

OaktownBear said:

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sluggo said:

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tthompson993 said:

---

Just a point of clarification for Sluggo who indicated that we didn't recruit a point guard in the 2021 class. I went to two O'Dowd games last season and Roberson played the point in each game and very well I might add. He scored the ball well and made several good passes to Bowser and Lewis. I said in another post, I believe that Roberson will or probably should be the starting point guard next year by the start of conference unless there is some type of major improvement in Brown's ability to shoot and Hyder's ability to do anything. Roberson is a born leader and that should have real positive impact on next year's team. He is definitely a true 4 star recruit.

---

Watched a few more BOD highlights. Roberson did not seem to be the point in them, though I believe you saw what you saw. He plays somewhat like Tyrone Wallace, who played both on and off the ball. I am not so into positions, but I think he is likely to be off the ball at Cal. I don't think he could run an offense, or do much else for that matter, if Joel Brown was guarding him.

He comes from a great high school basketball program, so everyone knew about him, but yet his only good offer was Cal. So the world voted and did not see the type of player who would beat out Brown as a freshman. Last year he had great leaping ability and good size, and I think being left handed is underrated. But he was not so fluid on the ball and had a slow motion outside shot (that I suspect is unreliable but did not watch whole game footage), almost a push shot. Compared to Bowser, who is am amazing athlete, he did not appear that quick. But that was a year ago and he could definitely have improved.

---

The above is what I'm talking about, slug. It is rare for any but the top ranked PG in a high school class to come in and succeed right away. Even top ranked ones don't. I can point to Ayinde Ubaka who was All American and struggled for 2 years. I can point to Keith Smith who thankfully didn't have to play PG as a frosh, but who looked lost as a frosh and turned out great. It is wholly unrealistic to think that a guy who everyone is recruiting as a 2, who has 2 offers from power conference teams, both in last place, who is ranked 157 nationally is going to walk in and take over the PG job. That while everyone in America who is paid to do this sees him as a 3 star shooting guard, the guy who watches some high school games is telling us he is a 4 star PG starter as a true frosh. That is not to say that Roberson is a bad recruit by any stretch. Those are ridiculous expectations.

The overwhelmingly most likely reality is that the 5 starters next year are on the team right now. That Joel Brown will take his first year of being the PG starter, learn from it and get better. If you want to bank on some optimism, bank on THAT. That is how things work. Especially when the supposed point of Fox is that he will slowly build this program by developing players over time.

What I see is that people who want to be optimistic reveal their pessimism with the constant cycling away from guys actually on the team and talking about HS players coming in and taking over. Because what they are really saying is our team sucks and to maintain their optimism they have to engage in ridiculous fantasies that have HS players developing much faster than anyone has a right to expect basically because the HS guy hasn't proven to suck and in their minds the guy on the team has. They couch it in confidence over the incoming players when they really are displaying a lack of confidence in the current players (who they previously had seen as the hope). It's a repeating cycle of "This guy will be the guy! Oh. He's not the guy. This guy will be the guy!" I am reminded of the number of Cal fans who dissatisfied with the play of a true freshman quarterback who would later be a number 1 pick and play in a superbowl insisted that his job would be challenged by an incoming frosh who would quickly become a safety.

Happy to eat crow on this if I have to. But I'm very comfortable in my supposition that Brown is our PG next year. We've already gone through a lot of people assuming Hyder would supplant him and see how that worked out (and to be clear, most likely Hyder is the backup next year.) Instead of flailing around looking for answers, people should realize, Brown is the answer. He may not be the one you want, but he is the answer. And while I don't think he will set the world on fire, he will be a solid player roughly in line with the other starters on the team.

I have no issue with what YOU are saying. You may claim more expertise than I do, but it does not rise to the level of ridiculous hubris. You have mentioned Celestine, for instance. Well, you may be right about Celestine. And being right means you saw a player that as a freshman is a nice role player off the bench. Not a starter that is solving our problems. You have a different opinion from recruiting services on where Alajiki fits in our class. It isn't an outlandish one. I take it from what you are saying that he could be next year's Celestine. Which is a completely reasonable expectation to have for a freshman not ranked high. If you are going to claim that Alajiki is an impact recruit that starts first year, I'll take issue with that.

If people were really feeling good about the state of this team, they would not be looking for true freshman to come in and start. They'd be looking for further development from the guys on the team.

---

My optimism about this team is based on the guys on the roster right now. I hear moderately good things about the incoming players, so I'm hopeful they'll be able to provide some important support roles next season (especially with size/athleticism up front), but my optimism is not rooted in some savior recruits. (In fact, I'm actually opposed to immediate savior recruits, but that's a different subject.)

Yes, I expect that next year's staters are on the roster this year. And, yes, I expect (and want) Brown to be the starter next year. I'd like to see him getting much more time there now to further aid his development for next season. He has already improved significantly from last year, and I expect to see further improvement next year.

I think next year's team will be much improved over Fox's first two years, which have been much improved over the two years prior to Fox. It will be a veteran team with a tremendous weapon in Bradley, some decent secondary weapons in GA, AK, and JB (and maybe Celestine; I'm really wanting to see a lot more of him right now because I've been very intrigued by glimpses he's shown so far), and solid coaching. I don't see an overnight Sweet16 team, but I anticipate and look forward to seeing a solid improvement trajectory (akin to Wilcox on the football side).

I may turn out to be wrong and disappointed, we'll see, but I'm one whose optimism is not based on some instant program-changer walking through the door next year. I believe I can see the elements in place right now.

OaktownBear said:

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sluggo said:

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tthompson993 said:

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Just a point of clarification for Sluggo who indicated that we didn't recruit a point guard in the 2021 class. I went to two O'Dowd games last season and Roberson played the point in each game and very well I might add. He scored the ball well and made several good passes to Bowser and Lewis. I said in another post, I believe that Roberson will or probably should be the starting point guard next year by the start of conference unless there is some type of major improvement in Brown's ability to shoot and Hyder's ability to do anything. Roberson is a born leader and that should have real positive impact on next year's team. He is definitely a true 4 star recruit.

---

Watched a few more BOD highlights. Roberson did not seem to be the point in them, though I believe you saw what you saw. He plays somewhat like Tyrone Wallace, who played both on and off the ball. I am not so into positions, but I think he is likely to be off the ball at Cal. I don't think he could run an offense, or do much else for that matter, if Joel Brown was guarding him.

He comes from a great high school basketball program, so everyone knew about him, but yet his only good offer was Cal. So the world voted and did not see the type of player who would beat out Brown as a freshman. Last year he had great leaping ability and good size, and I think being left handed is underrated. But he was not so fluid on the ball and had a slow motion outside shot (that I suspect is unreliable but did not watch whole game footage), almost a push shot. Compared to Bowser, who is am amazing athlete, he did not appear that quick. But that was a year ago and he could definitely have improved.

---

The above is what I'm talking about, slug. It is rare for any but the top ranked PG in a high school class to come in and succeed right away. Even top ranked ones don't. I can point to Ayinde Ubaka who was All American and struggled for 2 years. I can point to Keith Smith who thankfully didn't have to play PG as a frosh, but who looked lost as a frosh and turned out great. It is wholly unrealistic to think that a guy who everyone is recruiting as a 2, who has 2 offers from power conference teams, both in last place, who is ranked 157 nationally is going to walk in and take over the PG job. That while everyone in America who is paid to do this sees him as a 3 star shooting guard, the guy who watches some high school games is telling us he is a 4 star PG starter as a true frosh. That is not to say that Roberson is a bad recruit by any stretch. Those are ridiculous expectations.

The overwhelmingly most likely reality is that the 5 starters next year are on the team right now. That Joel Brown will take his first year of being the PG starter, learn from it and get better. If you want to bank on some optimism, bank on THAT. That is how things work. Especially when the supposed point of Fox is that he will slowly build this program by developing players over time.

What I see is that people who want to be optimistic reveal their pessimism with the constant cycling away from guys actually on the team and talking about HS players coming in and taking over. Because what they are really saying is our team sucks and to maintain their optimism they have to engage in ridiculous fantasies that have HS players developing much faster than anyone has a right to expect basically because the HS guy hasn't proven to suck and in their minds the guy on the team has. They couch it in confidence over the incoming players when they really are displaying a lack of confidence in the current players (who they previously had seen as the hope). It's a repeating cycle of "This guy will be the guy! Oh. He's not the guy. This guy will be the guy!" I am reminded of the number of Cal fans who dissatisfied with the play of a true freshman quarterback who would later be a number 1 pick and play in a superbowl insisted that his job would be challenged by an incoming frosh who would quickly become a safety.

Happy to eat crow on this if I have to. But I'm very comfortable in my supposition that Brown is our PG next year. We've already gone through a lot of people assuming Hyder would supplant him and see how that worked out (and to be clear, most likely Hyder is the backup next year.) Instead of flailing around looking for answers, people should realize, Brown is the answer. He may not be the one you want, but he is the answer. And while I don't think he will set the world on fire, he will be a solid player roughly in line with the other starters on the team.

I have no issue with what YOU are saying. You may claim more expertise than I do, but it does not rise to the level of ridiculous hubris. You have mentioned Celestine, for instance. Well, you may be right about Celestine. And being right means you saw a player that as a freshman is a nice role player off the bench. Not a starter that is solving our problems. You have a different opinion from recruiting services on where Alajiki fits in our class. It isn't an outlandish one. I take it from what you are saying that he could be next year's Celestine. Which is a completely reasonable expectation to have for a freshman not ranked high. If you are going to claim that Alajiki is an impact recruit that starts first year, I'll take issue with that.

If people were really feeling good about the state of this team, they would not be looking for true freshman to come in and start. They'd be looking for further development from the guys on the team.

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Have to agree with you on this subject. I too have watched Roberson live and he is athletic, explosive and a leader. However he will not supplant Brown. JB is improving and is a dog on D, and really gets after it. Roberson's true position is off the ball to utilize his creativeness and drives coupled with a decent outside shot (needs and will get improvement). Physically he will not be ready for Pac12 basketball other than in stretches. However he will be a significant contributor in his sophomore season. Fox will go with the experienced players coming back and they will be pushed hard in the off season (as they should be). This team has clearly underperformed and I see a significant improvement next season. Kelly, Hyder, Brown, Celestine and Bowser will all take positive steps. Will be interesting to see if GA returns and while he disappears from time to time, his experience and full health will also be a very positive factor.

OaktownBear said:

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socaliganbear said:

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sluggo said:

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NathanAllen said:

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socaltownie said:

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Look - Fox can coach. That is pretty clear last year and, while it is hard to judge in COVID land - there are flashes of it this year.

BUT COACHING IS NOT ENOUGH TO WIN IN THE PAC 12

You have

A marketing extension of the world's largest shoe company that is dressed up as a university athletic program

A Storied program that gets all the attention they could ask for from the 2nd largest city in the country's media market

A university that doesn't give jack **** about a coach who PAID for players as long as he wins

A program (Utah) with clearly a great coach who is better than Fox (who wouldn't right now trade a nobel winner and Fox for Larry K?)


It is simply the case that Cal needs more talent. And arguably the same could be said in Football - a program ALSO being run by clearly a good coach but who has to compete on an unlevel playing field.

And lets be blunt - in my lifetime Cal has NEVER hired a coach would would be considered a great recruiter who had charisma and who was a natural sales person. MAYBE Tedford was good. MAYBE.

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I get your points. But let's not pretend the Pac-12 is a college hoops juggernaut or that these things don't happen in other P5 conferences.

I also get there's a lot of frustration, overreactions, and message board hot-takes after a turd of a game against a rival during a five-game losing streak and a 2-11 record in a pretty bad P12.

But let's not forget the context. First, just how bad the team was when Fox took over. At its worst during Jones's last season, Cal was No. 289 in Kenpom. It finished the season at No. 240 thanks to its three-game win streak to close the season and only losing to Colorado by five in the P12 conference tournament. Still, the teams ranked next to Cal were Sacred Heart and Army. The next-lowest ranked Power Conference team was Wazzu at No. 207. The next lowest team not from the P12 was Wake Forest at No. 174. Like Cal, Wazzu fired its coach after that season. Somehow Danny Manning lasted one more year at Wake Forest.

So, the program is by far the worst Power Conference program for two consecutive years. Then you have the fact that Cal does not have the budget, nor is it willing to spend the money on a practice facility or coaching staff. Mark Fox makes about $1.6 million and will top-out at the end of his five-year contract at $1.8 million. Not only is that the lowest contract in the country and the second-lowest in the conference (in front of, you guessed it, Wazzu), but it's also in one of the most expensive places to live in the world.

And then you have recruiting. Not only is Cal disadvantaged from academic standards and a lack of practice facility, but now it's also fighting against its own past. Kids being recruited now might remember Ivan Rabb or Jabari Bird or Jaylen Brown playing for Cal. But they probably don't remember Cal as being very good.

I don't say all of this to be super negative, even though I understand it might come off that way, or to defend Mark Fox. It's mainly a reminder that Cal's program was horrible. It'd take any team and coach a while to dig out of it.

Cal is at an interesting point. Because the team is likely to be much improved next year as long as everyone stays healthy and sticks around. That will be year three on Fox's five-year contract. That's when coaches generally start to look for an extension. There's no point in talking about a new coach until then.

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Why would they be much improved? I heard that this year and disagreed. I disagree for next year.

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I think it likely that next year we'll still be boring, all around bad, and years away from the post season, but still technically improved from this season.

Overall, I'd guess the goal for the AD, based on who he hired, is not embarrassing, NIT regular, with tolerable academics. One or two first round exits per decade would be a cherry on top. I highly doubt Jim Knowlton has conference championship aspirations, or expectations.

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If that was the goal, he missed.

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I agree. My point is I doubt he was aiming for higher than that.

SFCityBear said:

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CalLifer said:

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SFCityBear said:

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He [Cuonzo] had no great success on the court, in conference, or in post season, and then he dumped Cal for Mizzou and bigger bucks.

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I started a post on this in another thread, then decided I didn't want to go down that rathole, but seeing this, I feel like I do need to at least push back here. While I understand that Cuonzo is not much loved here, and he jumped ship leaving a bare cupboard, and he bristled and pushed back against the recruiting restrictions we gave him, I can't agree that he had no great success on the court. While he wasn't able to build on that 2015-2016 year, we can't forget that: 1) undefeated at home that season, 2) recruited 2 5-stars to Berkeley, one of whom is now a rising star both for his play in the NBA as well as his activism/thoughtfulness off the court, and 3) led us to our highest seed in the NCAA tournament in the 64 team era! Yes, he lost two critical players in the days before our NCAA opening game that derailed any chances we might have had, but we can't lose sight of the fact that by any measure, that was as nationally strong a regular season as we've had in quite some time in Berkeley (and while I don't go back as far as you, SFCB, I've been a Cal fan since I started at Cal at the late '80s, and remember watching KJ and the Bears end the streak against UCLA (before I started at Cal, but definitely remember it).

I know Cuonzo had his drawbacks, but no other Cal team has earned a No 4 seed in the tournament since it went to 64 teams, and I don't think that achievement should be overlooked/pooh-poohed.

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I understand your points. I'm sorry to offend you over Cuonzo.

[...]

My point is that success in basketball to me has always been about winning something. A conference, a regional, a Final. I could care less about seeds, team rankings, or recruit rankings. Those are all just opinions of other humans, and they are welcome to them. I don't consider them to be accomplishments, or successes. Success for me is winning something. Today that would mean games, conferences, conference tournaments, and the NCAA tournament. If each Regional was played in one arena, I'd include winning a Regional.

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I'm not offended, I just wanted to offer my counter. I'm happy for you to have your expectations and standards. As someone who wasn't around for the Newell days, and came in at the tail end of Campanelli's tenure, I'm only saying that by your measure of success, we have had extremely few "successful" seasons since I came here in '89: 2 sweet sixteen appearances, 1 conference title (in a year so down that only two teams from the conference qualified for the tournament and we as the regular season champion were rewarded with an 8 seed), and 1 NIT championship. We've also had the occasional 1st round tournament win as well. If we also can't appreciate the joys in a quantitatively great regular season (especially compared to our few and far between successes in the previous 50 years) that ended early because of freak injuries to two critical players in the 2 days before our tournament game, that's tough for me.

And whatever we may want to say about how things used to be, the landscape of college basketball today is such that the tournament is considered by most to be the over-arching goal and measure of success, and to me, in that vein, it is to Cuonzo's credit that the Cal team that year was considered worthy of a top-4 seed in the tournament (that no other Cal coach has achieved, even Montgomery). That doesn't make Cuonzo a great coach, but I do think it's something he should be credited with and is a measure of how season was viewed by the tournament committee. Yes, there's no trophy or banner we can hang up for that one, but for a Cal basketball team where successful seasons are rare, we shouldn't turn up our noses at any of them.

CalLifer said:

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SFCityBear said:

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CalLifer said:

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SFCityBear said:

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He [Cuonzo] had no great success on the court, in conference, or in post season, and then he dumped Cal for Mizzou and bigger bucks.

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I started a post on this in another thread, then decided I didn't want to go down that rathole, but seeing this, I feel like I do need to at least push back here. While I understand that Cuonzo is not much loved here, and he jumped ship leaving a bare cupboard, and he bristled and pushed back against the recruiting restrictions we gave him, I can't agree that he had no great success on the court. While he wasn't able to build on that 2015-2016 year, we can't forget that: 1) undefeated at home that season, 2) recruited 2 5-stars to Berkeley, one of whom is now a rising star both for his play in the NBA as well as his activism/thoughtfulness off the court, and 3) led us to our highest seed in the NCAA tournament in the 64 team era! Yes, he lost two critical players in the days before our NCAA opening game that derailed any chances we might have had, but we can't lose sight of the fact that by any measure, that was as nationally strong a regular season as we've had in quite some time in Berkeley (and while I don't go back as far as you, SFCB, I've been a Cal fan since I started at Cal at the late '80s, and remember watching KJ and the Bears end the streak against UCLA (before I started at Cal, but definitely remember it).

I know Cuonzo had his drawbacks, but no other Cal team has earned a No 4 seed in the tournament since it went to 64 teams, and I don't think that achievement should be overlooked/pooh-poohed.

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I understand your points. I'm sorry to offend you over Cuonzo.

[...]

My point is that success in basketball to me has always been about winning something. A conference, a regional, a Final. I could care less about seeds, team rankings, or recruit rankings. Those are all just opinions of other humans, and they are welcome to them. I don't consider them to be accomplishments, or successes. Success for me is winning something. Today that would mean games, conferences, conference tournaments, and the NCAA tournament. If each Regional was played in one arena, I'd include winning a Regional.

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I'm not offended, I just wanted to offer my counter. I'm happy for you to have your expectations and standards. As someone who wasn't around for the Newell days, and came in at the tail end of Campanelli's tenure, I'm only saying that by your measure of success, we have had extremely few "successful" seasons since I came here in '89: 2 sweet sixteen appearances, 1 conference title (in a year so down that only two teams from the conference qualified for the tournament and we as the regular season champion were rewarded with an 8 seed), and 1 NIT championship. We've also had the occasional 1st round tournament win as well. If we also can't appreciate the joys in a quantitatively great regular season (especially compared to our few and far between successes in the previous 50 years) that ended early because of freak injuries to two critical players in the 2 days before our tournament game, that's tough for me.

And whatever we may want to say about how things used to be, the landscape of college basketball today is such that the tournament is considered by most to be the over-arching goal and measure of success, and to me, in that vein, it is to Cuonzo's credit that the Cal team that year was considered worthy of a top-4 seed in the tournament (that no other Cal coach has achieved, even Montgomery). That doesn't make Cuonzo a great coach, but I do think it's something he should be credited with and is a measure of how season was viewed by the tournament committee. Yes, there's no trophy or banner we can hang up for that one, but for a Cal basketball team where successful seasons are rare, we shouldn't turn up our noses at any of them.

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Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

Civil Bear said:

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Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

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about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

Civil Bear said:

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tthompson993 said:

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Just a point of clarification for Sluggo who indicated that we didn't recruit a point guard in the 2021 class. I went to two O'Dowd games last season and Roberson played the point in each game and very well I might add. He scored the ball well and made several good passes to Bowser and Lewis. I said in another post, I believe that Roberson will or probably should be the starting point guard next year by the start of conference unless there is some type of major improvement in Brown's ability to shoot and Hyder's ability to do anything. Roberson is a born leader and that should have real positive impact on next year's team. He is definitely a true 4 star recruit.

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Ugh, the kid was obviously overhyped in his ability to immediately improve the team. I've never seen a true pg pick up his dribble 25-30 feet from the basket so often.

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This why I always cringe when I hear we're bringing in a "combo guard". All too often, it means they are NEITHER a point guard, nor a shooting guard, i.e. not good enough to do either very well.

Yeah, yeah, "moving towards positionless basketball", blah, blah, blah. For my college team, I want a point guard who can handle the ball, distribute it, high hoops IQ on both ends of the floor, penetrate and dish, guard the other team's point and at least be a credible threat from outside. Paris Austin with a little better three point shot would've been quite acceptable. Heck, he was halfway decent as he was.

I'm hoping/expecting the Brown/Hyder combo can give us better play from the PG position next year. Seems likely, the question will be how much better.

Big C said:

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Civil Bear said:

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tthompson993 said:

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Just a point of clarification for Sluggo who indicated that we didn't recruit a point guard in the 2021 class. I went to two O'Dowd games last season and Roberson played the point in each game and very well I might add. He scored the ball well and made several good passes to Bowser and Lewis. I said in another post, I believe that Roberson will or probably should be the starting point guard next year by the start of conference unless there is some type of major improvement in Brown's ability to shoot and Hyder's ability to do anything. Roberson is a born leader and that should have real positive impact on next year's team. He is definitely a true 4 star recruit.

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Ugh, the kid was obviously overhyped in his ability to immediately improve the team. I've never seen a true pg pick up his dribble 25-30 feet from the basket so often.

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This why I always cringe when I hear we're bringing in a "combo guard". All too often, it means they are NEITHER a point guard, nor a shooting guard, i.e. not good enough to do either very well.

Yeah, yeah, "moving towards positionless basketball", blah, blah, blah. For my college team, I want a point guard who can handle the ball, distribute it, high hoops IQ on both ends of the floor, penetrate and dish, guard the other team's point and at least be a credible threat from outside. Paris Austin with a little better three point shot would've been quite acceptable. Heck, he was halfway decent as he was.

I'm hoping/expecting the Brown/Hyder combo can give us better play from the PG position next year. Seems likely, the question will be how much better.

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I think if what you want is Paris Austin with a little better 3 point shot, you already have that developing in Brown.

Good post

NathanAllen said:

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HoopDreams said:

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Civil Bear said:

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Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

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about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

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As probably the only resident Mizzou/Cal fan here (I'm assuming), I feel like I could add a novel to this. But I'll spare you all and do a few quick points.

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.
• For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches.
• For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.
• What Martin has at Missouri is very replicable for Cal with the right person. He has a team of veteran three- and four-star guys that have been in the program for years and they are a top-20 team that just knocked off their third top-10 team this morning. There will be a drop-off next year, but he's got the program back to respectability after three years of being an SEC bottom-dweller before Martin was hired.

Happy to add more as there are some similarities between programs and the fanbases. But I'll leave it at that for now.

Overall, the problem Cal will continually have (as others have already said) is getting the right coach and talent on a shoe-string budget with no practice facility. Fox makes less than every other head coach in the league besides Kyle Smith at Wazzu. Until Cal pays coaches at a higher level, it's going to be tough for them to attract and hold onto coaches that will get fans and recruits excited. It's still early. Maybe Mark Fox can turn this program into the program that it can be. But right now, he's fighting an uphill recruiting battle with a program that hasn't been relevant since 2017 and a program that doesn't have the facilities like its peers.

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NathanAllen said:

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HoopDreams said:

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Civil Bear said:

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Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

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about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

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• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

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Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

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For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

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The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

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For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

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Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

OaktownBear said:

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sluggo said:

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tthompson993 said:

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Just a point of clarification for Sluggo who indicated that we didn't recruit a point guard in the 2021 class. I went to two O'Dowd games last season and Roberson played the point in each game and very well I might add. He scored the ball well and made several good passes to Bowser and Lewis. I said in another post, I believe that Roberson will or probably should be the starting point guard next year by the start of conference unless there is some type of major improvement in Brown's ability to shoot and Hyder's ability to do anything. Roberson is a born leader and that should have real positive impact on next year's team. He is definitely a true 4 star recruit.

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Watched a few more BOD highlights. Roberson did not seem to be the point in them, though I believe you saw what you saw. He plays somewhat like Tyrone Wallace, who played both on and off the ball. I am not so into positions, but I think he is likely to be off the ball at Cal. I don't think he could run an offense, or do much else for that matter, if Joel Brown was guarding him.

He comes from a great high school basketball program, so everyone knew about him, but yet his only good offer was Cal. So the world voted and did not see the type of player who would beat out Brown as a freshman. Last year he had great leaping ability and good size, and I think being left handed is underrated. But he was not so fluid on the ball and had a slow motion outside shot (that I suspect is unreliable but did not watch whole game footage), almost a push shot. Compared to Bowser, who is am amazing athlete, he did not appear that quick. But that was a year ago and he could definitely have improved.

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The above is what I'm talking about, slug. It is rare for any but the top ranked PG in a high school class to come in and succeed right away. Even top ranked ones don't. I can point to Ayinde Ubaka who was All American and struggled for 2 years. I can point to Keith Smith who thankfully didn't have to play PG as a frosh, but who looked lost as a frosh and turned out great. It is wholly unrealistic to think that a guy who everyone is recruiting as a 2, who has 2 offers from power conference teams, both in last place, who is ranked 157 nationally is going to walk in and take over the PG job. That while everyone in America who is paid to do this sees him as a 3 star shooting guard, the guy who watches some high school games is telling us he is a 4 star PG starter as a true frosh. That is not to say that Roberson is a bad recruit by any stretch. Those are ridiculous expectations.

The overwhelmingly most likely reality is that the 5 starters next year are on the team right now. That Joel Brown will take his first year of being the PG starter, learn from it and get better. If you want to bank on some optimism, bank on THAT. That is how things work. Especially when the supposed point of Fox is that he will slowly build this program by developing players over time.

What I see is that people who want to be optimistic reveal their pessimism with the constant cycling away from guys actually on the team and talking about HS players coming in and taking over. Because what they are really saying is our team sucks and to maintain their optimism they have to engage in ridiculous fantasies that have HS players developing much faster than anyone has a right to expect basically because the HS guy hasn't proven to suck and in their minds the guy on the team has. They couch it in confidence over the incoming players when they really are displaying a lack of confidence in the current players (who they previously had seen as the hope). It's a repeating cycle of "This guy will be the guy! Oh. He's not the guy. This guy will be the guy!" I am reminded of the number of Cal fans who dissatisfied with the play of a true freshman quarterback who would later be a number 1 pick and play in a superbowl insisted that his job would be challenged by an incoming frosh who would quickly become a safety.

Happy to eat crow on this if I have to. But I'm very comfortable in my supposition that Brown is our PG next year. We've already gone through a lot of people assuming Hyder would supplant him and see how that worked out (and to be clear, most likely Hyder is the backup next year.) Instead of flailing around looking for answers, people should realize, Brown is the answer. He may not be the one you want, but he is the answer. And while I don't think he will set the world on fire, he will be a solid player roughly in line with the other starters on the team.

I have no issue with what YOU are saying. You may claim more expertise than I do, but it does not rise to the level of ridiculous hubris. You have mentioned Celestine, for instance. Well, you may be right about Celestine. And being right means you saw a player that as a freshman is a nice role player off the bench. Not a starter that is solving our problems. You have a different opinion from recruiting services on where Alajiki fits in our class. It isn't an outlandish one. I take it from what you are saying that he could be next year's Celestine. Which is a completely reasonable expectation to have for a freshman not ranked high. If you are going to claim that Alajiki is an impact recruit that starts first year, I'll take issue with that.

If people were really feeling good about the state of this team, they would not be looking for true freshman to come in and start. They'd be looking for further development from the guys on the team.

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Thanks for taking it easy on me. I do think rankings/offers are mostly on target. Sometimes there is a reason they are not. For Celestine he floated on the perimeter during his junior year. For his AAU team after the season he showed huge growth. But then he was injured and had to sit out the year, which was followed by covid. So he did not play games for over a year. I think we will see the real version of him next year, and he is a player to be excited about. I am not sure why Alajiki was overlooked. Perhaps it was the competition and/or being from Ireland. His size (long arms) and athletic ability are great. He does appear to have a good enough outside shot that it has to be respected. He fits in with the Bears need to beat people off the dribble and take it to the basket. His skills will certainly need to be refined, but I do see him as part of the rotation next year and a solid contributor in his time at Cal. I agree that one cannot be precise except with the very best players.

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

---

it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

HoopDreams said:

---

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

---

it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

---

Nick was 7th in minutes, he even started 7 games.

Agree that our guards were the issue. That was definitely going to be a "rebuilding" year, no matter who was the coach. However, Martin had a commitment from 4 star SG Jamarl Baker who then went to Kentucky and Arizona.

If we had Sueing and Baker to go with Bradley, Kelly and Vanover plus whoever else could be recruited on the last two years....

NathanAllen said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

We're just gonna have to agree to disagree on just about everything.

But I can't let go of the dig at him insinuating he left for an easy way out. The dude was raised in one of the toughest neighborhoods in the country by a single mother and has already survived cancer. I don't know Cuonzo personally, but I don't think he was afraid of a less than perfect roster or "needed to get out while he could."

.

---

Bakersfield- otherwise known as the I'm just here so I don't get fined game. Or the hydration sensation game.

calumnus said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

---

it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

---

Nick was 7th in minutes, he even started 7 games.

Agree that our guards were the issue. That was definitely going to be a "rebuilding" year, no matter who was the coach. However, Martin had a commitment from 4 star SG Jamarl Baker who then went to Kentucky and Arizona.

If we had Sueing and Baker to go with Bradley, Kelly and Vanover plus whoever else could be recruited on the last two years....

---

Two things:

1. Jemarl Baker. We would not have had Jemarl Baker in Wyking's first season, because Baker was out the entire season recovering from knee surgery. And Baker did not help Kentucky much at all in his only year there, averaging 2 points a game. He played his next season at Arizona and did not help them much that season, averaging 6 points a game. This season he was having a better year, starting and averaging 12 points, but averaging only 34%. In the 12th game, he broke his wrist and is out for the rest of this season. He would have been just another shooting guard, of which we have several. Except the way they have been shooting lately, he might have been the best of the bunch.

2. The "if we had" team you listed had no point guard. You can't play decent basketball without one, unless you have a couple of combo guards or a point forward who can distribute the ball some of the time. Cal had Deshon Winston and Nick Hamilton.

As you said, it was going to be a rebuilding year. Instead of rebuilding with carpentry tools, we opted for shovels and dug ourselves a deep hole.

SFCityBear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

---

it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

---

Nick was 7th in minutes, he even started 7 games.

Agree that our guards were the issue. That was definitely going to be a "rebuilding" year, no matter who was the coach. However, Martin had a commitment from 4 star SG Jamarl Baker who then went to Kentucky and Arizona.

If we had Sueing and Baker to go with Bradley, Kelly and Vanover plus whoever else could be recruited on the last two years....

---

Two things:

1. Jemarl Baker. We would not have had Jemarl Baker in Wyking's first season, because Baker was out the entire season recovering from knee surgery. And Baker did not help Kentucky much at all in his only year there, averaging 2 points a game. He played his next season at Arizona and did not help them much that season, averaging 6 points a game. This season he was having a better year, starting and averaging 12 points, but averaging only 34%. In the 12th game, he broke his wrist and is out for the rest of this season. He would have been just another shooting guard, of which we have several. Except the way they have been shooting lately, he might have been the best of the bunch.

2. The "if we had" team you listed had no point guard. You can't play decent basketball without one, unless you have a couple of combo guards or a point forward who can distribute the ball some of the time. Cal had Deshon Winston and Nick Hamilton.

As you said, it was going to be a rebuilding year. Instead of rebuilding with carpentry tools, we opted for shovels and dug ourselves a deep hole.

---

OK, I forgot Charlie Moore
Let me revise
Lee
Sueing
Coleman
Baker
Moore

With McNeil, JHD, Okoroh and Anticevich off the bench?

Maybe Baker doesn't get hurt at Cal? Not making an impact at Kentucky or Arizona is not evidence he would not have been an impact player at Cal.

The point Is Martin left enough pieces that if followed up the next 4 years with decent coaching and recruiting we would have a decent team.

And Jones did bring in some good players. We are in Fox's second year and the best players are still players Jones brought in even though the most productive players from his team left when Fox was hired.

calumnus said:

---

SFCityBear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

---

it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

---

Nick was 7th in minutes, he even started 7 games.

Agree that our guards were the issue. That was definitely going to be a "rebuilding" year, no matter who was the coach. However, Martin had a commitment from 4 star SG Jamarl Baker who then went to Kentucky and Arizona.

If we had Sueing and Baker to go with Bradley, Kelly and Vanover plus whoever else could be recruited on the last two years....

---

Two things:

1. Jemarl Baker. We would not have had Jemarl Baker in Wyking's first season, because Baker was out the entire season recovering from knee surgery. And Baker did not help Kentucky much at all in his only year there, averaging 2 points a game. He played his next season at Arizona and did not help them much that season, averaging 6 points a game. This season he was having a better year, starting and averaging 12 points, but averaging only 34%. In the 12th game, he broke his wrist and is out for the rest of this season. He would have been just another shooting guard, of which we have several. Except the way they have been shooting lately, he might have been the best of the bunch.

2. The "if we had" team you listed had no point guard. You can't play decent basketball without one, unless you have a couple of combo guards or a point forward who can distribute the ball some of the time. Cal had Deshon Winston and Nick Hamilton.

As you said, it was going to be a rebuilding year. Instead of rebuilding with carpentry tools, we opted for shovels and dug ourselves a deep hole.

---

OK, I forgot Charlie Moore
Let me revise
Lee
Sueing
Coleman
Baker
Moore

With McNeil, JHD, Okoroh and Anticevich off the bench?

Maybe Baker doesn't get hurt at Cal? Not making an impact at Kentucky or Arizona is not evidence he would not have been an impact player at Cal.

The point Is Martin left enough pieces that if followed up the next 4 years with decent coaching and recruiting we would have a decent team.

And Jones did bring in some good players. We are in Fox's second year and the best players are still players Jones brought in even though the most productive players from his team left when Fox was hired.

---

It was a poorly kept secret that Moore wasn't coming back. Cuinzo didn't leave Moore. Moore didn't leave because of the coaching change. He was going to be gone either way.

Baker is the only player that would have been added, though he wanted to leave and there isn't much reason to believe at this point that he would have added much.

OaktownBear said:

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calumnus said:

---

SFCityBear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

---

it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

---

Nick was 7th in minutes, he even started 7 games.

Agree that our guards were the issue. That was definitely going to be a "rebuilding" year, no matter who was the coach. However, Martin had a commitment from 4 star SG Jamarl Baker who then went to Kentucky and Arizona.

If we had Sueing and Baker to go with Bradley, Kelly and Vanover plus whoever else could be recruited on the last two years....

---

Two things:

1. Jemarl Baker. We would not have had Jemarl Baker in Wyking's first season, because Baker was out the entire season recovering from knee surgery. And Baker did not help Kentucky much at all in his only year there, averaging 2 points a game. He played his next season at Arizona and did not help them much that season, averaging 6 points a game. This season he was having a better year, starting and averaging 12 points, but averaging only 34%. In the 12th game, he broke his wrist and is out for the rest of this season. He would have been just another shooting guard, of which we have several. Except the way they have been shooting lately, he might have been the best of the bunch.

2. The "if we had" team you listed had no point guard. You can't play decent basketball without one, unless you have a couple of combo guards or a point forward who can distribute the ball some of the time. Cal had Deshon Winston and Nick Hamilton.

As you said, it was going to be a rebuilding year. Instead of rebuilding with carpentry tools, we opted for shovels and dug ourselves a deep hole.

---

OK, I forgot Charlie Moore
Let me revise
Lee
Sueing
Coleman
Baker
Moore

With McNeil, JHD, Okoroh and Anticevich off the bench?

Maybe Baker doesn't get hurt at Cal? Not making an impact at Kentucky or Arizona is not evidence he would not have been an impact player at Cal.

The point Is Martin left enough pieces that if followed up the next 4 years with decent coaching and recruiting we would have a decent team.

And Jones did bring in some good players. We are in Fox's second year and the best players are still players Jones brought in even though the most productive players from his team left when Fox was hired.

---

It was a poorly kept secret that Moore wasn't coming back. Cuinzo didn't leave Moore. Moore didn't leave because of the coaching change. He was going to be gone either way.

Baker is the only player that would have been added, though he wanted to leave and there isn't much reason to believe at this point that he would have added much.

---

Why didn't Moore announce after the season? Why wait until Martin left and Wyking was named HC?

Moore went from Memphis to Cal to Kansas to De Paul. The first two coincident with coaching changes. The last due to PT. He did eventually move back to Chicago (Kansas is a 9 hr drive) to be nearer to his dad who suffered a stroke when he was in high school, a year before he signed with Memphis. I do think that with the right coach, and more talent around him, Moore stays. Again, whether he was staying or going, it is a stretch to blame Martin for "not leaving Moore." Moore was there to be recruited and retained by the new coach, just like Justice Sueing and Conor Vanover et al were there for Fox to recruit and retain. Jones did in fact try to keep him and was reportedly "upset" he was leaving so apparently Jones did not get the memo that Moore was "already gone."

calumnus said:

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OaktownBear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

SFCityBear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

---

it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

---

Nick was 7th in minutes, he even started 7 games.

Agree that our guards were the issue. That was definitely going to be a "rebuilding" year, no matter who was the coach. However, Martin had a commitment from 4 star SG Jamarl Baker who then went to Kentucky and Arizona.

If we had Sueing and Baker to go with Bradley, Kelly and Vanover plus whoever else could be recruited on the last two years....

---

Two things:

1. Jemarl Baker. We would not have had Jemarl Baker in Wyking's first season, because Baker was out the entire season recovering from knee surgery. And Baker did not help Kentucky much at all in his only year there, averaging 2 points a game. He played his next season at Arizona and did not help them much that season, averaging 6 points a game. This season he was having a better year, starting and averaging 12 points, but averaging only 34%. In the 12th game, he broke his wrist and is out for the rest of this season. He would have been just another shooting guard, of which we have several. Except the way they have been shooting lately, he might have been the best of the bunch.

2. The "if we had" team you listed had no point guard. You can't play decent basketball without one, unless you have a couple of combo guards or a point forward who can distribute the ball some of the time. Cal had Deshon Winston and Nick Hamilton.

As you said, it was going to be a rebuilding year. Instead of rebuilding with carpentry tools, we opted for shovels and dug ourselves a deep hole.

---

OK, I forgot Charlie Moore
Let me revise
Lee
Sueing
Coleman
Baker
Moore

With McNeil, JHD, Okoroh and Anticevich off the bench?

Maybe Baker doesn't get hurt at Cal? Not making an impact at Kentucky or Arizona is not evidence he would not have been an impact player at Cal.

The point Is Martin left enough pieces that if followed up the next 4 years with decent coaching and recruiting we would have a decent team.

And Jones did bring in some good players. We are in Fox's second year and the best players are still players Jones brought in even though the most productive players from his team left when Fox was hired.

---

It was a poorly kept secret that Moore wasn't coming back. Cuinzo didn't leave Moore. Moore didn't leave because of the coaching change. He was going to be gone either way.

Baker is the only player that would have been added, though he wanted to leave and there isn't much reason to believe at this point that he would have added much.

---

Why didn't Moore announce after the season? Why wait until Martin left and Wyking was named HC?

Moore went from Memphis to Cal to Kansas to De Paul. The first two coincident with coaching changes. The last due to PT. He did eventually move back to Chicago (Kansas is a 9 hr drive) to be nearer to his dad who suffered a stroke when he was in high school, a year before he signed with Memphis. I do think that with the right coach, and more talent around him, Moore stays. Again, whether he was staying or going, it is a stretch to blame Martin for "not leaving Moore." Moore was there to be recruited and retained by the new coach, just like Justice Sueing and Conor Vanover et al were there for Fox to recruit and retain. Jones did in fact try to keep him and was reportedly "upset" he was leaving so apparently Jones did not get the memo that Moore was "already gone."

---

I'm not blaming him for not leaving Moore. You make a good case that the issue was Moore, not any coach. I'm stating a fact that Moore was gone and he wasn't going to be there if Martin stayed so putting him in a line up of what we could have had is false.

No he wasn't there to be recruited like Sueing and Vanover.

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

SFCityBear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

---

For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

---

Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

---

Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

---

it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

---

Nick was 7th in minutes, he even started 7 games.

Agree that our guards were the issue. That was definitely going to be a "rebuilding" year, no matter who was the coach. However, Martin had a commitment from 4 star SG Jamarl Baker who then went to Kentucky and Arizona.

If we had Sueing and Baker to go with Bradley, Kelly and Vanover plus whoever else could be recruited on the last two years....

---

Two things:

1. Jemarl Baker. We would not have had Jemarl Baker in Wyking's first season, because Baker was out the entire season recovering from knee surgery. And Baker did not help Kentucky much at all in his only year there, averaging 2 points a game. He played his next season at Arizona and did not help them much that season, averaging 6 points a game. This season he was having a better year, starting and averaging 12 points, but averaging only 34%. In the 12th game, he broke his wrist and is out for the rest of this season. He would have been just another shooting guard, of which we have several. Except the way they have been shooting lately, he might have been the best of the bunch.

2. The "if we had" team you listed had no point guard. You can't play decent basketball without one, unless you have a couple of combo guards or a point forward who can distribute the ball some of the time. Cal had Deshon Winston and Nick Hamilton.

As you said, it was going to be a rebuilding year. Instead of rebuilding with carpentry tools, we opted for shovels and dug ourselves a deep hole.

---

OK, I forgot Charlie Moore
Let me revise
Lee
Sueing
Coleman
Baker
Moore

With McNeil, JHD, Okoroh and Anticevich off the bench?

Maybe Baker doesn't get hurt at Cal? Not making an impact at Kentucky or Arizona is not evidence he would not have been an impact player at Cal.

The point Is Martin left enough pieces that if followed up the next 4 years with decent coaching and recruiting we would have a decent team.

And Jones did bring in some good players. We are in Fox's second year and the best players are still players Jones brought in even though the most productive players from his team left when Fox was hired.

---

It was a poorly kept secret that Moore wasn't coming back. Cuinzo didn't leave Moore. Moore didn't leave because of the coaching change. He was going to be gone either way.

Baker is the only player that would have been added, though he wanted to leave and there isn't much reason to believe at this point that he would have added much.

---

Why didn't Moore announce after the season? Why wait until Martin left and Wyking was named HC?

---

Martin pretty much "left" before the Fresneck fiasco, so Moore not beating him to the punch cannot reasonably be expected. And asking Moore (or him deciding on his own) to stick around until a new coach was named is typical. I suppose there is a chance Moore would have stayed if Self was named.

I'm not sure what exactly, but Moore not starting in the Fresneck game probably was a clue for something.

Civil Bear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

SFCityBear said:

---

calumnus said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

calumnus said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

NathanAllen said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Civil Bear said:

---

Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

---

about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

---

• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

---

Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

Quote:

---

For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

---

The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

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For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

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Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

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Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

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it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

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Nick was 7th in minutes, he even started 7 games.

Agree that our guards were the issue. That was definitely going to be a "rebuilding" year, no matter who was the coach. However, Martin had a commitment from 4 star SG Jamarl Baker who then went to Kentucky and Arizona.

If we had Sueing and Baker to go with Bradley, Kelly and Vanover plus whoever else could be recruited on the last two years....

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Two things:

1. Jemarl Baker. We would not have had Jemarl Baker in Wyking's first season, because Baker was out the entire season recovering from knee surgery. And Baker did not help Kentucky much at all in his only year there, averaging 2 points a game. He played his next season at Arizona and did not help them much that season, averaging 6 points a game. This season he was having a better year, starting and averaging 12 points, but averaging only 34%. In the 12th game, he broke his wrist and is out for the rest of this season. He would have been just another shooting guard, of which we have several. Except the way they have been shooting lately, he might have been the best of the bunch.

2. The "if we had" team you listed had no point guard. You can't play decent basketball without one, unless you have a couple of combo guards or a point forward who can distribute the ball some of the time. Cal had Deshon Winston and Nick Hamilton.

As you said, it was going to be a rebuilding year. Instead of rebuilding with carpentry tools, we opted for shovels and dug ourselves a deep hole.

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OK, I forgot Charlie Moore
Let me revise
Lee
Sueing
Coleman
Baker
Moore

With McNeil, JHD, Okoroh and Anticevich off the bench?

Maybe Baker doesn't get hurt at Cal? Not making an impact at Kentucky or Arizona is not evidence he would not have been an impact player at Cal.

The point Is Martin left enough pieces that if followed up the next 4 years with decent coaching and recruiting we would have a decent team.

And Jones did bring in some good players. We are in Fox's second year and the best players are still players Jones brought in even though the most productive players from his team left when Fox was hired.

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It was a poorly kept secret that Moore wasn't coming back. Cuinzo didn't leave Moore. Moore didn't leave because of the coaching change. He was going to be gone either way.

Baker is the only player that would have been added, though he wanted to leave and there isn't much reason to believe at this point that he would have added much.

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Why didn't Moore announce after the season? Why wait until Martin left and Wyking was named HC?

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Martin pretty much "left" before the Fresneck fiasco, so Moore not beating him to the punch cannot reasonably be expected. And asking Moore (or him deciding on his own) to stick around until a new coach was named is typical. I suppose there is a chance Moore would have stayed if Self was named.

I'm not sure what exactly, but Moore not starting in the Fresneck game probably was a clue for something.

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I don't recall the "Fresneck fiasco" but that could just be my bad recall. Are you talking about the Bakersfield NIT game, Cuonzo's last?

Nit game at Haas when Martin deliberately tried to lose the game. Talked Rabb into not playing. Worst Cal game ever.

KoreAmBear said:

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Civil Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calumnus said:

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SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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HoopDreams said:

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calumnus said:

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OaktownBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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HoopDreams said:

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Civil Bear said:

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Yes, I think most agree Martin had a good season. I also think most would agree wasn't able to build off it or sustain it and he left the program in shambles.

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about right

i think it was a very good season and brought a lot of excitement to Cal

if we hadn't lost 2 players right before the game, we would have reached the sweet sixteen and it would had been a great season. we would have gotten the recruiting pop that many teams get after a successful run in the tournament.

but because we lost our first game, cal got zero buzz and we were not able to parley that season to level up

but I still think Martin is a good coach, just not a good match for Cal.

He couldn't get the type of players into the school he wanted, and without those types of players he can not succeed

But at Missouri, he doesn't have the same limitations, and can flat out recruit. Once the players are on board he can motivate them to play tough D, and is a great leader of men, with a great family. At least that's how I see him.

He now has a healthy team that's in the top 25

will be interesting to see if he can sustain it

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• Anyone who thinks Martin can't recruit must've forgotten in his two full recruiting cycles at Cal he brought in three top-75 players, two of which were top-10 recruits, and one of those went third overall in the NBA draft.

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Anyone who thinks Martin recruited well at Cal must've forgotten that he dumped one of the players the prior coached signed thinking he could get better and instead signed an extremely short, unathletic player who was only skilled at telling everyone he was awesome and *****ing about what an unfair deal he got. Must have also forgotten that the top 3 players he got played 1 year, 2 years and 1 year and that he recruited little else so we barely had a full roster. And I don't know why the last year where he almost completely whiffed doesn't count as a full recruiting cycle.

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For those who think he can't coach, he had three winning seasons at Cal (his only three). Sure, he's got his limitations, but so do almost all college coaches

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The 3 coaches preceding him at Cal had 17 winning seasons out of 21. It's not exactly an accomplishment

Quote:

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For those still wanting to blame Cuonzo for Cal being the worst Power Conference team for a couple of seasons or leaving the program in a "wreck," it seems to me like the hire after Martin is what led to that. I don't want to throw Wyking Jones under the bus, but if Cal hires a coach with some relevant D1 head coaching experience, he's likely to keep at least some momentum going.

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Just shaking my head at this. The roster that Martin left just sucked. Coleman was the leading scorer. Beyond Coleman, 3 of the top 5 scorers were freshmen.Had he stayed, Martin would have been last place. Monty might have pulled the team up to 10th. We were going to be terrible. Wyking is responsible for not being able to compete with mid majors. Cuonzo left a roster that could not compete in a power conference.

I personally liked Cuonzo. He's a competent coach. Not great. Not terrible. He had no idea how to recruit to Cal and yes, left the cupboard bare. I'm not surprised he can be competent somewhere else. He got a good start here, but he refused to do what was necessary to sustain anything. I knew he was going to leave before he did because he had nothing coming back and he needed to get out while he could. He would have taken the money anyway and I don't blame him, but he left us in a really bad place.

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Our leading scorer that year was Justice Sueing with 442 points. Coleman had 427. Coleman averaged 14.2 per game to Sueing's 13.8 because he missed two games.

Marcus Lee
Justice Sueing
Don Coleman
Darius McNeil
Juhwan Harris Dyson

Bench
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Grant Anticevich
Roman Davis

We had 4 players average double figures. The fact some were freshman (that he recruited) should not be a knock on him in of itself. Great programs reload with freshmen all the time. That is part of college basketball. Now, if you are complaining about the quality of the players he left, that is different.

First, I would take Lee and Sueing any year. Okoroh and Anticevich as backups. There was nothing wrong with that frontline. Now the guards....

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it says something when Nick was our first or second player off the bench (by the way, spotted him on the SC bench when we played him)

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Nick was 7th in minutes, he even started 7 games.

Agree that our guards were the issue. That was definitely going to be a "rebuilding" year, no matter who was the coach. However, Martin had a commitment from 4 star SG Jamarl Baker who then went to Kentucky and Arizona.

If we had Sueing and Baker to go with Bradley, Kelly and Vanover plus whoever else could be recruited on the last two years....

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Two things:

1. Jemarl Baker. We would not have had Jemarl Baker in Wyking's first season, because Baker was out the entire season recovering from knee surgery. And Baker did not help Kentucky much at all in his only year there, averaging 2 points a game. He played his next season at Arizona and did not help them much that season, averaging 6 points a game. This season he was having a better year, starting and averaging 12 points, but averaging only 34%. In the 12th game, he broke his wrist and is out for the rest of this season. He would have been just another shooting guard, of which we have several. Except the way they have been shooting lately, he might have been the best of the bunch.

2. The "if we had" team you listed had no point guard. You can't play decent basketball without one, unless you have a couple of combo guards or a point forward who can distribute the ball some of the time. Cal had Deshon Winston and Nick Hamilton.

As you said, it was going to be a rebuilding year. Instead of rebuilding with carpentry tools, we opted for shovels and dug ourselves a deep hole.

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OK, I forgot Charlie Moore
Let me revise
Lee
Sueing
Coleman
Baker
Moore

With McNeil, JHD, Okoroh and Anticevich off the bench?

Maybe Baker doesn't get hurt at Cal? Not making an impact at Kentucky or Arizona is not evidence he would not have been an impact player at Cal.

The point Is Martin left enough pieces that if followed up the next 4 years with decent coaching and recruiting we would have a decent team.

And Jones did bring in some good players. We are in Fox's second year and the best players are still players Jones brought in even though the most productive players from his team left when Fox was hired.

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It was a poorly kept secret that Moore wasn't coming back. Cuinzo didn't leave Moore. Moore didn't leave because of the coaching change. He was going to be gone either way.

Baker is the only player that would have been added, though he wanted to leave and there isn't much reason to believe at this point that he would have added much.

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Why didn't Moore announce after the season? Why wait until Martin left and Wyking was named HC?

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Martin pretty much "left" before the Fresneck fiasco, so Moore not beating him to the punch cannot reasonably be expected. And asking Moore (or him deciding on his own) to stick around until a new coach was named is typical. I suppose there is a chance Moore would have stayed if Self was named.

I'm not sure what exactly, but Moore not starting in the Fresneck game probably was a clue for something.

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I don't recall the "Fresneck fiasco" but that could just be my bad recall. Are you talking about the Bakersfield NIT game, Cuonzo's last?

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Fresneck/Bakersfield. Whatevs brah.

oskidunker said:

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Nit game at Haas when Martin deliberately tried to lose the game. Talked Rabb into not playing. Worst Cal game ever.

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At least a Guinness Book of World Records record was set at that game. At least we'll always have that.