two responses strongly disagreeing to drizzy's post:

"I understand. But there are at least a few counter-arguments/points to this."

"Agree. Dont buy all the excuses."

drizzlybear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

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While I really like the general level-headedness and positivity of your overall post/thoughts, I want to make a couple of points.

First, Fox is not responsible for Brown and Thorpe being in Berkeley. They both signed LOI before Wyking Jones left. Yes, Fox had to re-recruit them to make sure they didn't ask out of their LOI, but that's a lot easier to do than the initial recruitment, which Jones gets credit for.

Second, my personal opinion is Cal has had it very easy regarding COVID compared to other teams. Yes, I get that they had the shut down at the beginning of the season, but that was it. They changed the opponent of their opening game to Oregon State and that's literally the only schedule disruption they've had. Maybe that caused them to get a slower start, and maybe it disadvantaged them to play ASU and UCLA in early-December, but Cal had a VERY light non-con load. It didn't play a single team ranked inside KenPom's top-100. Even if they were disrupted early-on, it doesn't change the fact they lost 11 of their last 12 games.

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It's true that Cal has had little in-season schedule disruption, but the hit to the off-season has been catastrophic for preparing for this season. I have the impression that it was particularly hard for Cal because: a) most teams didn't have the kind of local restrictions Cal had, b) with a disproportionate number of foreign players, it was harder/later for Cal to get its players back together and working/training, and c) with an unusually long rotation including a number of new players, the lack of a useful pre-season hit Cal particularly hard. Add to the preseason disruption the substantial losses of Bradley and GA to injury mid-season, and I believe it's fair to say that this team has had an uphill battle getting a sense of cohesion this season.

You could visibly see the lack of conditioning on the players (especially, for example, Kelly, whose play has markedly improved over the course of the season as his conditioning has improved and he has avoided significant injury), and to me it took until the second UCLA game for them to start looking like a cohesive unit at all. And while some mock the notion that competitive losses are different from non-competitive losses, or that there's even such a thing as a competitive loss, it's clear to me that this team has generally played much better basketball in the second half of the season.

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Look, I appreciate you, but almost every post completely downplays the bad, exaggerates the good, and presents an unrealistic view of the future. They ignore results or data to present some eye test and the problem is the eyes are covered in 2 inch thick rose colored glasses. Every team needs fans like you. But they also need people who are going to counter with some reality.

Covid is just an excuse at this point. There is no way Cal got hit hardest by Covid. Everybody had to deal with it. Using it now, months after it had any impact is not warranted and is basically a get out of jail free card. It is reasonable that it might have impacted them early in the season. But it is not like some disrupted practice is something that permanently sets you back. They have had three months to catch up and they are playing some of their worst basketball right now.

Lack of conditioning is the last thing you should use as an excuse. My 15 year old had zoom conditioning with her not elite club team during spring and summer when the coach knew there was basically no chance they'd play a season. No Covid restrictions stopped anyone from going outdoors and running. It is absolutely criminal if this coaching staff didn't keep them in shape. (which, by the way, I don't think is true. What you see as a conditioning issue, I see as the cream rising to the top of each game when the chips are down).

You have pointed to the UCLA game over and over and over. Let's get a little real about the UCLA game. Grant had his career best game. That is it. That is all that happened. If you take Grant's numbers out of the stats, the team went 13 of 42 shooting. They were outrebounded in the game 29-20. That is not a team that turned the corner and started playing like a cohesive unit. That is one guy played out of his mind and shot 8-11, 5-5 from three. And with that ridiculous performance by Grant, we still only scored 57. The team was playing to exactly the same level they have the rest of the year.

And despite the excuses - Covid, conditioning, Grant and Matt being out, and your assertion that they somehow found cohesion at UCLA, they have played the last 10 games, fully conditioned, full cohesion, full roster, with Matt and Grant statistically being the same as usual, and they have gone 1-9. And they have played especially poorly of late.

No one, especially me, EVER mocked the notion of competitive losses being better than non competitive losses. That is a strawman others created. Actually look at our results. You have a hard time arguing that we have gotten more competitive. At best it is a mixed bag. We were clearly less competitive the second time around against WSU, Utah and Washington. I would say we were clearly less competitive against Oregon but others might argue. Stanford is less relevant because we played them in the same week, but I we've had that debate. We were clearly more competitive against UCLA, ASU, and Colorado. We only played USC and Arizona once, but they were in the last ten games and we lost both and got trounced by Arizona. I would say OSU is a wash. We shot out of our minds for the first third of the game and sucked for the rest having one of our worst offensive halves of the season. Bottom line, mixed bag at best.

Your argument that this team played better as the season went on is just not born out. They played the same 4 teams to start the conference season as they did to finish it. The Oregons and the Washingtons. At the start of the season they went 1-3 with a total point differential of negative 27. At the end of the season against the same opponents, they went 0-4 with a total point differential of negative 45. Our Sagarin predictor rating, which is based on strength of schedule and scores over the entire season, is 152. Our Sagarin recent rating, which is the same as predictor except that it weights the most recent games more, is a horrible 212. As Captain America says "I can do this all day". By every objective measure, the team is getting worse as the season goes on. Your only argument is your eyes. You need to consider the possibility that in your "eye test", your eyes are seeing what they want to see.

As I said, I appreciate you and every team needs fans like you that will stay positive no matter what. Great for you. But reality needs to be there as well. Be positive about the next game. Believe in the team. Go to the game (or sit in front of your television as it were) and cheer your head off. When the game is over, when the season is over, you need to apply some reasoning instead of all emotion. Discussing the direction of the program should not be based on emotional fandom. If you want to argue that this is the best Cal can do, fine. But we have to argue based on some truths and the truth by any objective measure is this is a last place team that got worse as the season progressed.

drizzlybear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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drizzlybear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

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While I really like the general level-headedness and positivity of your overall post/thoughts, I want to make a couple of points.

First, Fox is not responsible for Brown and Thorpe being in Berkeley. They both signed LOI before Wyking Jones left. Yes, Fox had to re-recruit them to make sure they didn't ask out of their LOI, but that's a lot easier to do than the initial recruitment, which Jones gets credit for.

Second, my personal opinion is Cal has had it very easy regarding COVID compared to other teams. Yes, I get that they had the shut down at the beginning of the season, but that was it. They changed the opponent of their opening game to Oregon State and that's literally the only schedule disruption they've had. Maybe that caused them to get a slower start, and maybe it disadvantaged them to play ASU and UCLA in early-December, but Cal had a VERY light non-con load. It didn't play a single team ranked inside KenPom's top-100. Even if they were disrupted early-on, it doesn't change the fact they lost 11 of their last 12 games.

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It's true that Cal has had little in-season schedule disruption, but the hit to the off-season has been catastrophic for preparing for this season. I have the impression that it was particularly hard for Cal because: a) most teams didn't have the kind of local restrictions Cal had, b) with a disproportionate number of foreign players, it was harder/later for Cal to get its players back together and working/training, and c) with an unusually long rotation including a number of new players, the lack of a useful pre-season hit Cal particularly hard. Add to the preseason disruption the substantial losses of Bradley and GA to injury mid-season, and I believe it's fair to say that this team has had an uphill battle getting a sense of cohesion this season.

You could visibly see the lack of conditioning on the players (especially, for example, Kelly, whose play has markedly improved over the course of the season as his conditioning has improved and he has avoided significant injury), and to me it took until the second UCLA game for them to start looking like a cohesive unit at all. And while some mock the notion that competitive losses are different from non-competitive losses, or that there's even such a thing as a competitive loss, it's clear to me that this team has generally played much better basketball in the second half of the season.

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I understand. But there are at least a few counter-arguments/points to this. First, there are a lot of assumptions the underclassmen make noticeable improvements with a normal off-season. We have no proof/fact this would've actually happened. It's a nice thought, and that's what we hope for, but even in a normal off-season, that's far from a given.

Second, yes, Berkeley as a city has tough restrictions. I'm a Berkeley resident. But so did LA County. USC and UCLA seemed to be fine (yes, I know, more talented rosters, but still, they're both competing for the league title). While Berkeley would be on the stricter side of the COVID-restrictions spectrum, it certainly isn't the only one especially in major West Coast metro areas. Hell, at least Cal was able to play all season at Haas instead of huffing it over the Santa Cruz Mountains for a majority of home games.

As for implementing international/new players, again, maybe that's a disadvantage for Cal, but look at Wazzu. They have just as many international/new players. Same goes with injuries. Yes, losing a guy like Bradley is huge. But Cal certainly isn't the only team dealing with that. Wazzu has been without Isaac Bonton six game this season, including, four of the last five. Arizona lost Jemarl Baker for the entire season. ASU has been playing without Josh Christopher and Marcus Bagley for a lot of games. Stanford has now been down Oscar da Silva during a key stretch of the season. UCLA has been without Chris Smith and Jalen Hill. Oregon lost N'Faly Dante and has basically been playing five dudes more than 30 minutes each game.

My point is Cal's dealing with new/international players and COVID are not unique to Cal. And when considering other teams in the conference/country, I'd argue Cal has been impacted mildly by both. Maybe off-season/early-season disruptions set the team back. But Cal has had one of the smoothest seasons in the country and has had plenty of uninterrupted time to catch back up.

I'm not saying we should say Fox is horrible and Cal is horrible. I'm just saying my opinion is COVID and injuries don't get a ton of weight when evaluating this season when a) so many programs dealt with the same and b) we don't know what the exact impact of either on actual outcomes were.

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I didn't say Cal had the single worst experience and there weren't other teams dealing with some similar issues, I said I thought Berkeley covid restrictions are more stringent than most. Same with the foreign player issues. Not the only team that had to dealt with it, but again, more so than most.
I'm also not saying Cal is the only team to have had injuries. But when you look at the context of the roster in which those injuries happened, where the two players lost were the two foundational pillars for this team coming into the season, and where their surrounding roster was in utter shambles 16 months ago, and where these key losses occurred in the middle of a season for a team that had particular challenges getting started, I do personally think that's a relevant context in which to qualify my assessment the team's (and coach's) performance.

I know I'm making excuses. But I do feel like I'll only go so far with it. And I've said that next year is a critical year of evaluation for me. But for me, these are relevant considerations in assessing this season.

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The point is, what was the actual impact? There are things that could be excuses, but dig deeper. Let's just look at the period from UCLA onward. Grant was the same Grant he always was dating back to last year (basically an 8 points a game player who swings wildly from 2-20 points on any given night). Bradley came back shortly after and was the same Bradley he always was very quickly. We were months beyond any Covid impact. We did not get better in that part of the season. By all objective measures we got worse. By any of the computer algorithms it was our worst part of the season. You are looking for excuses, finding a potential excuse, declaring it an excuse without any analysis, and stopping. You can argue the beginning. You can argue the middle. But there is no reason to believe the end of the season would have been better had all things gone perfectly for us. And the bottom line is that nothing ever goes perfectly and it is the job of the coach to help the team overcome challenges.

As I said above, we played the same 4 teams to end the conference season as to start. We did significantly worse. This is weeks after any of your excuses still applied. And in fact, the excuses were much more applicable to the first 4 games - All the Covid excuses. Bradley missed 2 and a half games of the first 4 and none of the second 4. Grant missed 2 of the first 4 and none of the second 4. And yet with a full team we did worse. I'm sorry. The excuses don't wash. Maybe we pick up a win or two early to mid season, but when we get to this point, we are the same team.

Cal, and by that I mean Knowlton, got what it paid for.

Not Fox's fault as he can't change who he is. Knowlton needs to own it and start from scratch

71Bear said:

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Big C said:

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71Bear said:

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Fox isn't the issue. He is an innocent victim in this mess. The culprit is Knowlton. He failed to do any due diligence regarding the hire. He farmed everything out to an agency whose only interest was placing "their guy" in the head coaching position regardless of his ability to turn the program around.

Why does anyone here think that Knowlton won't do the same thing again once Fox is inevitably fired? The next guy will also be a retread that some agency is pushing. The only way out of this situation is turn the hiring decision over to an team of individuals that is willing to put some effort into the process instead of subcontracting the decision to a group that does not have Cal's best interests at heart.

It is all about putting together a team of men and women that understand Cal, is aware of the unique challenges the coach will face, and is willing to do the hard work of finding the right person for the job.

Are we confident that will happen? Nope. Will we continue to see a substandard program on the floor every game? Yep.

In summary, Knowlton is the problem not Fox.

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This is true, but it is only half the issue. The other half is that we are not supporting MBB by having a dedicated practice facility, unlike almost all other major programs. Not that Cuonzo Martin wasn't going to leave anyway (or that he was the world's greatest coach), but he certainly did not feel supported on that issue (and other issues, as well).

There is a valid perception out there that we are not really serious about trying to win. So when we're trying to sell Cal to a recruit, or to a potential coach, it's a tough sell. I don't think Knowlton (or his search firm) selected the best coach, but it's not like there were a bunch of established coaches willing to come here.

On top of that, here is a guy like me, complaining on a message board, but am I willing to help pay for said practice facility? No I am not. One season ticket and a lot of BI posts amounts to the the extent of my commitment.

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Fair enough. However, I think a head coach of a smaller school who is on an upward path would have been interested. Say... Travis DeCuire.

He certainly would have generated a lot more enthusiasm than a retread like Fox. At least Cal would have had a shot of moving up the ladder. As it is now, they are stuck in a quagmire with little hope of escaping....

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When Stanford blew up their football program buy hiring Buddy Teevans, they tried to stabilize things by hiring Walt Harris who had gone 52-44 on a power conference team. That was a disaster. Then they hired a guy who coached at USD.

Wyking Jones was Buddy Teevans. Fox had a barely better overall record at Georgia than Harris had a Pitt (which is to be expected since basketball has more padding on the schedule) and a slightly worse conference record than Harris had. They are extremely close in record. You do not shore up an awful program by shooting for mediocrity. It doesn't happen. For one thing, none of the recruits will buy in to that. There needs to at least be the possibility that the ceiling can be high. As we saw with Harris, and as we are seeing this year with Fox, it is a myth that the floor for this type of coach is higher than making the supposedly riskier play. The floor is last place in either case. The difference is the ceiling.

Stanford corrected its mistake after the second year. Cal won't.

I'll say it again.

the problem I can't explain is having a worse defense than last year, considering we only lost 1 impact player (Paris)

Paris and South were both undersized for their positions, and although Paris's defense was better in his senior year, no one would call him a lock down defender

Everyone else is a year bigger/stronger, and with a year in the Fox defensive system, and at least one player has marginally improved his defense (Thiemann makes fewer dumb fouls)

We even added Celestine, who looks like a pretty good defender (although he sometimes gets lost on defense, like every other freshmen)

Yet, even Fox says we are not at last year's level defensively. Why not???

OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

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While I really like the general level-headedness and positivity of your overall post/thoughts, I want to make a couple of points.

First, Fox is not responsible for Brown and Thorpe being in Berkeley. They both signed LOI before Wyking Jones left. Yes, Fox had to re-recruit them to make sure they didn't ask out of their LOI, but that's a lot easier to do than the initial recruitment, which Jones gets credit for.

Second, my personal opinion is Cal has had it very easy regarding COVID compared to other teams. Yes, I get that they had the shut down at the beginning of the season, but that was it. They changed the opponent of their opening game to Oregon State and that's literally the only schedule disruption they've had. Maybe that caused them to get a slower start, and maybe it disadvantaged them to play ASU and UCLA in early-December, but Cal had a VERY light non-con load. It didn't play a single team ranked inside KenPom's top-100. Even if they were disrupted early-on, it doesn't change the fact they lost 11 of their last 12 games.

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It's true that Cal has had little in-season schedule disruption, but the hit to the off-season has been catastrophic for preparing for this season. I have the impression that it was particularly hard for Cal because: a) most teams didn't have the kind of local restrictions Cal had, b) with a disproportionate number of foreign players, it was harder/later for Cal to get its players back together and working/training, and c) with an unusually long rotation including a number of new players, the lack of a useful pre-season hit Cal particularly hard. Add to the preseason disruption the substantial losses of Bradley and GA to injury mid-season, and I believe it's fair to say that this team has had an uphill battle getting a sense of cohesion this season.

You could visibly see the lack of conditioning on the players (especially, for example, Kelly, whose play has markedly improved over the course of the season as his conditioning has improved and he has avoided significant injury), and to me it took until the second UCLA game for them to start looking like a cohesive unit at all. And while some mock the notion that competitive losses are different from non-competitive losses, or that there's even such a thing as a competitive loss, it's clear to me that this team has generally played much better basketball in the second half of the season.

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Look, I appreciate you, but almost every post completely downplays the bad, exaggerates the good, and presents an unrealistic view of the future. They ignore results or data to present some eye test and the problem is the eyes are covered in 2 inch thick rose colored glasses. Every team needs fans like you. But they also need people who are going to counter with some reality.

Covid is just an excuse at this point. There is no way Cal got hit hardest by Covid. Everybody had to deal with it. Using it now, months after it had any impact is not warranted and is basically a get out of jail free card. It is reasonable that it might have impacted them early in the season. But it is not like some disrupted practice is something that permanently sets you back. They have had three months to catch up and they are playing some of their worst basketball right now.

Lack of conditioning is the last thing you should use as an excuse. My 15 year old had zoom conditioning with her not elite club team during spring and summer when the coach knew there was basically no chance they'd play a season. No Covid restrictions stopped anyone from going outdoors and running. It is absolutely criminal if this coaching staff didn't keep them in shape. (which, by the way, I don't think is true. What you see as a conditioning issue, I see as the cream rising to the top of each game when the chips are down).

You have pointed to the UCLA game over and over and over. Let's get a little real about the UCLA game. Grant had his career best game. That is it. That is all that happened. If you take Grant's numbers out of the stats, the team went 13 of 42 shooting. They were outrebounded in the game 29-20. That is not a team that turned the corner and started playing like a cohesive unit. That is one guy played out of his mind and shot 8-11, 5-5 from three. And with that ridiculous performance by Grant, we still only scored 57. The team was playing to exactly the same level they have the rest of the year.

And despite the excuses - Covid, conditioning, Grant and Matt being out, and your assertion that they somehow found cohesion at UCLA, they have played the last 10 games, fully conditioned, full cohesion, full roster, with Matt and Grant statistically being the same as usual, and they have gone 1-9. And they have played especially poorly of late.

No one, especially me, EVER mocked the notion of competitive losses being better than non competitive losses. That is a strawman others created. Actually look at our results. You have a hard time arguing that we have gotten more competitive. At best it is a mixed bag. We were clearly less competitive the second time around against WSU, Utah and Washington. I would say we were clearly less competitive against Oregon but others might argue. Stanford is less relevant because we played them in the same week, but I we've had that debate. We were clearly more competitive against UCLA, ASU, and Colorado. We only played USC and Arizona once, but they were in the last ten games and we lost both and got trounced by Arizona. I would say OSU is a wash. We shot out of our minds for the first third of the game and sucked for the rest having one of our worst offensive halves of the season. Bottom line, mixed bag at best.

Your argument that this team played better as the season went on is just not born out. They played the same 4 teams to start the conference season as they did to finish it. The Oregons and the Washingtons. At the start of the season they went 1-3 with a total point differential of negative 27. At the end of the season against the same opponents, they went 0-4 with a total point differential of negative 45. Our Sagarin predictor rating, which is based on strength of schedule and scores over the entire season, is 152. Our Sagarin recent rating, which is the same as predictor except that it weights the most recent games more, is a horrible 212. As Captain America says "I can do this all day". By every objective measure, the team is getting worse as the season goes on. Your only argument is your eyes. You need to consider the possibility that in your "eye test", your eyes are seeing what they want to see.

As I said, I appreciate you and every team needs fans like you that will stay positive no matter what. Great for you. But reality needs to be there as well. Be positive about the next game. Believe in the team. Go to the game (or sit in front of your television as it were) and cheer your head off. When the game is over, when the season is over, you need to apply some reasoning instead of all emotion. Discussing the direction of the program should not be based on emotional fandom. If you want to argue that this is the best Cal can do, fine. But we have to argue based on some truths and the truth by any objective measure is this is a last place team that got worse as the season progressed.

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Wow, long post. I appreciate the effort/care to do so. I'll try to be succinct in my reply:

1. Optimist. Guilty as charged, no doubt. But there are numerous aspects of this team, this coach, and this season that I have been critical of.

2. UCLA game. First, it's not the UCLA game alone that I cite as having seen the team turn a corner. It's the full scope of games since then. We have been consistently more competitive. If it had only been the UCLA game I would cite it as an aberration. And yes, GA had an amazing game that day, but he really accounted for only about 9 points more than normal. On the other hand, that game was played without Matt Bradley, and with Foreman, Betley, amd Hyder going 3-15 from 3. So overall the team didn't shoot unusually well in that game. And it stood out as a HUGE contrast from how Cal looked against UCLA the first time they played. To the extent to which I use an eye test (everyone does/should), you should give me credit for applying that not opportunistically. Notice that right before the UCLA game Cal actually managed to beat Utah. And yet I have specifically not included that game to support my argument. It's proof that my personal "eye test" is not solely rose-colored, and can actually see poor play by Cal even in the case of a victory. (In fact, iirc, it was the second half of that first Utah game where Cal, as a team, shot unrealistically well.) Indeed, I thought we played better against Utah I defeat than we did in victory.

While my comment about "competitive" basketball wasn't specifically directed at you (it seems like there are multiple posters who have been dismissive of competitive games, and I don't recall who they are, it's just become a theme on the board), I do seem to recall you referring to at least one competitive game as merely our opponent "playing with its food."

Again, optimistic? Yes. Unrealistic? Maybe. But still, you're not paying attention if you think I don't have the ability to be critical of Cal basketball. I do think context is relevant; not just bottom line W/L, especially for a program trying to resurrect from ashes. I do always try to provide the basis for my views. And I do react to those who don't seem to allow for some reasonable context, or who appear to have given up on a coach halfway into his second season, especially given what this coach inherited, and especially a second season as unusual as this one.

Last year's team showed significant improvement; over the previous seasons and over the course of that same season. To me, that bought a little extra rope for the new coach. And it's why I'm willing to look a little deeper to try to understand why this season has not gone as well as last season (though the answer may be as simple as the difference at point guard position).

HoopDreams said:

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I'll say it again.

the problem I can't explain is having a worse defense than last year, considering we only lost 1 impact player (Paris)

Paris and South were both undersized for their positions, and although Paris's defense was better in his senior year, no one would call him a lock down defender

Everyone else is a year bigger/stronger, and with a year in the Fox defensive system, and at least one player has marginally improved his defense (Thiemann makes fewer dumb fouls)

We even added Celestine, who looks like a pretty good defender (although he sometimes gets lost on defense, like every other freshmen)

Yet, even Fox says we are not at last year's level defensively. Why not???

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A few reasons. First, the perimeter quickness went way down with the absence of Paris and South and the emergence of Foreman and Betley. Second, teams now have experienced Fox's defensive approach and can counter it more effectively. Fox may not have been able to adjust. And possibly third, the lack of a proper offseason/preseason led to the lack of necessary cohesion. The offense was equally bad both years and seems independent of coaching.

sluggo said:

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The offense was equally bad both years and seems unchanged by coaching.

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FIFY

sluggo said:

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HoopDreams said:

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I'll say it again.

the problem I can't explain is having a worse defense than last year, considering we only lost 1 impact player (Paris)

Paris and South were both undersized for their positions, and although Paris's defense was better in his senior year, no one would call him a lock down defender

Everyone else is a year bigger/stronger, and with a year in the Fox defensive system, and at least one player has marginally improved his defense (Thiemann makes fewer dumb fouls)

We even added Celestine, who looks like a pretty good defender (although he sometimes gets lost on defense, like every other freshmen)

Yet, even Fox says we are not at last year's level defensively. Why not???

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A few reasons. First, the perimeter quickness went way down with the absence of Paris and South and the emergence of Foreman and Betley. Second, teams now have experienced Fox's defensive approach and can counter it more effectively. Fox may not have been able to adjust. And possibly third, the lack of a proper offseason/preseason led to the lack of necessary cohesion. The offense was equally bad both years and seems independent of coaching.

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sluggo, I isolated my point to defense, as I think the offense is what most people want to talk about.

offensively, this looks like a different team that emphasizes the 3 point shot a lot more than last year's team.

but back to defense ... at the point, we traded Paris minutes for primarily Brown (arguably a better defender), Hyder (about the same as Paris), and Foremann (I'd say Paris was the better defender). That's about a wash overall.

for South, I'd say everyone who took his minutes are equal to our better defensively. Some might argue that Betley is a defensive liability, but I would say he is probably a better defender than South, or at least the same, and is clearly the better rebounder

Some factors why this team is worse defensively is perhaps Kelly's lack of conditioning entering the season, more injuries to starters than last year (Grant and Bradley) that may have hampered them when they returned to the court, and perhaps (don't know) the players are generally more beat up than they were last year (the college game is so physical that every player is playing with degrees of bumps, bruises, sprains, etc)

But none of those factors add up to me to explain the defensive drop off for a coach who emphasizes
defense.

I think the poorer defense has as much to do with our sliding backwards as our offense

HoopDreams said:

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sluggo said:

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HoopDreams said:

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I'll say it again.

the problem I can't explain is having a worse defense than last year, considering we only lost 1 impact player (Paris)

Paris and South were both undersized for their positions, and although Paris's defense was better in his senior year, no one would call him a lock down defender

Everyone else is a year bigger/stronger, and with a year in the Fox defensive system, and at least one player has marginally improved his defense (Thiemann makes fewer dumb fouls)

We even added Celestine, who looks like a pretty good defender (although he sometimes gets lost on defense, like every other freshmen)

Yet, even Fox says we are not at last year's level defensively. Why not???

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A few reasons. First, the perimeter quickness went way down with the absence of Paris and South and the emergence of Foreman and Betley. Second, teams now have experienced Fox's defensive approach and can counter it more effectively. Fox may not have been able to adjust. And possibly third, the lack of a proper offseason/preseason led to the lack of necessary cohesion. The offense was equally bad both years and seems independent of coaching.

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sluggo, I isolated my point to defense, as I think the offense is what most people want to talk about.

offensively, this looks like a different team that emphasizes the 3 point shot a lot more than last year's team.

but back to defense ... at the point, we traded Paris minutes for primarily Brown (arguably a better defender), Hyder (about the same as Paris), and Foremann (I'd say Paris was the better defender). That's about a wash overall.

for South, I'd say everyone who took his minutes are equal to our better defensively. Some might argue that Betley is a defensive liability, but I would say he is probably a better defender than South, or at least the same, and is clearly the better defender

Some factors why this team is worse defensively is perhaps Kelly's lack of conditioning entering the season, more injuries to starters than last year (Grant and Bradley) that may have hampered them when they returned to the court, and perhaps (don't know) the players are generally more beat up than they were last year (the college game is so physical that every player is playing with degrees of bumps, bruises, sprains, etc)

But none of those factors add up to me to explain the defensive drop off for a coach who emphasizes
defense.

I think the poorer defense has as much to do with our sliding backwards as our offense

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I agree, and it is why I am so interested to see what next year's team does. Next year I will be looking much more at "bottom line" results of how the team does on the floor, as well as see what the incoming recruits look like.

HoopDreams said:

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... But none of those factors add up to me to explain the defensive drop off for a coach who emphasizes defense.

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I think Austin improved dramatically on defense through the 2019-20 season and by the end was a very good defender. I also think Betley is a weak defender (though a rebounder with a nose for the ball) who too often lets guys just blow by him. If the other changes are a wash then we're worse on defense.

Also Austin's play on offense probably reduced the easy points we gave up off turnovers.

NathanAllen said:

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drizzlybear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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drizzlybear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

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While I really like the general level-headedness and positivity of your overall post/thoughts, I want to make a couple of points.

First, Fox is not responsible for Brown and Thorpe being in Berkeley. They both signed LOI before Wyking Jones left. Yes, Fox had to re-recruit them to make sure they didn't ask out of their LOI, but that's a lot easier to do than the initial recruitment, which Jones gets credit for.

Second, my personal opinion is Cal has had it very easy regarding COVID compared to other teams. Yes, I get that they had the shut down at the beginning of the season, but that was it. They changed the opponent of their opening game to Oregon State and that's literally the only schedule disruption they've had. Maybe that caused them to get a slower start, and maybe it disadvantaged them to play ASU and UCLA in early-December, but Cal had a VERY light non-con load. It didn't play a single team ranked inside KenPom's top-100. Even if they were disrupted early-on, it doesn't change the fact they lost 11 of their last 12 games.

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It's true that Cal has had little in-season schedule disruption, but the hit to the off-season has been catastrophic for preparing for this season. I have the impression that it was particularly hard for Cal because: a) most teams didn't have the kind of local restrictions Cal had, b) with a disproportionate number of foreign players, it was harder/later for Cal to get its players back together and working/training, and c) with an unusually long rotation including a number of new players, the lack of a useful pre-season hit Cal particularly hard. Add to the preseason disruption the substantial losses of Bradley and GA to injury mid-season, and I believe it's fair to say that this team has had an uphill battle getting a sense of cohesion this season.

You could visibly see the lack of conditioning on the players (especially, for example, Kelly, whose play has markedly improved over the course of the season as his conditioning has improved and he has avoided significant injury), and to me it took until the second UCLA game for them to start looking like a cohesive unit at all. And while some mock the notion that competitive losses are different from non-competitive losses, or that there's even such a thing as a competitive loss, it's clear to me that this team has generally played much better basketball in the second half of the season.

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I understand. But there are at least a few counter-arguments/points to this. First, there are a lot of assumptions the underclassmen make noticeable improvements with a normal off-season. We have no proof/fact this would've actually happened. It's a nice thought, and that's what we hope for, but even in a normal off-season, that's far from a given.

Second, yes, Berkeley as a city has tough restrictions. I'm a Berkeley resident. But so did LA County. USC and UCLA seemed to be fine (yes, I know, more talented rosters, but still, they're both competing for the league title). While Berkeley would be on the stricter side of the COVID-restrictions spectrum, it certainly isn't the only one especially in major West Coast metro areas. Hell, at least Cal was able to play all season at Haas instead of huffing it over the Santa Cruz Mountains for a majority of home games.

As for implementing international/new players, again, maybe that's a disadvantage for Cal, but look at Wazzu. They have just as many international/new players. Same goes with injuries. Yes, losing a guy like Bradley is huge. But Cal certainly isn't the only team dealing with that. Wazzu has been without Isaac Bonton six game this season, including, four of the last five. Arizona lost Jemarl Baker for the entire season. ASU has been playing without Josh Christopher and Marcus Bagley for a lot of games. Stanford has now been down Oscar da Silva during a key stretch of the season. UCLA has been without Chris Smith and Jalen Hill. Oregon lost N'Faly Dante and has basically been playing five dudes more than 30 minutes each game.

My point is Cal's dealing with new/international players and COVID are not unique to Cal. And when considering other teams in the conference/country, I'd argue Cal has been impacted mildly by both. Maybe off-season/early-season disruptions set the team back. But Cal has had one of the smoothest seasons in the country and has had plenty of uninterrupted time to catch back up.

I'm not saying we should say Fox is horrible and Cal is horrible. I'm just saying my opinion is COVID and injuries don't get a ton of weight when evaluating this season when a) so many programs dealt with the same and b) we don't know what the exact impact of either on actual outcomes were.

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I didn't say Cal had the single worst experience and there weren't other teams dealing with some similar issues, I said I thought Berkeley covid restrictions are more stringent than most. Same with the foreign player issues. Not the only team that had to dealt with it, but again, more so than most.
I'm also not saying Cal is the only team to have had injuries. But when you look at the context of the roster in which those injuries happened, where the two players lost were the two foundational pillars for this team coming into the season, and where their surrounding roster was in utter shambles 16 months ago, and where these key losses occurred in the middle of a season for a team that had particular challenges getting started, I do personally think that's a relevant context in which to qualify my assessment the team's (and coach's) performance.

I know I'm making excuses. But I do feel like I'll only go so far with it. And I've said that next year is a critical year of evaluation for me. But for me, these are relevant considerations in assessing this season.

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To be clear, I didn't interpret your posts as making excuses. And I think it's fair to consider the context of COVID and key injuries when evaluating the season. Totally reasonable.

And to your point about Bradley, yes, his usage%, poss%, and shot% are some of the highest in the nation. Bradley missing a game will impact Cal more than other injuries I listed for other teams.

But when I do my end-of-season evaluations, I'm going to put more emphasis on the metrics/data that actually occurred. To HoopDreams' point, defense was a major concern this year. It was objectively Mark Fox's worst defense as a head coach. That's not good. Fox is also in charge of the roster. It's early, but the biggest impact players on the roster are Jones holdovers. That's not good. Betley and Foreman objectively had worse seasons this year than all of their previous seasons. While Hyder improved in a few categories compared to last year, overall, he was mainly down in most metrics. Without getting more from other pieces of the roster, it puts too much pressure on guys like Bradley, Kelly, Brown, and others to be something that perhaps they're not supposed to be or ready to be quite yet.

I guess, bottom-line, what I'm getting at is virtually every team in the conference had to deal with COVID disruptions and many had to deal with season-ending injuries to key players or key players missing a few games. Yet, Cal still won fewer conference games than any other team and lost 11 of its last 12. Why? That's what I'll be digging into once the Bears conclude their season.

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(star)

stu said:

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HoopDreams said:

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... But none of those factors add up to me to explain the defensive drop off for a coach who emphasizes defense.

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I think Austin improved dramatically on defense through the 2019-20 season and by the end was a very good defender. I also think Betley is a weak defender (though a rebounder with a nose for the ball) who too often lets guys just blow by him. If the other changes are a wash then we're worse on defense.

Also Austin's play on offense probably reduced the easy points we gave up off turnovers.

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Yeah, Betley lead the team in minutes played. No discussion of last year versus this year can ignore that fact. If you are playing man-to-man and have a weak defender at the wing, playing nearly the whole game, other teams will exploit that mismatch again and again. It almost doesn't matter what the rest of the team is doing.

And Fox won't play zone.

Big C said:

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Yeah, regarding Knowlton, pretty much the only negative I have on him is the process he relied on to hire Fox. Unfortunately, that's a huge part of his job. OaktownBear has outlined -- on a number of occasions -- how that hiring process "should" work and I agree 100%.

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I'm not sure Knowlton's background at a service academy without big-time football and basketball programs is a great fit with Cal. What are his positives? I'm not trying to be snarky, I just know almost nothing about his job aside from hiring coaches.

He's in change of the whole athletics program, including budgeting, scheduling, and other behind the scenes work that allows teams to have their seasons

calbears4ever said:

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He's in change of the whole athletics program, including budgeting, scheduling, and other behind the scenes work that allows teams to have their seasons

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How good is he at those tasks? For example, are our recruiting budgets adequate? When we allow fans back in Hass will the sound volume be low enough I don't heed hearing protection? Will we ever again have live entertainment rather than canned noise? Will we ever get decent food?

drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

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While I really like the general level-headedness and positivity of your overall post/thoughts, I want to make a couple of points.

First, Fox is not responsible for Brown and Thorpe being in Berkeley. They both signed LOI before Wyking Jones left. Yes, Fox had to re-recruit them to make sure they didn't ask out of their LOI, but that's a lot easier to do than the initial recruitment, which Jones gets credit for.

Second, my personal opinion is Cal has had it very easy regarding COVID compared to other teams. Yes, I get that they had the shut down at the beginning of the season, but that was it. They changed the opponent of their opening game to Oregon State and that's literally the only schedule disruption they've had. Maybe that caused them to get a slower start, and maybe it disadvantaged them to play ASU and UCLA in early-December, but Cal had a VERY light non-con load. It didn't play a single team ranked inside KenPom's top-100. Even if they were disrupted early-on, it doesn't change the fact they lost 11 of their last 12 games.

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It's true that Cal has had little in-season schedule disruption, but the hit to the off-season has been catastrophic for preparing for this season. I have the impression that it was particularly hard for Cal because: a) most teams didn't have the kind of local restrictions Cal had, b) with a disproportionate number of foreign players, it was harder/later for Cal to get its players back together and working/training, and c) with an unusually long rotation including a number of new players, the lack of a useful pre-season hit Cal particularly hard. Add to the preseason disruption the substantial losses of Bradley and GA to injury mid-season, and I believe it's fair to say that this team has had an uphill battle getting a sense of cohesion this season.

You could visibly see the lack of conditioning on the players (especially, for example, Kelly, whose play has markedly improved over the course of the season as his conditioning has improved and he has avoided significant injury), and to me it took until the second UCLA game for them to start looking like a cohesive unit at all. And while some mock the notion that competitive losses are different from non-competitive losses, or that there's even such a thing as a competitive loss, it's clear to me that this team has generally played much better basketball in the second half of the season.

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Look, I appreciate you, but almost every post completely downplays the bad, exaggerates the good, and presents an unrealistic view of the future. They ignore results or data to present some eye test and the problem is the eyes are covered in 2 inch thick rose colored glasses. Every team needs fans like you. But they also need people who are going to counter with some reality.

Covid is just an excuse at this point. There is no way Cal got hit hardest by Covid. Everybody had to deal with it. Using it now, months after it had any impact is not warranted and is basically a get out of jail free card. It is reasonable that it might have impacted them early in the season. But it is not like some disrupted practice is something that permanently sets you back. They have had three months to catch up and they are playing some of their worst basketball right now.

Lack of conditioning is the last thing you should use as an excuse. My 15 year old had zoom conditioning with her not elite club team during spring and summer when the coach knew there was basically no chance they'd play a season. No Covid restrictions stopped anyone from going outdoors and running. It is absolutely criminal if this coaching staff didn't keep them in shape. (which, by the way, I don't think is true. What you see as a conditioning issue, I see as the cream rising to the top of each game when the chips are down).

You have pointed to the UCLA game over and over and over. Let's get a little real about the UCLA game. Grant had his career best game. That is it. That is all that happened. If you take Grant's numbers out of the stats, the team went 13 of 42 shooting. They were outrebounded in the game 29-20. That is not a team that turned the corner and started playing like a cohesive unit. That is one guy played out of his mind and shot 8-11, 5-5 from three. And with that ridiculous performance by Grant, we still only scored 57. The team was playing to exactly the same level they have the rest of the year.

And despite the excuses - Covid, conditioning, Grant and Matt being out, and your assertion that they somehow found cohesion at UCLA, they have played the last 10 games, fully conditioned, full cohesion, full roster, with Matt and Grant statistically being the same as usual, and they have gone 1-9. And they have played especially poorly of late.

No one, especially me, EVER mocked the notion of competitive losses being better than non competitive losses. That is a strawman others created. Actually look at our results. You have a hard time arguing that we have gotten more competitive. At best it is a mixed bag. We were clearly less competitive the second time around against WSU, Utah and Washington. I would say we were clearly less competitive against Oregon but others might argue. Stanford is less relevant because we played them in the same week, but I we've had that debate. We were clearly more competitive against UCLA, ASU, and Colorado. We only played USC and Arizona once, but they were in the last ten games and we lost both and got trounced by Arizona. I would say OSU is a wash. We shot out of our minds for the first third of the game and sucked for the rest having one of our worst offensive halves of the season. Bottom line, mixed bag at best.

Your argument that this team played better as the season went on is just not born out. They played the same 4 teams to start the conference season as they did to finish it. The Oregons and the Washingtons. At the start of the season they went 1-3 with a total point differential of negative 27. At the end of the season against the same opponents, they went 0-4 with a total point differential of negative 45. Our Sagarin predictor rating, which is based on strength of schedule and scores over the entire season, is 152. Our Sagarin recent rating, which is the same as predictor except that it weights the most recent games more, is a horrible 212. As Captain America says "I can do this all day". By every objective measure, the team is getting worse as the season goes on. Your only argument is your eyes. You need to consider the possibility that in your "eye test", your eyes are seeing what they want to see.

As I said, I appreciate you and every team needs fans like you that will stay positive no matter what. Great for you. But reality needs to be there as well. Be positive about the next game. Believe in the team. Go to the game (or sit in front of your television as it were) and cheer your head off. When the game is over, when the season is over, you need to apply some reasoning instead of all emotion. Discussing the direction of the program should not be based on emotional fandom. If you want to argue that this is the best Cal can do, fine. But we have to argue based on some truths and the truth by any objective measure is this is a last place team that got worse as the season progressed.

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Wow, long post. I appreciate the effort/care to do so. I'll try to be succinct in my reply:

1. Optimist. Guilty as charged, no doubt. But there are numerous aspects of this team, this coach, and this season that I have been critical of.

2. UCLA game. First, it's not the UCLA game alone that I cite as having seen the team turn a corner. It's the full scope of games since then. We have been consistently more competitive. If it had only been the UCLA game I would cite it as an aberration. And yes, GA had an amazing game that day, but he really accounted for only about 9 points more than normal. On the other hand, that game was played without Matt Bradley, and with Foreman, Betley, amd Hyder going 3-15 from 3. So overall the team didn't shoot unusually well in that game. And it stood out as a HUGE contrast from how Cal looked against UCLA the first time they played. To the extent to which I use an eye test (everyone does/should), you should give me credit for applying that not opportunistically. Notice that right before the UCLA game Cal actually managed to beat Utah. And yet I have specifically not included that game to support my argument. It's proof that my personal "eye test" is not solely rose-colored, and can actually see poor play by Cal even in the case of a victory. (In fact, iirc, it was the second half of that first Utah game where Cal, as a team, shot unrealistically well.) Indeed, I thought we played better against Utah I defeat than we did in victory.

While my comment about "competitive" basketball wasn't specifically directed at you (it seems like there are multiple posters who have been dismissive of competitive games, and I don't recall who they are, it's just become a theme on the board), I do seem to recall you referring to at least one competitive game as merely our opponent "playing with its food."

Again, optimistic? Yes. Unrealistic? Maybe. But still, you're not paying attention if you think I don't have the ability to be critical of Cal basketball. I do think context is relevant; not just bottom line W/L, especially for a program trying to resurrect from ashes. I do always try to provide the basis for my views. And I do react to those who don't seem to allow for some reasonable context, or who appear to have given up on a coach halfway into his second season, especially given what this coach inherited, and especially a second season as unusual as this one.

Last year's team showed significant improvement; over the previous seasons and over the course of that same season. To me, that bought a little extra rope for the new coach. And it's why I'm willing to look a little deeper to try to understand why this season has not gone as well as last season (though the answer may be as simple as the difference at point guard position).

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I characterized an uncompetitive game that we lost by 13 after getting our doors blown off in a 3 minute stretch as the opponent playing with its food, and I stand by that. That doesn't mean we don't play competitive games (not many, but on occasion) and that those competitive games are not better than uncompetitive games. The Oregon game was not one. I realize you disagree, but that is what basically everyone not on my side was saying. Not that you could not have a competitive loss.

Last year's team did show improvement. And that was fair enough to start things out in neutral territory this year. It is not like we were close to a bubble team or anything. It was okay enough to stave off criticism and say let's see if we can go further next year. It was not enough to give a free last place setback.

Look, I'm sorry, but the "I don't think just bottom line W/L matters" was said over and over to defend Holmoe and you are doing what they were doing. It is not just the W/L. You are ignoring every objective data point. Not just W/L. Efficiency ratings. Sagarin. KenPom. Score differential. I'm fine with eye test as one thing to consider. I'm not fine with eye test trumping every single data point out there.

Out of 88 teams in the top 7 conferences our recent rating in Sagarin is 87. Our recent rating is nearly 60 points lower than our full season rating. That is not just W/L but is also score differential. Stat after stat after stat is saying that your eye test, which is not subjectively shared by most, is incorrect. You literally have nothing objective you can point to to support your subjective opinion here. On the contrary to your last statement, you are not willing to look deeper. You are only willing to look at your subjective read of the games. It is all basically "I think they look better". You are ignoring every other point of analysis. Stats most certainly aren't everything, but they aren't nothing either. When every stat goes against your eyes, you should start to question them. Otherwise, you are working on faith alone

stu said:

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calbears4ever said:

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He's in change of the whole athletics program, including budgeting, scheduling, and other behind the scenes work that allows teams to have their seasons

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How good is he at those tasks? For example, are our recruiting budgets adequate? When we allow fans back in Hass will the sound volume be low enough I don't heed hearing protection? Will we ever again have live entertainment rather than canned noise? Will we ever get decent food?

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All good questions.

calbears4ever said:

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He's in change of the whole athletics program, including budgeting, scheduling, and other behind the scenes work that allows teams to have their seasons

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There are thousands of schmucks with the appropriate education level that you can pay $60K a year to do those things. They will get done by anyone you put in the job. They are not what differentiate a good AD from a bad one. In fact, probably our most successful AD in 50 years absolutely sucked at a lot of that, but he got hiring a football coach right.

Big C said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

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Some minor corrections (to some great thoughts):

Austin, Kelly and Bradley played their first eligible years for Wyking Jones, then returned for their second years under Fox.

Pretty sure Roman Davis was done before Fox arrived.

Joel Brown and DJ Thorpe both committed to Wyking Jones' staff. Fox was able to dissuade them from backing out of their commitments. Not so with McNeill, Sueing and Vanover (that last one hurt!).


An area where I completely agree with you is how the pandemic affected us more than some others. They say that, typically, a player improves the most from his freshman to his sophomore season. We had a bunch of players in that category (Thiemann, Klonaras, Hyder, Thorpe, Kuany and Brown) who never really had the opportunity to take that step forward, as the shut-down hit RIGHT after the season and lasted through the summer.

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Thanks for the corrections. At the end of the day, not enough talent and it was pretty much a rebuild once Vanover, McNeill and Sueing left. Fox went for some reaches which haven't exactly panned out. If I had one criticism (in hindsight) it would have been for him to grab high school talent instead of bringing in Foreman and Betley for one year.

We really need a good point guard and a big guy in the next class. We could lose both Bradley and Kelly next year. It will be interesting to see if Fox clears space on the roster to bring in more talent.

OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

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While I really like the general level-headedness and positivity of your overall post/thoughts, I want to make a couple of points.

First, Fox is not responsible for Brown and Thorpe being in Berkeley. They both signed LOI before Wyking Jones left. Yes, Fox had to re-recruit them to make sure they didn't ask out of their LOI, but that's a lot easier to do than the initial recruitment, which Jones gets credit for.

Second, my personal opinion is Cal has had it very easy regarding COVID compared to other teams. Yes, I get that they had the shut down at the beginning of the season, but that was it. They changed the opponent of their opening game to Oregon State and that's literally the only schedule disruption they've had. Maybe that caused them to get a slower start, and maybe it disadvantaged them to play ASU and UCLA in early-December, but Cal had a VERY light non-con load. It didn't play a single team ranked inside KenPom's top-100. Even if they were disrupted early-on, it doesn't change the fact they lost 11 of their last 12 games.

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It's true that Cal has had little in-season schedule disruption, but the hit to the off-season has been catastrophic for preparing for this season. I have the impression that it was particularly hard for Cal because: a) most teams didn't have the kind of local restrictions Cal had, b) with a disproportionate number of foreign players, it was harder/later for Cal to get its players back together and working/training, and c) with an unusually long rotation including a number of new players, the lack of a useful pre-season hit Cal particularly hard. Add to the preseason disruption the substantial losses of Bradley and GA to injury mid-season, and I believe it's fair to say that this team has had an uphill battle getting a sense of cohesion this season.

You could visibly see the lack of conditioning on the players (especially, for example, Kelly, whose play has markedly improved over the course of the season as his conditioning has improved and he has avoided significant injury), and to me it took until the second UCLA game for them to start looking like a cohesive unit at all. And while some mock the notion that competitive losses are different from non-competitive losses, or that there's even such a thing as a competitive loss, it's clear to me that this team has generally played much better basketball in the second half of the season.

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Look, I appreciate you, but almost every post completely downplays the bad, exaggerates the good, and presents an unrealistic view of the future. They ignore results or data to present some eye test and the problem is the eyes are covered in 2 inch thick rose colored glasses. Every team needs fans like you. But they also need people who are going to counter with some reality.

Covid is just an excuse at this point. There is no way Cal got hit hardest by Covid. Everybody had to deal with it. Using it now, months after it had any impact is not warranted and is basically a get out of jail free card. It is reasonable that it might have impacted them early in the season. But it is not like some disrupted practice is something that permanently sets you back. They have had three months to catch up and they are playing some of their worst basketball right now.

Lack of conditioning is the last thing you should use as an excuse. My 15 year old had zoom conditioning with her not elite club team during spring and summer when the coach knew there was basically no chance they'd play a season. No Covid restrictions stopped anyone from going outdoors and running. It is absolutely criminal if this coaching staff didn't keep them in shape. (which, by the way, I don't think is true. What you see as a conditioning issue, I see as the cream rising to the top of each game when the chips are down).

You have pointed to the UCLA game over and over and over. Let's get a little real about the UCLA game. Grant had his career best game. That is it. That is all that happened. If you take Grant's numbers out of the stats, the team went 13 of 42 shooting. They were outrebounded in the game 29-20. That is not a team that turned the corner and started playing like a cohesive unit. That is one guy played out of his mind and shot 8-11, 5-5 from three. And with that ridiculous performance by Grant, we still only scored 57. The team was playing to exactly the same level they have the rest of the year.

And despite the excuses - Covid, conditioning, Grant and Matt being out, and your assertion that they somehow found cohesion at UCLA, they have played the last 10 games, fully conditioned, full cohesion, full roster, with Matt and Grant statistically being the same as usual, and they have gone 1-9. And they have played especially poorly of late.

No one, especially me, EVER mocked the notion of competitive losses being better than non competitive losses. That is a strawman others created. Actually look at our results. You have a hard time arguing that we have gotten more competitive. At best it is a mixed bag. We were clearly less competitive the second time around against WSU, Utah and Washington. I would say we were clearly less competitive against Oregon but others might argue. Stanford is less relevant because we played them in the same week, but I we've had that debate. We were clearly more competitive against UCLA, ASU, and Colorado. We only played USC and Arizona once, but they were in the last ten games and we lost both and got trounced by Arizona. I would say OSU is a wash. We shot out of our minds for the first third of the game and sucked for the rest having one of our worst offensive halves of the season. Bottom line, mixed bag at best.

Your argument that this team played better as the season went on is just not born out. They played the same 4 teams to start the conference season as they did to finish it. The Oregons and the Washingtons. At the start of the season they went 1-3 with a total point differential of negative 27. At the end of the season against the same opponents, they went 0-4 with a total point differential of negative 45. Our Sagarin predictor rating, which is based on strength of schedule and scores over the entire season, is 152. Our Sagarin recent rating, which is the same as predictor except that it weights the most recent games more, is a horrible 212. As Captain America says "I can do this all day". By every objective measure, the team is getting worse as the season goes on. Your only argument is your eyes. You need to consider the possibility that in your "eye test", your eyes are seeing what they want to see.

As I said, I appreciate you and every team needs fans like you that will stay positive no matter what. Great for you. But reality needs to be there as well. Be positive about the next game. Believe in the team. Go to the game (or sit in front of your television as it were) and cheer your head off. When the game is over, when the season is over, you need to apply some reasoning instead of all emotion. Discussing the direction of the program should not be based on emotional fandom. If you want to argue that this is the best Cal can do, fine. But we have to argue based on some truths and the truth by any objective measure is this is a last place team that got worse as the season progressed.

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Wow, long post. I appreciate the effort/care to do so. I'll try to be succinct in my reply:

1. Optimist. Guilty as charged, no doubt. But there are numerous aspects of this team, this coach, and this season that I have been critical of.

2. UCLA game. First, it's not the UCLA game alone that I cite as having seen the team turn a corner. It's the full scope of games since then. We have been consistently more competitive. If it had only been the UCLA game I would cite it as an aberration. And yes, GA had an amazing game that day, but he really accounted for only about 9 points more than normal. On the other hand, that game was played without Matt Bradley, and with Foreman, Betley, amd Hyder going 3-15 from 3. So overall the team didn't shoot unusually well in that game. And it stood out as a HUGE contrast from how Cal looked against UCLA the first time they played. To the extent to which I use an eye test (everyone does/should), you should give me credit for applying that not opportunistically. Notice that right before the UCLA game Cal actually managed to beat Utah. And yet I have specifically not included that game to support my argument. It's proof that my personal "eye test" is not solely rose-colored, and can actually see poor play by Cal even in the case of a victory. (In fact, iirc, it was the second half of that first Utah game where Cal, as a team, shot unrealistically well.) Indeed, I thought we played better against Utah I defeat than we did in victory.

While my comment about "competitive" basketball wasn't specifically directed at you (it seems like there are multiple posters who have been dismissive of competitive games, and I don't recall who they are, it's just become a theme on the board), I do seem to recall you referring to at least one competitive game as merely our opponent "playing with its food."

Again, optimistic? Yes. Unrealistic? Maybe. But still, you're not paying attention if you think I don't have the ability to be critical of Cal basketball. I do think context is relevant; not just bottom line W/L, especially for a program trying to resurrect from ashes. I do always try to provide the basis for my views. And I do react to those who don't seem to allow for some reasonable context, or who appear to have given up on a coach halfway into his second season, especially given what this coach inherited, and especially a second season as unusual as this one.

Last year's team showed significant improvement; over the previous seasons and over the course of that same season. To me, that bought a little extra rope for the new coach. And it's why I'm willing to look a little deeper to try to understand why this season has not gone as well as last season (though the answer may be as simple as the difference at point guard position).

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I characterized an uncompetitive game that we lost by 13 after getting our doors blown off in a 3 minute stretch as the opponent playing with its food, and I stand by that. That doesn't mean we don't play competitive games (not many, but on occasion) and that those competitive games are not better than uncompetitive games. The Oregon game was not one. I realize you disagree, but that is what basically everyone not on my side was saying. Not that you could not have a competitive loss.

Last year's team did show improvement. And that was fair enough to start things out in neutral territory this year. It is not like we were close to a bubble team or anything. It was okay enough to stave off criticism and say let's see if we can go further next year. It was not enough to give a free last place setback.

Look, I'm sorry, but the "I don't think just bottom line W/L matters" was said over and over to defend Holmoe and you are doing what they were doing. It is not just the W/L. You are ignoring every objective data point. Not just W/L. Efficiency ratings. Sagarin. KenPom. Score differential. I'm fine with eye test as one thing to consider. I'm not fine with eye test trumping every single data point out there.

Out of 88 teams in the top 7 conferences our recent rating in Sagarin is 87. Our recent rating is nearly 60 points lower than our full season rating. That is not just W/L but is also score differential. Stat after stat after stat is saying that your eye test, which is not subjectively shared by most, is incorrect. You literally have nothing objective you can point to to support your subjective opinion here. On the contrary to your last statement, you are not willing to look deeper. You are only willing to look at your subjective read of the games. It is all basically "I think they look better". You are ignoring every other point of analysis. Stats most certainly aren't everything, but they aren't nothing either. When every stat goes against your eyes, you should start to question them. Otherwise, you are working on faith alone

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Ugh. You're wrong to say there's no stat that supports my point. In fact, arguably the most important stat supports my point: score of game.

Starting with that UCLA game, in the 7 conference losses prior to that game, the margin was single digits only twice, and both times it was barely single digits (8 points once and 9 points the other time). Conversely, in the 11 losses since that UCLA game (and I'm not even counting the Utah game Cal won right before that UCLA game), the margin has been single digits 6 times, i.e., literally more often than not. Moreover, those more recent losses have included two 4-pt games, one 2-pt game, and a 1-pt game. Those numbers, which are very much bottom line objective numbers, show that this team has played a lot more competitive basketball since that UCLA game. That supports what my eyes are telling me. And of course, if you object to my eye test, then you surely would welcome using the win over Utah as even further evidence of improvement over that time.

So please stop with the "no stat supports your eye test" because you are flat wrong about that. The frequency of competitive games, as shown by the scores of the games themselves, support it.

I'm assuming you haven't had some personal grudge against Fox from the beginning, but I think you have very unrealistic expectations for a new coach, especially one coming into such a difficult situation as did Fox. Given your very tepid approval of the improvement Fox showed in year 1, coupled with your utter dismissal of his abilities midway through year 2 (and a uniquely bizarre and challenging year at that), it's hard to imagine who Cal could have hired in the wake of the WJ mess that would meet your expectations. How many coaches in Cal basketball post-Pete Newell history (60+ years) would you want for Cal right now?

NathanAllen said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

---

While I really like the general level-headedness and positivity of your overall post/thoughts, I want to make a couple of points.

First, Fox is not responsible for Brown and Thorpe being in Berkeley. They both signed LOI before Wyking Jones left. Yes, Fox had to re-recruit them to make sure they didn't ask out of their LOI, but that's a lot easier to do than the initial recruitment, which Jones gets credit for.

Second, my personal opinion is Cal has had it very easy regarding COVID compared to other teams. Yes, I get that they had the shut down at the beginning of the season, but that was it. They changed the opponent of their opening game to Oregon State and that's literally the only schedule disruption they've had. Maybe that caused them to get a slower start, and maybe it disadvantaged them to play ASU and UCLA in early-December, but Cal had a VERY light non-con load. It didn't play a single team ranked inside KenPom's top-100. Even if they were disrupted early-on, it doesn't change the fact they lost 11 of their last 12 games.

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Thanks. I'm even more depressed now.

Bear8995 said:

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Big C said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

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Some minor corrections (to some great thoughts):

Austin, Kelly and Bradley played their first eligible years for Wyking Jones, then returned for their second years under Fox.

Pretty sure Roman Davis was done before Fox arrived.

Joel Brown and DJ Thorpe both committed to Wyking Jones' staff. Fox was able to dissuade them from backing out of their commitments. Not so with McNeill, Sueing and Vanover (that last one hurt!).


An area where I completely agree with you is how the pandemic affected us more than some others. They say that, typically, a player improves the most from his freshman to his sophomore season. We had a bunch of players in that category (Thiemann, Klonaras, Hyder, Thorpe, Kuany and Brown) who never really had the opportunity to take that step forward, as the shut-down hit RIGHT after the season and lasted through the summer.

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Thanks for the corrections. At the end of the day, not enough talent and it was pretty much a rebuild once Vanover, McNeill and Sueing left. Fox went for some reaches which haven't exactly panned out. If I had one criticism (in hindsight) it would have been for him to grab high school talent instead of bringing in Foreman and Betley for one year.

We really need a good point guard and a big guy in the next class. We could lose both Bradley and Kelly next year. It will be interesting to see if Fox clears space on the roster to bring in more talent.

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The big test will be the 2022 class. Could be 5 or more recruits replacing Bradley, Kelly, GA....

Bear8995 said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

---

While I really like the general level-headedness and positivity of your overall post/thoughts, I want to make a couple of points.

First, Fox is not responsible for Brown and Thorpe being in Berkeley. They both signed LOI before Wyking Jones left. Yes, Fox had to re-recruit them to make sure they didn't ask out of their LOI, but that's a lot easier to do than the initial recruitment, which Jones gets credit for.

Second, my personal opinion is Cal has had it very easy regarding COVID compared to other teams. Yes, I get that they had the shut down at the beginning of the season, but that was it. They changed the opponent of their opening game to Oregon State and that's literally the only schedule disruption they've had. Maybe that caused them to get a slower start, and maybe it disadvantaged them to play ASU and UCLA in early-December, but Cal had a VERY light non-con load. It didn't play a single team ranked inside KenPom's top-100. Even if they were disrupted early-on, it doesn't change the fact they lost 11 of their last 12 games.

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Thanks. I'm even more depressed now.

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This season will give us a record 18 losses to PAC-12 opponents including a chance at 6 losses to the Oregon schools. We can partly thank COVID for that.

8 wins matches Jones' record. 1 road win in Fox's second season ties the record Jones set in his second season.

Next year should be better, at least marginally (more like last year's record). I'm looking forward to seeing the 2021 recruits. The key will be 2022 recruiting. A big miss could leave Fox's successor far worse off than the situation Fox walked into.

drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I've been thinking a lot about how we got here.

When Fox got here, he was just trying to get bodies to play. Vanover, Sueing and McNeill left and they would have represented 3 of the 5 starting positions had they stayed. Anticevich was returning. Austin, Kelly and Bradley were coming in/becoming eligible. The next 3 best players were JHD, Roman Davis and Jacobi Gordon, not really Pac 12 players. We were in trouble.

So he grabbed Brown (we needed a point guard). He got Kareem South as a one year rental (we needed outside shooting). He got KK, an athletic wing with potential (probably worth the gamble). Thiemann and Thorpe (good to have some big bodies). And finally Klonaras (looked good enough on tape to take a chance).

Young team but not a good outside shooting team. We needed that to improve. He slowed the game down, got Paris to become more of a passer and we showed signs of life towards the end of last season.

We lose South and Austin and in the search for some long distance shooters, he grabs Foreman and Betley. We had some success with Mullins so Betley made sense and Foreman could play PG so he was a hedge if Hyder couldn't play. He also gets Bowser and Celestine. Longer, athletic wings.

Then we have a bit of bad luck (and trust me, I HATE making excuses). COVID protocols. We lose 2 weeks of practice. Bradley gets hurt not once, but twice, then gets sick in teh past 2 weeks missing practice all week. I still don't think he is 100%. Grant has his appendix burst. He's out for 4 weeks. Losing Bradley twice (not to mention him being sick recently) especially hurts because the team can never seem to gain any continuity. That reflects in our inconsistent play from game to game and even within games.

Betley turns out to be a heady player, but can't shoot as well when he has to hurry his shot against more athletic competition. Same with Foreman. Both are liabilities defensively. Klonaras, KK and Thiemann get caught overseas and don't progress as much as they normally would under normal circumstances. Celestine is hurt for a good portion of the start of the season. Bowser would have ideally redshirted to gain some muscle.

In short, while other teams have been affected by the pandemic, it really hurt us when you factor in the injuries and how our team is made up with the number of foreign players we have. Switching lineups so often has made it difficult for us to establish any kind of continuity. I get it since we are losing and Fox feels the need to mix things up. But I think it has hindered our ability to execute at a higher level than we are seeing now.

The team needs to improve in just about every area. Rebounding. Defense. Shooting. Taking care of the ball (turnovers).

Next year, we have Roberson, Alajiki and Anyanwu coming in. Judging by Fox's reaction to Betley coming out of today's game, I'm guessing he doesn't come back. I think Betley also realizes that he is playing in a league over his head a bit. I would guess that Klonaras will move on at some point. Can't be fun sitting on the bench. Hopefully we can get another point guard so Hyder can play off the ball as he is not a point guard. Not sure he is Pac 12 material either way.

Assuming everyone is healthy and comes back, the starting lineup will likely be Brown, Bradley, Celestine, Kelly and Anticevich. The 3 freshmen should all play as weill as Bowser. Thorpe and Thiemann will provide some size but I just don't see them making a huge impact on the progarm while they are here. Hyder or Foreman can hopefully spell Brown for a few minutes but neither is capable of playing a lot of minutes IMO. We shouldn't end up last like this year but I think the key is who Fox brings in next year. If we get a class similar to this years, we should be OK going forward (we do need a good point guard in this class). If we take a step back, we will be at the bottom of the conference for quite a while necessitating a change at the top.

I hope Fox is able to pull it off as I do think we need some continuity. We seemto start over (meaning at the bottom) every time a new coach comes in and that makes it really hard for us to gain traction as a program.

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While I really like the general level-headedness and positivity of your overall post/thoughts, I want to make a couple of points.

First, Fox is not responsible for Brown and Thorpe being in Berkeley. They both signed LOI before Wyking Jones left. Yes, Fox had to re-recruit them to make sure they didn't ask out of their LOI, but that's a lot easier to do than the initial recruitment, which Jones gets credit for.

Second, my personal opinion is Cal has had it very easy regarding COVID compared to other teams. Yes, I get that they had the shut down at the beginning of the season, but that was it. They changed the opponent of their opening game to Oregon State and that's literally the only schedule disruption they've had. Maybe that caused them to get a slower start, and maybe it disadvantaged them to play ASU and UCLA in early-December, but Cal had a VERY light non-con load. It didn't play a single team ranked inside KenPom's top-100. Even if they were disrupted early-on, it doesn't change the fact they lost 11 of their last 12 games.

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It's true that Cal has had little in-season schedule disruption, but the hit to the off-season has been catastrophic for preparing for this season. I have the impression that it was particularly hard for Cal because: a) most teams didn't have the kind of local restrictions Cal had, b) with a disproportionate number of foreign players, it was harder/later for Cal to get its players back together and working/training, and c) with an unusually long rotation including a number of new players, the lack of a useful pre-season hit Cal particularly hard. Add to the preseason disruption the substantial losses of Bradley and GA to injury mid-season, and I believe it's fair to say that this team has had an uphill battle getting a sense of cohesion this season.

You could visibly see the lack of conditioning on the players (especially, for example, Kelly, whose play has markedly improved over the course of the season as his conditioning has improved and he has avoided significant injury), and to me it took until the second UCLA game for them to start looking like a cohesive unit at all. And while some mock the notion that competitive losses are different from non-competitive losses, or that there's even such a thing as a competitive loss, it's clear to me that this team has generally played much better basketball in the second half of the season.

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Look, I appreciate you, but almost every post completely downplays the bad, exaggerates the good, and presents an unrealistic view of the future. They ignore results or data to present some eye test and the problem is the eyes are covered in 2 inch thick rose colored glasses. Every team needs fans like you. But they also need people who are going to counter with some reality.

Covid is just an excuse at this point. There is no way Cal got hit hardest by Covid. Everybody had to deal with it. Using it now, months after it had any impact is not warranted and is basically a get out of jail free card. It is reasonable that it might have impacted them early in the season. But it is not like some disrupted practice is something that permanently sets you back. They have had three months to catch up and they are playing some of their worst basketball right now.

Lack of conditioning is the last thing you should use as an excuse. My 15 year old had zoom conditioning with her not elite club team during spring and summer when the coach knew there was basically no chance they'd play a season. No Covid restrictions stopped anyone from going outdoors and running. It is absolutely criminal if this coaching staff didn't keep them in shape. (which, by the way, I don't think is true. What you see as a conditioning issue, I see as the cream rising to the top of each game when the chips are down).

You have pointed to the UCLA game over and over and over. Let's get a little real about the UCLA game. Grant had his career best game. That is it. That is all that happened. If you take Grant's numbers out of the stats, the team went 13 of 42 shooting. They were outrebounded in the game 29-20. That is not a team that turned the corner and started playing like a cohesive unit. That is one guy played out of his mind and shot 8-11, 5-5 from three. And with that ridiculous performance by Grant, we still only scored 57. The team was playing to exactly the same level they have the rest of the year.

And despite the excuses - Covid, conditioning, Grant and Matt being out, and your assertion that they somehow found cohesion at UCLA, they have played the last 10 games, fully conditioned, full cohesion, full roster, with Matt and Grant statistically being the same as usual, and they have gone 1-9. And they have played especially poorly of late.

No one, especially me, EVER mocked the notion of competitive losses being better than non competitive losses. That is a strawman others created. Actually look at our results. You have a hard time arguing that we have gotten more competitive. At best it is a mixed bag. We were clearly less competitive the second time around against WSU, Utah and Washington. I would say we were clearly less competitive against Oregon but others might argue. Stanford is less relevant because we played them in the same week, but I we've had that debate. We were clearly more competitive against UCLA, ASU, and Colorado. We only played USC and Arizona once, but they were in the last ten games and we lost both and got trounced by Arizona. I would say OSU is a wash. We shot out of our minds for the first third of the game and sucked for the rest having one of our worst offensive halves of the season. Bottom line, mixed bag at best.

Your argument that this team played better as the season went on is just not born out. They played the same 4 teams to start the conference season as they did to finish it. The Oregons and the Washingtons. At the start of the season they went 1-3 with a total point differential of negative 27. At the end of the season against the same opponents, they went 0-4 with a total point differential of negative 45. Our Sagarin predictor rating, which is based on strength of schedule and scores over the entire season, is 152. Our Sagarin recent rating, which is the same as predictor except that it weights the most recent games more, is a horrible 212. As Captain America says "I can do this all day". By every objective measure, the team is getting worse as the season goes on. Your only argument is your eyes. You need to consider the possibility that in your "eye test", your eyes are seeing what they want to see.

As I said, I appreciate you and every team needs fans like you that will stay positive no matter what. Great for you. But reality needs to be there as well. Be positive about the next game. Believe in the team. Go to the game (or sit in front of your television as it were) and cheer your head off. When the game is over, when the season is over, you need to apply some reasoning instead of all emotion. Discussing the direction of the program should not be based on emotional fandom. If you want to argue that this is the best Cal can do, fine. But we have to argue based on some truths and the truth by any objective measure is this is a last place team that got worse as the season progressed.

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Wow, long post. I appreciate the effort/care to do so. I'll try to be succinct in my reply:

1. Optimist. Guilty as charged, no doubt. But there are numerous aspects of this team, this coach, and this season that I have been critical of.

2. UCLA game. First, it's not the UCLA game alone that I cite as having seen the team turn a corner. It's the full scope of games since then. We have been consistently more competitive. If it had only been the UCLA game I would cite it as an aberration. And yes, GA had an amazing game that day, but he really accounted for only about 9 points more than normal. On the other hand, that game was played without Matt Bradley, and with Foreman, Betley, amd Hyder going 3-15 from 3. So overall the team didn't shoot unusually well in that game. And it stood out as a HUGE contrast from how Cal looked against UCLA the first time they played. To the extent to which I use an eye test (everyone does/should), you should give me credit for applying that not opportunistically. Notice that right before the UCLA game Cal actually managed to beat Utah. And yet I have specifically not included that game to support my argument. It's proof that my personal "eye test" is not solely rose-colored, and can actually see poor play by Cal even in the case of a victory. (In fact, iirc, it was the second half of that first Utah game where Cal, as a team, shot unrealistically well.) Indeed, I thought we played better against Utah I defeat than we did in victory.

While my comment about "competitive" basketball wasn't specifically directed at you (it seems like there are multiple posters who have been dismissive of competitive games, and I don't recall who they are, it's just become a theme on the board), I do seem to recall you referring to at least one competitive game as merely our opponent "playing with its food."

Again, optimistic? Yes. Unrealistic? Maybe. But still, you're not paying attention if you think I don't have the ability to be critical of Cal basketball. I do think context is relevant; not just bottom line W/L, especially for a program trying to resurrect from ashes. I do always try to provide the basis for my views. And I do react to those who don't seem to allow for some reasonable context, or who appear to have given up on a coach halfway into his second season, especially given what this coach inherited, and especially a second season as unusual as this one.

Last year's team showed significant improvement; over the previous seasons and over the course of that same season. To me, that bought a little extra rope for the new coach. And it's why I'm willing to look a little deeper to try to understand why this season has not gone as well as last season (though the answer may be as simple as the difference at point guard position).

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I characterized an uncompetitive game that we lost by 13 after getting our doors blown off in a 3 minute stretch as the opponent playing with its food, and I stand by that. That doesn't mean we don't play competitive games (not many, but on occasion) and that those competitive games are not better than uncompetitive games. The Oregon game was not one. I realize you disagree, but that is what basically everyone not on my side was saying. Not that you could not have a competitive loss.

Last year's team did show improvement. And that was fair enough to start things out in neutral territory this year. It is not like we were close to a bubble team or anything. It was okay enough to stave off criticism and say let's see if we can go further next year. It was not enough to give a free last place setback.

Look, I'm sorry, but the "I don't think just bottom line W/L matters" was said over and over to defend Holmoe and you are doing what they were doing. It is not just the W/L. You are ignoring every objective data point. Not just W/L. Efficiency ratings. Sagarin. KenPom. Score differential. I'm fine with eye test as one thing to consider. I'm not fine with eye test trumping every single data point out there.

Out of 88 teams in the top 7 conferences our recent rating in Sagarin is 87. Our recent rating is nearly 60 points lower than our full season rating. That is not just W/L but is also score differential. Stat after stat after stat is saying that your eye test, which is not subjectively shared by most, is incorrect. You literally have nothing objective you can point to to support your subjective opinion here. On the contrary to your last statement, you are not willing to look deeper. You are only willing to look at your subjective read of the games. It is all basically "I think they look better". You are ignoring every other point of analysis. Stats most certainly aren't everything, but they aren't nothing either. When every stat goes against your eyes, you should start to question them. Otherwise, you are working on faith alone

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Ugh. You're wrong to say there's no stat that supports my point. In fact, arguably the most important stat supports my point: score of game.

Starting with that UCLA game, in the 7 conference losses prior to that game, the margin was single digits only twice, and both times it was barely single digits (8 points once and 9 points the other time). Conversely, in the 11 losses since that UCLA game (and I'm not even counting the Utah game Cal won right before that UCLA game), the margin has been single digits 6 times, i.e., literally more often than not. Moreover, those more recent losses have included two 4-pt games, one 2-pt game, and a 1-pt game. Those numbers, which are very much bottom line objective numbers, show that this team has played a lot more competitive basketball since that UCLA game. That supports what my eyes are telling me. And of course, if you object to my eye test, then you surely would welcome using the win over Utah as even further evidence of improvement over that time.

So please stop with the "no stat supports your eye test" because you are flat wrong about that. The frequency of competitive games, as shown by the scores of the games themselves, support it.

I'm assuming you haven't had some personal grudge against Fox from the beginning, but I think you have very unrealistic expectations for a new coach, especially one coming into such a difficult situation as did Fox. Given your very tepid approval of the improvement Fox showed in year 1, coupled with your utter dismissal of his abilities midway through year 2 (and a uniquely bizarre and challenging year at that), it's hard to imagine who Cal could have hired in the wake of the WJ mess that would meet your expectations. How many coaches in Cal basketball post-Pete Newell history (60+ years) would you want for Cal right now?

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I reiterate. No stat supports your contention. What you just came up was a completely manufactured stat. Why would you only count losses in determining how good the team was before and after. So if we had been 8-1 and lost by 20 then went 0-10 losing by 10 every time, that would be a stat showing we had improved? because that is what you just came up with.

We had a good 6 game run where we won 2 and had three losses by single digits. Then we got trounced by Arizona. Then we got trounced by Stanford. Then we got trounced by Stanford again, only you count it as competitive because we outscored them by 9 in 2 minutes of garbage time of a game where we were never close in the second half. (and yes, the game where Oregon played with their food was more competitive than that Stanford game). Had two really nice games. Then had four lousy games save for the first 5 minutes of the OSU game. (Okay OSU was a great 5 minutes, an okay 10 minutes, and a lousy 25 minutes). I call that 7 poor games out of the last 9. That is my eye test. I am happy to debate any of those seven games.

I think you had some reason to be optimistic around the time of the UCLA game. It was our best stretch of games. But you have been clinging to it ever since when we were not playing better.anymore

HoopDreams said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calbears4ever said:

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He's in change of the whole athletics program, including budgeting, scheduling, and other behind the scenes work that allows teams to have their seasons

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There are thousands of schmucks with the appropriate education level that you can pay $60K a year to do those things. They will get done by anyone you put in the job. They are not what differentiate a good AD from a bad one. In fact, probably our most successful AD in 50 years absolutely sucked at a lot of that, but he got hiring a football coach right.

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so people who do that type of job is a schmuck?

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Oh, brother. I was being glib. I just meant those are not specific talents. There are thousands of schmucks who can do my job too. An athletic director does not make his bones by budgets and scheduling. We aren't paying him nearly $700K to schedule field hockey games.

3 if you count volleyball. Well the volleyball team lost their 2 legendary middles Anderson and Forte to transfer and their superstar outside hitter Mirkovic opted out of the indoor season to play beach so their struggles are frustrating and understandable at the same time