OaktownBear said:

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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

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I thought we were focusing on "competitive losses". The wins are so sparse and evenly spread out so as to have no relevance to early-season vs late. If anything, the Utah and Colorado wins bolster my point about improved play later in the season. Going 8-1 is nothing at all like what Cal has done. And now you want to parse and distinguish games, and talk about what you actually saw in this game or that game when before it was all about the e bottom line. And yet your arguments don't hold up to the bottomest (intentional) line of all: score of games. Done.

OaktownBear said:

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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.

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But just like I can't fault Fox in accepting an $8.25 million contract from Knowlton to live in the Bay Area and coach a team to mediocre, I can't fault Knowlton for accepting the $700,000 a year salary while farming out the hard work and money to consultants while putting out embarrassing publicity. The fault is Christ's in hiring such a bad fit in the first place.

It is critical that we have someone at this time who really understands Cal, the Bay Area and has a vision. A background in sports marketing would be great. Someone connected to our donors who can get them to open their checkbooks. Someone who can work with the academic side, the city. Someone who has the knowledge to help find Larry Scott's replacement....

Knowlton is none of that. He is a conservative military bureaucrat with no experience in big time sports, academia or marketing and with no previous connection to our school or even the West Coast. His justification for the hiring of Fox over DeCuire was a classic "affinity" hire, and he had so little background in diversity training or sensitivity to the issue that he just blabbed it to reporters. He has decades of catching up to do and frankly he doesn't seem that bright and we don't have time for that. Some thought Christ had the vision and Knowlton would just implement, but we've seen no sign of that either.

Between the two, Fox is a better fit, but then so was Jones. We really just have to hope they get lucky. At least football recruiting has picked up giving me hope that the cash cow can pay for all this.

stu said:

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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.

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The olympic sports love him and I am increasingly coming to believe that those alums actually drive the bus.

One data point - my younger brother who has suffered only 4 years less of this awful 50 year obsession with the Bears tuned in for his first game about a month ago. He nailed it - We are HUGELY unathletic in an era of basketball where athleticism is critical. So many BI'ers are stuck in 1960. But the problem is that when everyone can shoot the 3 the court gets spread out and that then requires you to be able to GUARD YOUR MAN. We have so many guys who can't. Lars is sorta the poster child for a guy who has zero athleticism (and then all the Bi'ers who would defend him with the "big men take time"

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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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

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I thought we were focusing on "competitive losses". The wins are so sparse and evenly spread out so as to have no relevance to early-season vs late. If anything, the Utah and Colorado wins bolster my point about improved play later in the season. Going 8-1 is nothing at all like what Cal has done. And now you want to parse and distinguish games, and talk about what you actually saw in this game or that game when before it was all about the e bottom line. And yet your arguments don't hold up to the bottomest (intentional) line of all: score of games. Done.

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We were never talking about competitive losses. We were talking about how the team is performing and whether they have played better later in the season. So not counting the wins early in the season as positive games vs. close losses late in the season makes no sense. In your samples we won 2 out of 9 of the first set of games and only 1 out of 11 of the same set. I don't see how you count losses as the same as wins, but it makes no sense to say we were more competitive in the second half of the season by not counting wins as games we were competitive in. You should at least count them as competitive games in your calculations.

socaltownie said:

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One data point - my younger brother who has suffered only 4 years less of this awful 50 year obsession with the Bears tuned in for his first game about a month ago. He nailed it - We are HUGELY unathletic in an era of basketball where athleticism is critical. So many BI'ers are stuck in 1960. But the problem is that when everyone can shoot the 3 the court gets spread out and that then requires you to be able to GUARD YOUR MAN. We have so many guys who can't. Lars is sorta the poster child for a guy who has zero athleticism (and then all the Bi'ers who would defend him with the "big men take time"

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"So many BI'ers are stuck in 1960"

How many do you estimate?

socaltownie said:

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stu said:

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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.

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The olympic sports love him and I am increasingly coming to believe that those alums actually drive the bus.

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This is actually somewhat damning.

socaltownie said:

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... So many BI'ers are stuck in 1960 ..

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I'm stuck in 1968.

calumnus said:

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socaltownie said:

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stu said:

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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.

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The olympic sports love him and I am increasingly coming to believe that those alums actually drive the bus.

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This is actually somewhat damning.

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Somewhere around the time Knowlton's hiring was made public, perhaps even the same day, Knowlton publicly announced that no sports would be cut. For him to make such a definitive statement without any experience on the job or real working knowledge of Cal athletics, it's situation and budget, was very telling in my opinion, and my initial impression was this was a bad hire, especially coupled with his prior experience, or lack thereof in a similarly important role.

To be clear, I'm not saying my perception of Knowlton was tainted because he disagrees with my personal belief that some sports should be cut, it's the fact that he would make such a clear cut statement that no sports would be cut on his first day or week on the job. Had he instead stated something like "I'll do my best to avoid cutting any sports", I wouldn't have given a second thought.

Big C said:

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I've recently completed a comprehensive assessment of the California Men's Basketball team's 2019-20 season, using my own algorithm of advanced analytics, which will leave no room for further debate. The results...

Cal just finished alone in last place in the Pac 12.

So, where do we go from here? No way we're making a change right now; it's just not going to happen. Instead, we see how much better things can get over the next twelve months! The team will almost certainly be better next year, but will there be a big enough improvement in performance and recruiting to earn Fox a Season Four?

Maybe, maybe not. I'll tell you one thing: I will be rooting for us every step of the way, because I'm a damn Cal fan. What the hell else am I going to do? And you know what? I'm likely to be able to get my soon-to-be vaccinated ass, er, arm, back into Haas Pavilion, where I can high-five my also-vaccinated Cal buddies, as opposed to posting on a message board game thread. I'm actually looking forward to next season! Fresh start!

Go Bears.

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Where I disagree with your post is that I would put an exclamation point after "Go Bears". (Good post.)

Go Bears!

NathanAllen said:

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BeachedBear said:

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As we come close to the end of the season, my opinion of Fox and coaching is adapting a bit. Here is where I'm at.

I think FOX is a better coach than Jones. I don't think he's as good as Monty and never will be. His ceiling is probably less than Braun or Campanelli.

However, based on the results the last decade or so, my sense is that coaching skills has less impact on results than talent. Sure there are a few coaches that can make due with less talent, but they are few, hard to find and unlikely to arrive at Cal.

Besides recruiting talent, we should be looking for a coach that can make that talent work well together. I'm not a fan of his at all (and don't suggest anyone like him would be a good fit at Cal), but most people describing Calipari would do so with those two attributes.

In the P12, Altman is probably the closest comparison or Miller at UA. Again. I don't like either of those, but the results speak for themselves. I'm racking my brains for a D1 coach that fits the bill and is not tainted.

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I'm not in the know enough to know if these dudes are "tainted," but I've always admired Mick Cronin (I know, I know, but look at his Cincy teams), Chris Beard at Texas Tech, and Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. I also wonder how long a guy like Brian Dutcher is going to stick around at San Diego State. Lon Kruger at Oklahoma seems to get a lot out of his players. Archie Miller was a guy I really liked at Dayton but he hasn't been able to quite put it together yet at Indiana. I've also been impressed with what Travis Ford has done at Saint Louis in his brief time there.

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Excellent list. I too am becoming a fan of Cronin. Leonard Hamilton and Lon Kruger are/were very good coaches, but are both a bit long in the tooth. What Kruger did at Illinois would be a nifty blueprint for Cal. What about Nate Oats?

In any event, I don't think the current AD could bring in anyone like this (including Archie Miller and Travis Ford). Personally, my expectations are lower until there is a significant change in the Administration.

OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Where did all this dislike for Knowlton come from? I'm surprised to see it bc I had the impression that the consensus view was that he is well liked and doing a good job in the various things ADs do. I can see some level of disappointment if he deferred the basketball coach hire to a talent company, especially if the hire turned out poorly. But isn't the jury still out for most people on the Fox hire? And in any case, isn't that a fairly common practice in the industry? Plus, I had the impression that JK is genuinely liked by the coaches and viewed as being smartly engaged with the programs (including, most notably, Wilcox and the football program)? And I had the impression that JK is going about addressing Cal's financial challenges smartly, too.

I am not informed or connected at all to that level to know how the AD is doing, but in short, I had the impression that people are generally pleased with Knowlton. But this thread suggests otherwise.

Also, when is the last time the Cal community liked its AD? Is it an impossible and thankless job, particularly at Cal?

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AD is a thankless job anywhere.

People are not happy with Knowlton because 50% of his job is hiring a football coach and 40% of his job is hiring a men's basketball coach. He hasn't done the first yet. The second he badly biffed and then proudly described his horrendous process for badly biffing it. I know some of you don't get this, but many of the people understood immediately how badly he blew this hire and they left. At base, the hire needed to give fans some reason to hope and hiring an out of work guy with at best mediocre results at the major conference level badly failed at that, frankly even if his fairy godmother had come down and granted him the acumen of John Wooden in the interim. We had two straight basketball hires that screamed we don't give an eff about basketball and most of the fans responded "okay, if you don't give an eff, I won't either".

As for the rest of his job, it doesn't take that much talent to schmooze alums, faculty and administrators and push some paper around. He is three years in. What has he accomplished? How he handled the process in hiring a men's basketball coach was all you needed to know.

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Knowlton is an empty suit. From the start, I thought it was a bad hire. The farming out of the decision-making process for hiring a men's BB coach was telling. He is an anachronism in an era that calls for disruptors. It is unfortunate because Cal had the opportunity to change the course of its athletic history at the time he was hired. Instead, the Chancellor took the easy, safe way out. Of course, that means more of the same, which in Cal's case is mediocre results on the field and court. Too bad......

Big C said:

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I've recently completed a comprehensive assessment of the California Men's Basketball team's 2019-20 season, using my own algorithm of advanced analytics, which will leave no room for further debate. The results...

Cal just finished alone in last place in the Pac 12.

So, where do we go from here? No way we're making a change right now; it's just not going to happen. Instead, we see how much better things can get over the next twelve months! The team will almost certainly be better next year, but will there be a big enough improvement in performance and recruiting to earn Fox a Season Four?

Maybe, maybe not. I'll tell you one thing: I will be rooting for us every step of the way, because I'm a damn Cal fan. What the hell else am I going to do? And you know what? I'm likely to be able to get my soon-to-be vaccinated ass, er, arm, back into Haas Pavilion, where I can high-five my also-vaccinated Cal buddies, as opposed to posting on a message board game thread. I'm actually looking forward to next season! Fresh start!

Go Bears.

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I sense a business opportunity here. I can see this on T-shirts, beer koozies, cell phone cases, face masks . . .
"Cal Fan - what the hell else am I going to do?"

Quote:

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...And in its current state, what sort of hot up-and-comer would take a chance on Cal's program when there are likely to be other suiters?

...

As others have mentioned, Dennis Gates is an intriguing option. But, in my opinion, he needs more time. I'd like to see him string together at least a couple more competitive seasons in the Horizon League.

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I understand your point, Nathan, but to me, the first point above is precisely why we should try to target Gates now. Yes, there is a risk that we are taking if we hire him before he has fully proven himself. But once he has, is he willing to take a chance on us when other, more attractive options might be available?

I think that an AD who is willing to do the work (and knows what questions to ask and what the answers need to be) should be able to at least have a strong sense of Gates' potential in this role, and should be willing to take that chance. I actually liked OaktownBear's analogy of Jones/Fox to the Teevens/Harris succession path in Stanfurd FB. The Furd AD then went and took a chance on Harbaugh (and I think that the projection one has to make from USD football to Stanfurd is probably harder than the projection from Cleveland State BB to Cal, esp. with a Cal alum as the target). But I do think the AD should be thinking quite hard about Fox and his future after this quite disappointing year.

i agree with a lot of this but I have seen enough of those mentioned especial Brown and Lars that if they are in your starting rotation you will never get any further than the lower tier. I understand Betley wants to come back, but I hope only as a secondary option, as his shooting never materialized . Thorpe is someone who might with work be at least athletic enough to help.

Overall the Bears, with the exception of Bradley and maybe Antivich (sorry for the misspelling), rarely had better talent on the floor. It is clear to me that that basically, as many have previusly noted we need a MAJOR recruiting push to even have enough talent to compete. If Fox can't bring in enough, then I'd consider looking once again.

Quote:

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Meanwhile Travis is dialing from Montana and saying "What about me"?

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I'd be happy with Travis too, SCT, if the AD did the work into several options (DeCuire, Gates, other up-and-comers not on our radar right now) and determined Travis was the best. I focused on Gates b/c he played here (and hopefully that connection has some pull with him) and because he is at a point in his career where he maybe a bit early to have to beat out other suitors for but still has some successes and pedigree in his background. He also has experience from his time at FSU with a higher level of recruiting than I think that DeCuire has been exposed to (esp. since his time here at Cal was under Monty, who for all his great qualities didn't do the work needed on that side). But I definitely would have rather had DeCuire than Fox the last time around, so wouldn't be disappointed with him now.

Bisonbob said:

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i agree with a lot of this but I have seen enough of those mentioned especial Brown and Lars that if they are in your starting rotation you will never get any further than the lower tier. I understand Betley wants to come back, but I hope only as a secondary option, as his shooting never materialized . Thorpe is someone who might with work be at least athletic enough to help.

Overall the Bears, with the exception of Bradley and maybe Antivich (sorry for the misspelling), rarely had better talent on the floor. It is clear to me that that basically, as many have previusly noted we need a MAJOR recruiting push to even have enough talent to compete. If Fox can't bring in enough, then I'd consider looking once again.

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Here's a thought: with so many NCAA players taking advantage of an extra year of eligibility for next year, wouldn't you think it's a buyers market for JC transfers - specifically big men? This could supply a good (even "average" would be an improvement over Lars and Thorpe) player and if he underperforms, we're only stuck with him for two years.

I wonder if Decuire would still be willing to put himself out there for the Cal job, after being (presumably) first-runner-up twice and not getting the job. He might just tell us he's no longer interested. A man has his pride.


Regarding Gates, when he was "just" a long-time assistant, he seemed like the classic case of a guy getting mentioned here mainly because he was a Cal guy (and being fairly popular when he played here). Other than that, his coaching resume would've never gotten him onto our radar...

However, a successful stint as a Head Coach, to me, is a game-changer. I don't even care where or really for how long, (although I sort of wish he had more experience on the West Coast). Now he'd have all the boxes checked.

I mainly follow the women's team, and the women's game, but when I noticed that the men were 3-17, I wanted to find out why -- and this thread has been great. Limited name-calling, good info, big picture, staff insight ...

And since the women won one Pac-12 game and the men three, I have to wonder if any Pac-12 school has ever had its men's and women's programs be so dismal in the same year. (And the women are going to need a small miracle to improve substantially, so next year may not be even better.)

Along that line, the lack of a practice facility and other amenities might be more important than we think if both programs are the worst in the Pac-12 at the same time. Success in basketball is recruiting, recruiting, recruiting, recruiting and then, when you get bored, more recruiting. It could be a coincidence that both programs have a talent deficit at the same time, but there could also be other factors at work.

ClayK, could you give us a little synopsis of where the women's team is right now? I mean, they had that BANNER recruiting year, right? Some injuries and just too young overall? Were the top recruits "as advertised"? If so, shouldn't they be primed for an historic turnaround next season?

NathanAllen said:

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CalLifer said:

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Quote:

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...And in its current state, what sort of hot up-and-comer would take a chance on Cal's program when there are likely to be other suiters?

...

As others have mentioned, Dennis Gates is an intriguing option. But, in my opinion, he needs more time. I'd like to see him string together at least a couple more competitive seasons in the Horizon League.

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I understand your point, Nathan, but to me, the first point above is precisely why we should try to target Gates now. Yes, there is a risk that we are taking if we hire him before he has fully proven himself. But once he has, is he willing to take a chance on us when other, more attractive options might be available?

I think that an AD who is willing to do the work (and knows what questions to ask and what the answers need to be) should be able to at least have a strong sense of Gates' potential in this role, and should be willing to take that chance. I actually liked OaktownBear's analogy of Jones/Fox to the Teevens/Harris succession path in Stanfurd FB. The Furd AD then went and took a chance on Harbaugh (and I think that the projection one has to make from USD football to Stanfurd is probably harder than the projection from Cleveland State BB to Cal, esp. with a Cal alum as the target). But I do think the AD should be thinking quite hard about Fox and his future after this quite disappointing year.

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We're in agreement here. If Fox is going to succeed here, he'll need an extension at the end of next season. So the evaluation needs to be happening now. Feelers need to also go out. You don't fire a coach (or let his contract wane) unless you know you have better option(s). No offense to Wyking Jones, but, pretty much no matter what, you know you're gonna have better options after letting him go. For Fox, that's not a guarantee at this point.

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Nathan - I very respectfully disagree with a lot of what you are saying on multiple posts.

1. Barring a top 3 finish in conference AND a significant recruit haul to replace all the seniors that will be leaving after next year, there is absolutely zero chance Cal should extend him. I do not know where the Cal community has bought into this "after year 3 you have to extend" concept, but it makes no sense and it keeps Cal paying buyouts. He should be extended when he earns the extension. Extending for recruiting is ridiculous. EVERY COACH IN AMERICA IS ON A ONE YEAR AGREEMENT. They don't perform, they get bought out. Every recruit knows this. If you don't want to risk your coach getting fired, your best option is to not play for a guy with a losing record. Let's say Fox replicates what he did last year. So you aren't ready to fire him and you extend him. Then he follows that up with what he did this year again. He'll be fired. Even if you wanted to make this argument, Cal literally just extended its football coach and then fired him the next year. Extending buys us nothing but a big fat bill when we need to fire him the next year. If he gets extended, the buyout has to be one year's salary. Period. No increased buyout for the extension. If he wants better, go find anyone else who wants him.

2. No, if you are in last place you don't wait until you know you have better options. You don't worry about being last worse. You take a shot.

3. Fox is a better coach than Jones. Nearly tripling the head coach expense to upgrade to Fox was in no way a better option. And frankly, as bad as Jones was, I'm not convinced, especially the way the team ended his second season, that Jones with a rotation of Bradley, Kelly, Grant, Vanover, Sueing, McNeil, Brown and then Thorpe and whomever else he recruited doesn't give us better results this season. Yeah, the coaching would be worse, but the personnel would be a lot better.

4. Regarding Dennis Gates not being ready, I haven't followed him, but I disagree with your premise. By the time anyone on this board recognizes that the hot up and comer is ready, Cal is not getting him. The last two coaching hires saw to that. Cal needs to moneyball this thing. Cal needs to find the person that no one is valuing correctly yet. If a guy is a known up and comer, he is probably getting an offer from someone else. If not, he knows he is a year away and he isn't going to risk blowing his career on a school that does a Jones-Fox tandem. You need a guy who is a couple years away and is willing to take the bird in hand. That isn't going to come from a search committee, 2 interviews and a "I was just more comfortable with this guy" hiring process.

This is why Knowlton's hiring Fox was such a disaster. He actually had a story to tell to counteract the Jones hire. Look, we had a Chancellor who was on his way out who didn't give a shyte about sports and a non-professional AD, and we had just put our focus on hiring the football coach. It is two years later. New Chancellor. New AD. Cal never fires a coach after 2 years. We knew we needed to take drastic steps to recommit to basketball and that is what we are doing. Someone might buy that. But when you go out and hire a coach sitting on the shelf who had a 9 year stint at Georgia and a losing conference record to show for it, you just defined what you want to be. That was Knowlton's decision. He can't lay that off on the last guy. He can't claim a change in philosophy. He set the philosophy. So now it is much harder to sell that job. And every year you find this acceptable digs the hole deeper.

I'd argue now is the time. Our roster in 2 years looks abysmal. We need next year to show some improvement to sell to recruits. But if Fox stabilizes this thing and gets us to say, 8th place, well, (i) he already did that with no recruiting bump; and (ii) it is his third year and big deal. If you get a young coach that can sell the program and he gets us to 8th place - he actually just took us from a 12th place finish that he had no responsibility for to an 8th place finish. He can sell that at least somewhat.

And we need something to change. Next year, every team is either running it back, or they are top teams who will lose a couple good players and replace them easily anyway. Grant, Bradley, Foreman and Betley are pretty much who they are. Kelly can maybe squeeze a little more out. Maybe Brown improves a little. I don't see it with Hyder. There is a chance with Celestine he will take a step. That is the rotation. There is not a freshman difference maker coming in. And every other team is going to be improving. If we don't change direction, I don't see why we expect different results.

Big C said:

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ClayK, could you give us a little synopsis of where the women's team is right now? I mean, they had that BANNER recruiting year, right? Some injuries and just too young overall? Were the top recruits "as advertised"? If so, shouldn't they be primed for an historic turnaround next season?

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Right now, the women's team is terrible (not to put too fine a point on it).

Charmin Smith is a decent coach, I think, but as mentioned in this thread, it's hard to recruit to Cal -- especially since the Pac-12 is arguably the best women's league in the country.

Last year's class:

Dalayah Daniels, the top recruit, is very good, but her shooting mechanics are a serious problem. She's a 6-3 3/4, athletic for her size, good player. Potential all Pac-12 as a junior and senior but she has to rebuild her shot to get there, and that's not easy to do.

Michelle Onyiah and Fatou Samb are two tall posts who were ranked highly because, well, they were tall. Neither has shown much skill, but because Cal is an abysmal shooting team, opponents pack the paint, limiting whatever abilities the two might have been able to display even further.

Ornela Muca is from Greece, and it's good to be suspicious of foreign players. Some are great, of course, but you just never know. Suffice it to say that Mia Mastrov, who should be a senior at Miramonte right now, is playing 35 to 40 minutes a game ahead of her, and though Mia has potential, she's a long way from a finished product.

In short, one good player, two tall ones who are tall.

But the biggest issue was that two of their returning players, including their best returner, opted out, and both were perimeter players. Then their next guard up blew out her knee in the first game, so they have no backcourt. Only one player is shooting better than 21.7% from three.

Even worse are the turnovers: the team A/TO is 142/339 -- their point guard, Leilani McIntosh, is 49/49 (do the math on the rest of the team if you want a horror story).

They've also lost transfers to Maryland and Louisville (a starter for a top 10 team).

With good health, everyone returning, better shooting that opens up the paint, some luck (well, maybe a lot of luck), a .500 season might be possible next year, but the league is very, very strong, and there's no mercy anywhere. Even Washington State was briefly in the top 25 this year.

Which circles back to my question: Why are both teams struggling with what appear to be competent coaches (not great, but not close to terrible)?

ClayK said:

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Big C said:

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ClayK, could you give us a little synopsis of where the women's team is right now? I mean, they had that BANNER recruiting year, right? Some injuries and just too young overall? Were the top recruits "as advertised"? If so, shouldn't they be primed for an historic turnaround next season?

---

Right now, the women's team is terrible (not to put too fine a point on it).

Charmin Smith is a decent coach, I think, but as mentioned in this thread, it's hard to recruit to Cal -- especially since the Pac-12 is arguably the best women's league in the country.

Last year's class:

Dalayah Daniels, the top recruit, is very good, but her shooting mechanics are a serious problem. She's a 6-3 3/4, athletic for her size, good player. Potential all Pac-12 as a junior and senior but she has to rebuild her shot to get there, and that's not easy to do.

Michelle Onyiah and Fatou Samb are two tall posts who were ranked highly because, well, they were tall. Neither has shown much skill, but because Cal is an abysmal shooting team, opponents pack the paint, limiting whatever abilities the two might have been able to display even further.

Ornela Muca is from Greece, and it's good to be suspicious of foreign players. Some are great, of course, but you just never know. Suffice it to say that Mia Mastrov, who should be a senior at Miramonte right now, is playing 35 to 40 minutes a game ahead of her, and though Mia has potential, she's a long way from a finished product.

In short, one good player, two tall ones who are tall.

But the biggest issue was that two of their returning players, including their best returner, opted out, and both were perimeter players. Then their next guard up blew out her knee in the first game, so they have no backcourt. Only one player is shooting better than 21.7% from three.

Even worse are the turnovers: the team A/TO is 142/339 -- their point guard, Leilani McIntosh, is 49/49 (do the math on the rest of the team if you want a horror story).

They've also lost transfers to Maryland and Louisville (a starter for a top 10 team).

With good health, everyone returning, better shooting that opens up the paint, some luck (well, maybe a lot of luck), a .500 season might be possible next year, but the league is very, very strong, and there's no mercy anywhere. Even Washington State was briefly in the top 25 this year.

Which circles back to my question: Why are both teams struggling with what appear to be competent coaches (not great, but not close to terrible)?

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It's one thing to go .500 in a tough league like the women with three Pac-12 teams in the Top 10, but the Pac-12 isn't that strong in the men's side. There is only one team in the Top 25 - Colorado at #24. That Cal can't win even in that scenario is why things are bleak.

dimitrig said:

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ClayK said:

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Big C said:

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ClayK, could you give us a little synopsis of where the women's team is right now? I mean, they had that BANNER recruiting year, right? Some injuries and just too young overall? Were the top recruits "as advertised"? If so, shouldn't they be primed for an historic turnaround next season?

---

Right now, the women's team is terrible (not to put too fine a point on it).

Charmin Smith is a decent coach, I think, but as mentioned in this thread, it's hard to recruit to Cal -- especially since the Pac-12 is arguably the best women's league in the country.

Last year's class:

Dalayah Daniels, the top recruit, is very good, but her shooting mechanics are a serious problem. She's a 6-3 3/4, athletic for her size, good player. Potential all Pac-12 as a junior and senior but she has to rebuild her shot to get there, and that's not easy to do.

Michelle Onyiah and Fatou Samb are two tall posts who were ranked highly because, well, they were tall. Neither has shown much skill, but because Cal is an abysmal shooting team, opponents pack the paint, limiting whatever abilities the two might have been able to display even further.

Ornela Muca is from Greece, and it's good to be suspicious of foreign players. Some are great, of course, but you just never know. Suffice it to say that Mia Mastrov, who should be a senior at Miramonte right now, is playing 35 to 40 minutes a game ahead of her, and though Mia has potential, she's a long way from a finished product.

In short, one good player, two tall ones who are tall.

But the biggest issue was that two of their returning players, including their best returner, opted out, and both were perimeter players. Then their next guard up blew out her knee in the first game, so they have no backcourt. Only one player is shooting better than 21.7% from three.

Even worse are the turnovers: the team A/TO is 142/339 -- their point guard, Leilani McIntosh, is 49/49 (do the math on the rest of the team if you want a horror story).

They've also lost transfers to Maryland and Louisville (a starter for a top 10 team).

With good health, everyone returning, better shooting that opens up the paint, some luck (well, maybe a lot of luck), a .500 season might be possible next year, but the league is very, very strong, and there's no mercy anywhere. Even Washington State was briefly in the top 25 this year.

Which circles back to my question: Why are both teams struggling with what appear to be competent coaches (not great, but not close to terrible)?

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It's one thing to go .500 in a tough league like the women with three Pac-12 teams in the Top 10, but the Pac-12 isn't that strong in the men's side. There is only one team in the Top 25 - Colorado at #24. That Cal can't win even in that scenario is why things are bleak.

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We are slow and don't shoot well ;-)

calumnus said:

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OaktownBear said:

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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.

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But just like I can't fault Fox in accepting an $8.25 million contract from Knowlton to live in the Bay Area and coach a team to mediocre, I can't fault Knowlton for accepting the $700,000 a year salary while farming out the hard work and money to consultants while putting out embarrassing publicity. The fault is Christ's in hiring such a bad fit in the first place.

It is critical that we have someone at this time who really understands Cal, the Bay Area and has a vision. A background in sports marketing would be great. Someone connected to our donors who can get them to open their checkbooks. Someone who can work with the academic side, the city. Someone who has the knowledge to help find Larry Scott's replacement....

Knowlton is none of that. He is a conservative military bureaucrat with no experience in big time sports, academia or marketing and with no previous connection to our school or even the West Coast. His justification for the hiring of Fox over DeCuire was a classic "affinity" hire, and he had so little background in diversity training or sensitivity to the issue that he just blabbed it to reporters. He has decades of catching up to do and frankly he doesn't seem that bright and we don't have time for that. Some thought Christ had the vision and Knowlton would just implement, but we've seen no sign of that either.

Between the two, Fox is a better fit, but then so was Jones. We really just have to hope they get lucky. At least football recruiting has picked up giving me hope that the cash cow can pay for all this.

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I too was disappointed with the selection - and liked Musselmen (not interested), Pasternack (knows Cal/ large donors very well, would have brought back former well known players, tireless worker), Turner, Amaker etc - but Gates gave a very poor interview (totally unprepared - though yes He could fire up some donors and certainly appeal to a wide range of recruits. However all we can do is support our program for now and hopefully we will see a far more competitive team that next season reaches 500 in conference. Then we will get more serious looks from the top recruits. Any coach really needs 3 seasons, to fully assess and I am fine with giving Fox 1-2 more seasons - practically and financially.

Regarding Knowlton - most people commenting don't know him really well, I do and He helped save the housing for the basketball team(very important to the program), kept our leading men's swimming coach from bolting, is a key reason Wilcox has not bolted, has Grid Club strong support, large factor in the Cameron Institute formation/donation. And has worked very well with Chancellor Christ. Informative article to read from Jon Wilner on "Cal athletics turning a profit in FY20 thanks to assist from Central Campus". Yes Bball is thus far a huge failure, but given where we have been since Cuonzo left us, its a 5 year timeline to stabilize and regain a winning program.

ClayK said:

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Big C said:

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ClayK, could you give us a little synopsis of where the women's team is right now? I mean, they had that BANNER recruiting year, right? Some injuries and just too young overall? Were the top recruits "as advertised"? If so, shouldn't they be primed for an historic turnaround next season?

---

Right now, the women's team is terrible (not to put too fine a point on it).

Charmin Smith is a decent coach, I think, but as mentioned in this thread, it's hard to recruit to Cal -- especially since the Pac-12 is arguably the best women's league in the country.

Last year's class:

Dalayah Daniels, the top recruit, is very good, but her shooting mechanics are a serious problem. She's a 6-3 3/4, athletic for her size, good player. Potential all Pac-12 as a junior and senior but she has to rebuild her shot to get there, and that's not easy to do.

Michelle Onyiah and Fatou Samb are two tall posts who were ranked highly because, well, they were tall. Neither has shown much skill, but because Cal is an abysmal shooting team, opponents pack the paint, limiting whatever abilities the two might have been able to display even further.

Ornela Muca is from Greece, and it's good to be suspicious of foreign players. Some are great, of course, but you just never know. Suffice it to say that Mia Mastrov, who should be a senior at Miramonte right now, is playing 35 to 40 minutes a game ahead of her, and though Mia has potential, she's a long way from a finished product.

In short, one good player, two tall ones who are tall.

But the biggest issue was that two of their returning players, including their best returner, opted out, and both were perimeter players. Then their next guard up blew out her knee in the first game, so they have no backcourt. Only one player is shooting better than 21.7% from three.

Even worse are the turnovers: the team A/TO is 142/339 -- their point guard, Leilani McIntosh, is 49/49 (do the math on the rest of the team if you want a horror story).

They've also lost transfers to Maryland and Louisville (a starter for a top 10 team).

With good health, everyone returning, better shooting that opens up the paint, some luck (well, maybe a lot of luck), a .500 season might be possible next year, but the league is very, very strong, and there's no mercy anywhere. Even Washington State was briefly in the top 25 this year.

Which circles back to my question: Why are both teams struggling with what appear to be competent coaches (not great, but not close to terrible)?

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Dalayah - agree. she's a potential star, but needs to be able to shoot a 15 footer, and a 5 foot jumper and a floater to get there since right now she only scores at the rim. She probably will never be a great 3 point shooter.

Michelle - don't agree. I think she is also a potential star. Super bouncy, great rebounder and has some skills around the post. She will get a lot of benefit if we have perimeter shooters on the floor so defenses don't pack the paint and double her

Muca and Mia - Muca is another undersized guard, and hopefully she improves her shooting (because she came in with that rep), but the biggest problem so far are her turnovers and defense. Mia is a big upgrade at guard and has good fundamentals, but has only practiced with the team for a month and only played 5 games. She will have a full off season of strength and conditioning, a year to get stronger and actually have some real team practices

Totally agree that the BIGGEST problem was 3 guards, including our best guard were injured and out for the season. That meant we couldn't actually run a legit offense, and we had to push our former walk-ons into the action to play major minutes. Our second biggest problem was the extreme youth of the team.

The combo was lethal

Next year we will be a whole team, although still extremely young with the only senior being a former walk-on, but I'm hopeful for a big improvement

ClayK said:

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I mainly follow the women's team, and the women's game, but when I noticed that the men were 3-17, I wanted to find out why -- and this thread has been great. Limited name-calling, good info, big picture, staff insight ...

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IMHO the principal common factor is recruiting failures of previous coaches.

With our men Martin left basically Austin, Moore and Lee (plus a few others who weren't really Pac-12 starters). Moore left, Austin played 2 years, and Lee played 1 year. Martin recruited and Jones held onto McNeill, Sueing, Anticevich, and Harris-Dyson, only Anticevich stayed with the team. Jones recruited Bradley, Kelly, Vanover, and Gordon, only Bradley and Kelly stayed with the team.

With our women it was worse. For 2017-18 Gottlieb recruited only 2 players, Smith and Styles. Smith left after 2 years, Styles left after 3 years. For 2018-19 Gottlieb recruited only 1 player, Forbes, who left after 1 year. The best player Gottlieb left (Brown) was a senior. That's why we now have zero scholarship juniors or seniors.

Fox started out recruiting mostly grad transfers and international players with 2-star ratings. Now he's recruiting USA freshies with 3- and 4-star ratings so we may eventually see them develop into quality players.

Smith recruited 4 freshies for 2019-20, 6 for 2020-21, and 2 for 2021-22 (one of whom enrolled in January). Their ratings run from 3 to 5 stars. To my eyes most of the guards look solid, one (Green) got Pac-12 honorable mention all-frosh honors. Of the forwards I'd say one (Daniels) has great talent and another (Oniyah) is a great athlete, I expect both of them to develop into very good players. One of the centers (Heide) has great height and looks to have been well coached, I think she'll present matchup problems to most of our opponents.

I think Smith has done a better job than Fox of recruiting freshies, though she inherited an even more depleted roster. I expect our women to be out of the cellar real soon, like next season.