socaltownie said:
Cal8285 said:
BeachedBear said:
59bear said:
Cal8285 said:
Big C said:
Cal8285 said:
socaltownie said:
PtownBear1 said:
Happy for the players. Just hope this win doesn't end up becoming the determining factor in retaining Fox another season.
Yeah - beat a team with three wins. Yeah Cal! (happy for the players)
Not just a team with three wins, but a NET ranking of 243 coming into the game (244 now). Coming into the game, a huge gap between the 11th best NET ranking in the Pac-12 (Ca'ls 146, still 146 after the win) and OSU's 243.
Even on the road, hard to say it is a big deal for 146 to beat 243 by 2 points. A bigger deal to win any conference road game without Kelly, and of course, the Bears did lose at home at the beginning of the season to a team with a current NET ranking of 279 (UCSD), so we shouldn't sneeze at the win. But in evaluating the program, it isn't exactly a big plus.
It is a big deal for the players, because they snap a 10 game losing streak, and can carry a little more hope/confidence into the mountain school games at home. As a fan, I'm more relieved than happy that we could pull this one out.
I'm relieved and happy. I have no illusions like "we've turned the corner" or "See, Fox is a good coach", but we played pretty well and got the win. It was nice. I can enjoy a win, in and of its own. As a long-time Cal fan, sometimes I enjoy a win even more when it's a rarity. I know I will be coming down to earth again sometime soon, but I need to take this day to enjoy it. (When it happens in football, I take the whole week!)
I'm happy. Just more relieved than happy.
And I was definitely happy with Brown's play overall and that his effort ended in a win. He even shot 3-5 from the line, which is good considering he was at 42.4% on FT's entering the game.
It wasn't exactly a well played game overall, but a conference road win is a conference road win, so yeah, be happy. And I try to think of OSU as a team that less than a year ago was tied in the Elite 8 with under 4 minutes to go, because that makes me happier about the road win than thinking of them as, by far, the worst team in the conference.
My nomination for understatement of the week. Ugly game best described as survival. Still, I'm impressed that the Bears gave excellent effort all the way.
I'm sorry, but our program is no longer at the level to discuss style points. We will love and appreciate any win, any where, any how 
I think style points are almost always appropriate to discuss.
Given the state of the program, maybe it is better to discuss style points after a loss than after a win, but Mark Fox has shown he is OK with discussing style points after a win. After the first win of the season, Mark Fox was talking style points, saying we played better in the 3 point loss to UNLV than we did in the 5 point win over San Diego.
And the season turned from total crap to looking decent in the loss to Seton Hall, which earned a lot of style points. I thought we played better in the loss to WSU than we did in the win over OSU.
And throughout the season, plenty of posters have been giving style points for the effort the team displays, win or lose (and mostly lose). It mostly is the best thing we can say about the team, and it certainly is quite a contrast from the effort given in the Jones era.
If the program is at a level where we discuss style points in a loss, surely we can discuss style points in a win. We can be both happy with the win, we can love and appreciate any win, anywhere, any how, but still discuss style points.
Seaton Hall is 15 and 7 and 6-6 in conference. LOSING to them but with style is no grand accomplishment.
While no longer ranked in the AP top 25 as when we played them, Seton Hall is currently 34 in the NCAA NET rankings. The only Pac-12 teams ranked higher are Arizona, UCLA, and USC. We started the season losing AT HOME by DOUBLE DIGITS (13 points) to UCSD, a team that is currently ranked #278 in the NCAA NET rankings, and would be worse if they hadn't defeated Cal on the road. By comparison, losing by 3 on a neutral court to the current #34 team was a grand accomplishment.
Until we played decently against Seton Hall, I thought we had a really good chance of going 0-20 in conference. Sure, It isn't a grand accomplishment to avoid 0-20, or to avoid the basement of the conference. And yes, we are helped in avoiding 0-20 and 12th place by having OSU turn out to be so bad and having ASU be so wildly inconsistent that on multiple nights they play like they are even worse than OSU.
But Seton Hall was a turning point in the season, and after that, there was realistic hope of a middle of the Pac finish, even if that isn't a grand accomplishment. We would have needed to have the key players stay healthy to do that. Brown's COVID was the worst we suffered until Kelly's injury, and now middle of the Pac status is out of reach.
On bad nights, Cal is a horrific team. On good nights, Cal is a mediocre team. So when we look at style points, we're looking at whether we were mediocre, horrific, or somewhere in between. The Seton Hall game was a solidly mediocre performance, which, at the time, was well above any heights the 21-22 Bears had achieved.
It is not a good sign regarding the state of the program when you are happy with style points for solidly mediocre play in a loss, but it is where we are.
