Big C said:
Lars also seemed to be having fun out there yesterday, which is cool because, just on this board alone, he has caught a lot of crap over the past 2 1/2 years (not completely undeserved, based on his play, but still... ). He's had a number of games where the ball would be going off his hands a lot (even this season) and it must've been frustrating, so it's great to see him smiling.
He's developing into a confident basketball player and that confidence will feed on itself and makes his hands even better.
But this speaks to the issue of rushing to judgment that happens too often on this board - especially for those who've made up their minds about the coach.
Certainly there are basketball players who are polished impactful players upon entering college. Cal isn't in the running for those (and I'm not sure we even want those players, but that's a topic for a different thread).
Anticevich and Kelly both showed signs of skills as freshmen, you could see it if you were open to seeing it. But both needed time to develop their bodies, confidence, and skills to be quality P12 players by their third and fourth seasons (which both have done).
I felt that Lars, Brown, Kuany, and Celestine showed potential as well (wasn't sure about Thorpe), and potentially Bowser. Celestine was the only one of those first/main four who is an American basketball player and, perhaps not surprisingly, he entered the most polished of them. The pandemic had its greatest impact on the raw players' (Lars, Kuany, and Brown) development. But you could see some potential in each of them; Lars with some post skills to go with decent balance and coordination for such a big player; Brown with lightning speed (including with the ball) a pass-first mentality, and good on-ball defense; and Kuany with the super athleticism and length, to go along with the ability to shoot the three.
You could see hints of those attributes in each of them as freshmen. It takes time, and the pandemic impeded their development a bit, but we're now seeing signs of that development starting to come to fruition, although as I've said a number of times, Kuany's development is not where I'd hoped it would be at this point, especially since I believe he's had an extra year in the program than the other two.
I wish they would each use their full eligibility to play for Cal because they arrived so raw and had one year of development significantly impeded. I was sorry to read 4thGen's expectation that next season would be Brown's last year playing for Cal.
To be clear, it's still not enough. Even with my optimistic projections for these players, it won't be enough to support an ncaa-tournament-level team. I thought it might possibly have been so this season had Bradley returned. But even with Fox having pulled a rabbit out of his hat with the add of Shepherd this season the roster hasn't been close to competing for ncaa tournament (even prior to Kelly's injury).
So while it's not enough at the team level, it is nice to see individual players develop and realize the signs of potential they showed as freshmen.
