Lost opportunity

Shepherd trying for the foul

How often do you see PAC 12 refs call a foul when the offensive player lurches forward into a moving defender? Whether it is against the rules or not, THEY ALWAYS CALL IT, and my comment is "What was the defender supposed to do?" Ted would be screaming foul if it happened to his precious Furd.
Yes, it was a proper call but totally against league practices.

Going to lose to the worst team in the conference. I guess that's will not be true after the game when we are undoubtedly the worst.

12 assists on 18 baskets is good. 18 baskets is not good.

19 of 21 FTs is good. More made FT than made baskets is not good.

Defense looked good, especially in the 2nd half. Just not quite good enough to make up for the offense.

Brown and Shepherd together had 11 rebounds. Good hustle.

I have loved the way Cal has competed lately with inferior talent. I am no longer anti Fox, and even though Shepard is our best player, he has often, as in tonight, forces things at crunch time.
My only consisted issue is the lack of a true point guard, and while Brown made two foul shotstonight, he is NOT a DI point guard (45% FT).
If Fox and staff do not significantly bring in some TOP talent, he s/b fired. PERIOD!

From my seats it was the perfect shot

fat_slice said:

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Going to lose to the worst team in the conference. I guess that's will not be true after the game when we are undoubtedly the worst.

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I think both Cal and Utah are a notch above Oregon State.

We're positioning ourselves for the PAC-12 Tournament so we won't finish 9th and have to play Arizona in the second round.

fat_slice said:

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Going to lose to the worst team in the conference. I guess that's will not be true after the game when we are undoubtedly the worst.

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This Cal team puts in the effort, but they are so untalented that they are just awful.

stu said:

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fat_slice said:

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Going to lose to the worst team in the conference. I guess that's will not be true after the game when we are undoubtedly the worst.

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I think both Cal and Utah are a notch above Oregon State.

We're positioning ourselves for the PAC-12 Tournament so we won't finish 9th and have to play Arizona in the second round.

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I don't think you have to worry. We won't make it to the second round.

Back from the game. I'm super-bummed that we didn't win today, after getting two on last week's Oregon road trip. This was certainly a game that we should've won.

+ Cool that we made it a game at the end and got a decent Shepherd shot that was FTW
+ 16 and 8 for the Big German (although he was, once again, way too "Lars-like" in the first half)
+ Good second half for Kuany

- Haven't seen stats yet, but dammit, we had way too many unforced TOs over the first 35 minutes...
- Combine the above with way too many missed easy shots in the first half and we don't have the talent to win this
- We were letting the piss ant Utes get too many shots down low in the first half. Corrected later.
- Yes, bearister, Anticevich, IMO, does not shoot his jumper with the same form all the time. Coulda used one more today

After the game, the radio guys said that Grant is currently tied with David Kravish for most Cal games played! He should set the record next week in Haas against Furd on Senior Night, so I just decided I'm going for sure and bringing the kids! I hope Grant, Shepherd and Foreman combine for 50+ in a win!

HoopDreams said:

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From my seats it was the perfect shot

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I agree. What was the better alternative scenario?

bearister said:

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HoopDreams said:

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From my seats it was the perfect shot

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I agree. What was the better alternative scenario?

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The ball could have landed in your lap. Then you'd have a souvenir.

KenBurnski said:

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Lars going full Beasten Moden

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4.5 seconds is not quite enough to get to the hoop. 6 seconds is. I would have liked those 1.5 additional seconds so the defense would have to sag more and allow Shep to take a 23 foot shot (they would have had to give him a clean shot because they couldn't foul him)

bearister said:

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HoopDreams said:

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From my seats it was the perfect shot

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I agree. What was the better alternative scenario?

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Why did Sam play just 6 minutes?

Is that white guy dunking Paul Westphal?????He was one of my idols...

bearister said:

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Why did Sam play just 6 minutes?

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He is credited with 2 turnovers, 1 PF and a missed 3 in those 6 minutes. Thus the likely answer is he was in the doghouse ala Bobby Knight.

Definitely would prefer to the coach try to settle down and build up the young player and then get him back in the game. Let him know you believe in him.

Sam was a defensive liability in this game and you could see Fox talking to him before going to a commercial break. I would have given him a chance to redeem himself though in the second half.

calumnus said:

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bearister said:

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Why did Sam play just 6 minutes?

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He is credited with 2 turnovers, 1 PF and a missed 3 in those 6 minutes. Thus the likely answer is he was in the doghouse ala Bobby Knight.

Definitely would prefer to the coach try to settle down and build up the young player and then get him back in the game. Let him know you believe in him.

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You are assuming you are right about the reason for Alajiki only playing 6 minutes, and assuming that Fox was disciplining him. It may be true, or not. The game today depends a great deal on individual matchups, and those are not apparent in a box score. It may have been that Sam had been dominated by his defender, or Sam was getting eaten up when guarding his man. Putting him back in the game might have weakened his confidence further, and that is not good either. If Sam did commit some egregious error, it may have required some discipline. And Knight was someone who favored the tough love, discipline, but usually put the player right back in the game. Knight knew how to win, and most of Knight's players loved the guy. Newell loved Bobby and Newell was a disciplinarian as well, and also was loved by his players. But on the court most of Pete's players feared him, feared what he would do if they screwed up. And so they seldom did.

Here is a Newell story: I had a good friend who played for Newell at USF. My friend seldom played in games, but had a big role in practice. USF was playing a very good team, Kentucky, I believe, and they had an All-American guard. Newell had a card file on all the best players in the country, or at least the ones he expected to face. He told Marty to impersonate this guard in practice. He said that this guard had a habit of bringing the ball up the floor, and when he crossed the halfcourt line, he always took 2 dribbles, and then crossed over to his other hand. Newell told Marty to do this every time as they ran that play over and over in a scrimmage. They ran it, Marty crossed the half court line, took 2 dribbles and crossed over. After a few times, the Cal guards began to steal the ball from Marty right as he crossed over. They stole it from him over and over. Marty is a real competitor, and he could only take this for so long. So he decided to fake the crossover, keep the ball in the same hand, and drive past the guards for a layup. Newell saw that and exploded. He was ready to kill Marty. "Don't ever do that again, no matter what." Marty knew he'd have to obey Newell's every word from then on, or he would be kicked off the team.

It is tougher for coaches today, because they are very limited in what they can do to get players to do what they want. They are, IMO, very spoiled for the most part, and all of them think they will play in the NBA one day. There is no penalty for not obeying, and there are penalties for coaches like Knight and Newell for being hard on their players. And the players can and do transfer if they are not treated the way they want to be treated.

tthompson993 said:

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Sam was a defensive liability in this game and you could see Fox talking to him before going to a commercial break. I would have given him a chance to redeem himself though in the second half.

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It's a good point. I'll try and watch the video of the game tomorrow.

Are you related to Titanic Thompson? He was a golf hustler, among other things. He was a legend. The stories about him are something else, and a little hard to believe, but local old timers swear they are all true.

SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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bearister said:

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Why did Sam play just 6 minutes?

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He is credited with 2 turnovers, 1 PF and a missed 3 in those 6 minutes. Thus the likely answer is he was in the doghouse ala Bobby Knight.

Definitely would prefer to the coach try to settle down and build up the young player and then get him back in the game. Let him know you believe in him.

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You are assuming you are right about the reason for Alajiki only playing 6 minutes, and assuming that Fox was disciplining him. It may be true, or not. The game today depends a great deal on individual matchups, and those are not apparent in a box score. It may have been that Sam had been dominated by his defender, or Sam was getting eaten up when guarding his man. Putting him back in the game might have weakened his confidence further, and that is not good either. If Sam did commit some egregious error, it may have required some discipline. And Knight was someone who favored the tough love, discipline, but usually put the player right back in the game. Knight knew how to win, and most of Knight's players loved the guy. Newell loved Bobby and Newell was a disciplinarian as well, and also was loved by his players. But on the court most of Pete's players feared him, feared what he would do if they screwed up. And so they seldom did.

Here is a Newell story: I had a good friend who played for Newell at USF. My friend seldom played in games, but had a big role in practice. USF was playing a very good team, Kentucky, I believe, and they had an All-American guard. Newell had a card file on all the best players in the country, or at least the ones he expected to face. He told Marty to impersonate this guard in practice. He said that this guard had a habit of bringing the ball up the floor, and when he crossed the halfcourt line, he always took 2 dribbles, and then crossed over to his other hand. Newell told Marty to do this every time as they ran that play over and over in a scrimmage. They ran it, Marty crossed the half court line, took 2 dribbles and crossed over. After a few times, the Cal guards began to steal the ball from Marty right as he crossed over. They stole it from him over and over. Marty is a real competitor, and he could only take this for so long. So he decided to fake the crossover, keep the ball in the same hand, and drive past the guards for a layup. Newell saw that and exploded. He was ready to kill Marty. "Don't ever do that again, no matter what." Marty knew he'd have to obey Newell's every word from then on, or he would be kicked off the team.

It is tougher for coaches today, because they are very limited in what they can do to get players to do what they want. They are, IMO, very spoiled for the most part, and all of them think they will play in the NBA one day. There is no penalty for not obeying, and there are penalties for coaches like Knight and Newell for being hard on their players. And the players can and do transfer if they are not treated the way they want to be treated.

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Yes, if it wasn't clear, it was a supposition, with the second part being dependent on the first. Alajiki could have been injured or sick. Who knows?

There are people that are fine with authoritarians, especially successful ones. Every brutal warlord, schoolyard bully, mafia boss and dictator has loyal followers who love the guy.

As for Bobby Knight, the counter example is Larry Bird.

calumnus said:

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bearister said:

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Why did Sam play just 6 minutes?

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He is credited with 2 turnovers, 1 PF and a missed 3 in those 6 minutes. Thus the likely answer is he was in the doghouse ala Bobby Knight.

Definitely would prefer to the coach try to settle down and build up the young player and then get him back in the game. Let him know you believe in him.

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For a number of reasons I'm not worried about Alajiki's playing time.

Anticevich, Thiemann, and Kuany were doing fine so we didn't a lot of minutes from Alajiki.

Sending unambiguous messages seems to be part of Fox's coaching style.

So far at Cal Fox hasn't given much playing time to any freshman, with the conspicuous (and confusing to me) exception of starting Thiemann as a frosh.

With a year of experience and with Anticevich gone Alajiki should get plenty of playing time next season.

I don't think winning or losing the Utah game meant all that much. Whether we finish with 4 or 5 or 6 conference wins or whether we finish in 10th place or in 11th place this season will still suck. The only part of it anyone is likely to remember is how we beat Oregon in Eugene.

Like it or not it looks to me like Fox's job is safe. He has run a clean program, his players are making academic progress, and so far none of his own recruits have jumped ship. He and Knowlton can say we're on the right track and improving. In my own opinion our trajectory is likely to lead to winning most of our (weak) OOC games, finishing 8th to 10th place in the conference, and no post-season play. That's not good enough for me but is probably good enough for those who make the decisions.