Cal Big Game hoops style game thread

11,176 Views | 137 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by calumnus
Big C
How long do you want to ignore this user?

Back from a fun game at the Haas. It felt great to be able to make (?) 11-12 games this season!

Today the Golden Bears played with panache and with heart. I'm delighted for the seniors. Tres cool that they got J-Kidd, Sean Lampley and guys from the Pac 12 champion team to come to the game. As someone noted above, they should've handed the mic to Jerome Randle for a minute or so

Logan Alters is a junior, but they said he's graduating early. From Haas Business School I believe they announced? This was the first time I ever saw him play: Was it the only game in his Cal career? Filling the stat sheet with two rebounds, maybe he is our career leader in rebounds-per-minute! Took one shot; I wish it had gone in.

Kudos to Foreman, Shepherd (Wow, half of our points tonight!) and especially Grant Anticevich, who's played more Cal Basketball games than any other player ever!

Furd's cold stretch in the first half was epic: They were getting off shots, many at close range, but nothing was going in. Sad. Jerod Haase looked like he was maybe wearing one of those Tedford Tops designed to conceal the girth. Most unfortunate for him to arrive on the Farm after rampant suspicions stopped them from using "The Glove".

Even with this being our fifth consecutive year of basically sucking, I am still able to find enjoyable moments in every season of Cal Basketball. Go Bears!
HoopDreams
How long do you want to ignore this user?
best cal game atmosphere in the last 5 years

Photo taking with the Axe outside Haas before the game

Senior game with the pregame ceremony ... some of the seniors were extremely emotional as they waited to walk out

Full student section, band, Dance team, Cheerleaders, Bearetts, Rally Committee (with new Axe flag)

Cal royalty, including Kidd, Randle, Lampley, Theo, Paris, Markuri Sanders Frison, Thurmanator, Hamilton

Football team with Axe at center court

Cal thrashing rival Stanford, to the biggest and loudest Cal fan crowd of the year

Glorious!



graguna
How long do you want to ignore this user?
HoopDreams said:

best cal game atmosphere in the last 5 years

Photo taking with the Axe outside Haas before the game

Senior game with the pregame ceremony ... some of the seniors were extremely emotional as they waited to walk out

Full student section, band, Dance team, Cheerleaders, Bearetts, Rally Committee (with new Axe flag)

Cal royalty, including Kidd, Randle, Lampley, Theo, Paris, Markuri Sanders Frison, Thurmanator, Hamilton

Football team with Axe at center court

Cal thrashing rival Stanford, to the biggest and loudest Cal fan crowd of the year

Glorious!




Hamilton is going to print out this post and frame it. 40 years from now he'll show his grandkids that he was once considered Cal basketball royalty.
philbert
How long do you want to ignore this user?
A couple of items of interest that I heard on the postgame show:

1. Fox asked if Kelly wanted to start the game. Fox said he woulda worked out some deal with Furd where they would've traded empty possessions or something to make sure no one got an advantage. Kelly declined.

2. Fox said some guys would need surgery after the season. I'm guessing Foreman is one of them. Not sure who else is playing injured.
SFCityBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Chapman_is_Gone said:

Nice to see a heartbeat in this corpse of a program. I'm very happy they were able to get a good win in front of so many of our old studs in the audience. The alternative would have been sad.

Now fire the thoroughly unremarkable man heading the team, please. Perhaps Lampley et al were in town because they're serving on a committee to find Fox's replacement? One can dream.
You probably should not bury the corpse just yet. I looks like the patient is still breathing.

What exactly did you see that Fox did wrong in this game?

Wasn't it clear in this game that most of Cal's players have shown good personal improvement since they arrived at Cal?

For example, did you notice how dominant Lars can be? This is the same guy who once was a freshman who could not move, could not catch a ball, shoot a ball, or pass a ball, get a rebound, block a shot, or guard his man.

What this game showed is a classic case of a coach of the favored team who knows how to recruit getting a loss handed to him by a coach of an underdog team who knows how to coach.

SFCityBear
SFCityBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
philbert said:

A couple of items of interest that I heard on the postgame show:

1. Fox asked if Kelly wanted to start the game. Fox said he woulda worked out some deal with Furd where they would've traded empty possessions or something to make sure no one got an advantage. Kelly declined.

2. Fox said some guys would need surgery after the season. I'm guessing Foreman is one of them. Not sure who else is playing injured.
I thought Foreman might be healing, because in his last couple of games, he looked like he was moving really well.
SFCityBear
HoopDreams
How long do you want to ignore this user?
besides the crazy high arcing fall away shot from Jordan as time expired, the other crazy play was ...

celestine drives into the paint but is cut off by two defenders, so he stops and bounce passes it between the defenders legs to Brown who immediately passes to Lars who is moving toward the basket, for a SLAM
MoragaBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Staff
HoopDreams said:

besides the crazy high arcing fall away shot from Jordan as time expired, the other crazy play was ...

celestine drives into the paint but is cut off by two defenders, so he stops and bounce passes it between the defenders legs to Brown who immediately passes to Lars who is moving toward the basket, for a SLAM
calbearinamaze
How long do you want to ignore this user?
bearister said:

Don't you have the copyright on that phrase? Don't sue me. Please.
No worries.

I had of a momentary lapse of contradiction.



GO BEARS!!!!.

If you believe in forever
Then life is just a one-night stand
If there's a rock and roll heaven
Well you know they've got a hell of a band
RedlessWardrobe
How long do you want to ignore this user?
SFCityBear said:

Chapman_is_Gone said:

Nice to see a heartbeat in this corpse of a program. I'm very happy they were able to get a good win in front of so many of our old studs in the audience. The alternative would have been sad.

Now fire the thoroughly unremarkable man heading the team, please. Perhaps Lampley et al were in town because they're serving on a committee to find Fox's replacement? One can dream.
You probably should not bury the corpse just yet. I looks like the patient is still breathing.

What exactly did you see that Fox did wrong in this game?

Wasn't it clear in this game that most of Cal's players have shown good personal improvement since they arrived at Cal?

For example, did you notice how dominant Lars can be? This is the same guy who once was a freshman who could not move, could not catch a ball, shoot a ball, or pass a ball, get a rebound, block a shot, or guard his man.

What this game showed is a classic case of a coach of the favored team who knows how to recruit getting a loss handed to him by a coach of an underdog team who knows how to coach.


Great points SFCity. Let me remind you, as usual it was just Chapman being Chapman. Don't take it too seriously.
drizzlybear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Brown played a pretty good game. Started off great, with some nice assists (and one should-have-been-an-assist that Anticevich bobbled at the rim and couldn't finish) and nice drives and finishes. Later he got in a little unnecessary foul trouble and forced a few bad shots/plays. And his one free throw was so atrocious that it single-handedly threatens to undermine the appearance of improvement he'd given over the previous several games. Yikes.

When he's good, he's pretty darn good. But when he's bad, wowza.
RedlessWardrobe
How long do you want to ignore this user?
drizzlybear said:

Brown played a pretty good game. Started off great, with some nice assists (and one should-have-been-an-assist that Anticevich bobbled at the rim and couldn't finish) and nice drives and finishes. Later he got in a little unnecessary foul trouble and forced a few bad shots/plays. And his one free throw was so atrocious that it single-handedly threatens to undermine the appearance of improvement he'd given over the previous several games. Yikes.

When he's good, he's pretty darn good. But when he's bad, wowza.
Agree with your assessment. But excuse me for beating an old drum to death, Joel's energy and effort will always be an intangible asset.
DWM81
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Joel Brown's frenetic energy + aggressiveness is a net positive for our Program. Fox needs to recruit a complementary PG that can help balance out Brown's shooting weakness...
Civil Bear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
SFCityBear said:

Chapman_is_Gone said:

Nice to see a heartbeat in this corpse of a program. I'm very happy they were able to get a good win in front of so many of our old studs in the audience. The alternative would have been sad.

Now fire the thoroughly unremarkable man heading the team, please. Perhaps Lampley et al were in town because they're serving on a committee to find Fox's replacement? One can dream.
You probably should not bury the corpse just yet. I looks like the patient is still breathing.

What exactly did you see that Fox did wrong in this game?

Wasn't it clear in this game that most of Cal's players have shown good personal improvement since they arrived at Cal?

For example, did you notice how dominant Lars can be? This is the same guy who once was a freshman who could not move, could not catch a ball, shoot a ball, or pass a ball, get a rebound, block a shot, or guard his man.

What this game showed is a classic case of a coach of the favored team who knows how to recruit getting a loss handed to him by a coach of an underdog team who knows how to coach.


Pretty sure the (glaring) issue is recruiting. We need to strive for better than splitting our season with the poorly coached 'furds.
KoreAmBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Civil Bear said:

SFCityBear said:

Chapman_is_Gone said:

Nice to see a heartbeat in this corpse of a program. I'm very happy they were able to get a good win in front of so many of our old studs in the audience. The alternative would have been sad.

Now fire the thoroughly unremarkable man heading the team, please. Perhaps Lampley et al were in town because they're serving on a committee to find Fox's replacement? One can dream.
You probably should not bury the corpse just yet. I looks like the patient is still breathing.

What exactly did you see that Fox did wrong in this game?

Wasn't it clear in this game that most of Cal's players have shown good personal improvement since they arrived at Cal?

For example, did you notice how dominant Lars can be? This is the same guy who once was a freshman who could not move, could not catch a ball, shoot a ball, or pass a ball, get a rebound, block a shot, or guard his man.

What this game showed is a classic case of a coach of the favored team who knows how to recruit getting a loss handed to him by a coach of an underdog team who knows how to coach.


Pretty sure the (glaring) issue is recruiting. We need to strive for better than splitting our season with the poorly coached 'furds.
He mentioned in his presser "rebuild" a couple of times. I wonder what he and Knowlton discussed as the timetable for the rebuild? Built in job security? It's weird because without Kelly next year, we will back in year 1 of the rebuild again.
KoreAmBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
MoragaBear said:

They introduced Kidd and a bunch of the 2010 Pac 12 champs on the video board and PA to big cheers.

Best crowd of the year by far. Students are all the way up to the rafters and overflowing to the upper side sections.


Nice that they showed. However, sitting. Sigh. You couldn't sit back in the day bc you wouldn't see the game.
bearchamp
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Next year will have Lars, Brown, Celestine, Alajiki, Kuany and any transfers, plus a recruit and the red shirts. The Bears will be better than this year. Cal won't be national champions, but they will be better.
RedlessWardrobe
How long do you want to ignore this user?
bearchamp said:

Next year will have Lars, Brown, Celestine, Alajiki, Kuany and any transfers, plus a recruit and the red shirts. The Bears will be better than this year. Cal won't be national champions, but they will be better.
No Jordan, no Grant, and probably no Andre. Not sure if they'll be better.
stu
How long do you want to ignore this user?
KoreAmBear said:

He mentioned in his presser "rebuild" a couple of times. I wonder what he and Knowlton discussed as the timetable for the rebuild? Built in job security? It's weird because without Kelly next year, we will back in year 1 of the rebuild again.
This program is starting to look like a perpetual rebuild. Next season all the players will be Fox recruits (unless Kelly stays for a 5th season) and I see only one player (Celestine) who I think will be a plus on offense.
stu
How long do you want to ignore this user?
bearchamp said:

Next year will have Lars, Brown, Celestine, Alajiki, Kuany and any transfers, plus a recruit and the red shirts. The Bears will be better than this year. Cal won't be national champions, but they will be better.
With Shepherd, Foreman, and Anticevich gone who will prevent opposing defenses from collapsing around the basket?
graguna
How long do you want to ignore this user?
RedlessWardrobe said:

bearchamp said:

Next year will have Lars, Brown, Celestine, Alajiki, Kuany and any transfers, plus a recruit and the red shirts. The Bears will be better than this year. Cal won't be national champions, but they will be better.
No Jordan, no Grant, and probably no Andre. Not sure if they'll be better.
I really like Grant but he hasn't exactly been lighting it up the last half of the season. My guess is CAL will improve defensively and be about the same offensively and therefor be a better team next year.
Big C
How long do you want to ignore this user?
bearchamp said:

Next year will have Lars, Brown, Celestine, Alajiki, Kuany and any transfers, plus a recruit and the red shirts. The Bears will be better than this year. Cal won't be national champions, but they will be better.

Depending on who we get for transfers, I'd have to think we are not going to be much improved, if at all, next season:

Kelly was usually our best player and I'm assuming he's gone. We've seen that they can win without him, but...

Anticevich will be a loss, even though he never quite blossomed as much as I had hoped.

Shepherd single-handedly won yesterday's game and the Oregon game for us, as well as playing key roles in other wins. Replacing him will be a big challenge.


We will have some guys back and I do like the trajectory of the guys you mention, but unless, say, Thorpe and Bowser become solid contributors, we still look like a team that will be mired in the second division of the conference. Need more shooters and better point guard play.
Civil Bear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
KoreAmBear said:

Civil Bear said:

SFCityBear said:

Chapman_is_Gone said:

Nice to see a heartbeat in this corpse of a program. I'm very happy they were able to get a good win in front of so many of our old studs in the audience. The alternative would have been sad.

Now fire the thoroughly unremarkable man heading the team, please. Perhaps Lampley et al were in town because they're serving on a committee to find Fox's replacement? One can dream.
You probably should not bury the corpse just yet. I looks like the patient is still breathing.

What exactly did you see that Fox did wrong in this game?

Wasn't it clear in this game that most of Cal's players have shown good personal improvement since they arrived at Cal?

For example, did you notice how dominant Lars can be? This is the same guy who once was a freshman who could not move, could not catch a ball, shoot a ball, or pass a ball, get a rebound, block a shot, or guard his man.

What this game showed is a classic case of a coach of the favored team who knows how to recruit getting a loss handed to him by a coach of an underdog team who knows how to coach.


Pretty sure the (glaring) issue is recruiting. We need to strive for better than splitting our season with the poorly coached 'furds.
He mentioned in his presser "rebuild" a couple of times. I wonder what he and Knowlton discussed as the timetable for the rebuild? Built in job security? It's weird because without Kelly next year, we will back in year 1 of the rebuild again.
I noticed that as well. At the end of his third year with more talent departing than incoming, and we are still rebuilding.
SFCityBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
bearchamp said:

Next year will have Lars, Brown, Celestine, Alajiki, Kuany and any transfers, plus a recruit and the red shirts. The Bears will be better than this year. Cal won't be national champions, but they will be better.
There will be 2 recruits, Okafor and Newell. And one of the commentators (MacLean?) said that Okafor is a very good player. I thought Anyanwu had improved, and now he will have a summer to work on improving more, as will Alajiki and Celestine (who MacLean said he expects Celestine to be named to the All-PAC12 Defensive team at the end of next season. Next year will be a breakout year for Lars, if he is going to have one, because year 4 is usually the best year for a big man (as did Richard Solomon). I expect similar breakout from Kuany. Brown could be better, or he could have reached his ceiling. Of the redshirts, the one who has seen the most action is Thorpe, and he was pretty raw. Not sure what Fox will get from him, but I do expect improvement if he has recovered, because most big men improve as their bodies mature. Bowser is athletic, but needs to add strength and weight, it seems, and his sample size is too small to tell much about his shooting and defense. I'm honestly not sure what Hyder can do. We've seen plenty of minutes from him, but he has been playing injured for most of it, and seems slow and not particularly aggressive, and lacks much shooting prowess. Still, an injured foot can affect one's shot, so we'll have to see if he improves over the summer. Roberson had a cup of coffee in minutes. He is a scrappy defender, but will have to show some offense, which he hasn't done so far.
SFCityBear
SFCityBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Civil Bear said:

SFCityBear said:

Chapman_is_Gone said:

Nice to see a heartbeat in this corpse of a program. I'm very happy they were able to get a good win in front of so many of our old studs in the audience. The alternative would have been sad.

Now fire the thoroughly unremarkable man heading the team, please. Perhaps Lampley et al were in town because they're serving on a committee to find Fox's replacement? One can dream.
You probably should not bury the corpse just yet. I looks like the patient is still breathing.

What exactly did you see that Fox did wrong in this game?

Wasn't it clear in this game that most of Cal's players have shown good personal improvement since they arrived at Cal?

For example, did you notice how dominant Lars can be? This is the same guy who once was a freshman who could not move, could not catch a ball, shoot a ball, or pass a ball, get a rebound, block a shot, or guard his man.

What this game showed is a classic case of a coach of the favored team who knows how to recruit getting a loss handed to him by a coach of an underdog team who knows how to coach.


Pretty sure the (glaring) issue is recruiting. We need to strive for better than splitting our season with the poorly coached 'furds.
That may the glaring issue for sure, but as you said about the season, Cal needs to win more. Fox needs to turn Cal into a program to which the better recruits will want to come. Fox has shown that he can coach players to get individually better, especially on defense, but he needs his teams to score more points. I think he has shown that he has an eye for identifying recruits who are coachable, willing and ready to improve. He identified Alajiki as a kid who could make threes. I felt Lars could improve with a lot of work. I wondered about Kuany, but he has turned into a serviceable player, and being a big, maybe he has a big jump over this summer. Fox surely identified Shepherd as a player who would be a key player, and Fox's offense gives Shepherd beaucoup opportunities to score. It is an offense built around Shepherd and Kelly, without forgetting the rest of the rotation. Shepherd is playing better in a major conference than he did at either of his previous schools, the last of which was not major level. In fact the only recruit he has signed so far who I have questions about is Hyder. If Fox can get some more wins next season, I think he will get Cal onto the radar screen of the 4 and 5-star recruits, which hopefully will satisfy most of his critics. He has shown at Nevada that he can sign some rated recruits, win conference championships, and get to the tournament with them. I haven't seen a Cal team play this hard in many years, and I'd like to give Fox another year at Cal.
SFCityBear
oskidunker
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Roberson does not look as good as Dyson. Horrible shot. Actually astounding.
Go Bears!
stu
How long do you want to ignore this user?
I'm not going to assume anything about Okafor and Newell until I see them play a full season. I haven't even seen enough of Alajiki and Anyanwu to have a firm opinion, though I'm sure they will get better.
stu
How long do you want to ignore this user?
SFCityBear said:

... I haven't seen a Cal team play this hard in many years, and I'd like to give Fox another year at Cal.
My prediction is at the end of this season Fox will get a 2-year extension. No scandals, the players are graduating, and the team looks well coached. I don't think the W-L record is a high priority.
graguna
How long do you want to ignore this user?
oskidunker said:

Roberson does not look as good as Dyson. Horrible shot. Actually astounding.
Roberson has taken 10 shots all year. I'm actually astounded that you've been able to thoroughly analysis hit shot with such a small sample size.
SFCityBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
stu said:

I'm not going to assume anything about Okafor and Newell until I see them play a full season. I haven't even seen enough of Alajiki and Anyanwu to have a firm opinion, though I'm sure they will get better.

Agreed. I was only pointing out a quoted from a commentator, probably MacClean, who I think knows his stuff. I do wish he and Robinson would describe more of a game instead of telling stories, like what the ref's call was, things like that.
SFCityBear
oskidunker
How long do you want to ignore this user?
graguna said:

oskidunker said:

Roberson does not look as good as Dyson. Horrible shot. Actually astounding.
Roberson has taken 10 shots all year. I'm actually astounded that you've been able to thoroughly analysis hit shot with such a small sample size.
The shots are not even close. I guess we will know more next year.
Go Bears!
Big C
How long do you want to ignore this user?
graguna said:

oskidunker said:

Roberson does not look as good as Dyson. Horrible shot. Actually astounding.
Roberson has taken 10 shots all year. I'm actually astounded that you've been able to thoroughly analysis hit shot with such a small sample size.

Well, besides the shots not going in, his form looks horrid.
Big C
How long do you want to ignore this user?
stu said:

SFCityBear said:

... I haven't seen a Cal team play this hard in many years, and I'd like to give Fox another year at Cal.
My prediction is at the end of this season Fox will get a 2-year extension. No scandals, the players are graduating, and the team looks well coached. I don't think the W-L record is a high priority.

Good God: Fox has two years left on his contract. If they feel they need to give him a one-year extension to look good for recruiting purposes, fine, but it better be with a decent buy-out clause. A two-year extension is sort of an insult to us all, like Knowlton reading this board and saying, "Oh yeah? How about this!"
KoreAmBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
stu said:

KoreAmBear said:

He mentioned in his presser "rebuild" a couple of times. I wonder what he and Knowlton discussed as the timetable for the rebuild? Built in job security? It's weird because without Kelly next year, we will back in year 1 of the rebuild again.
This program is starting to look like a perpetual rebuild. Next season all the players will be Fox recruits (unless Kelly stays for a 5th season) and I see only one player (Celestine) who I think will be a plus on offense.
Unless we get a scoring grad transfer, next year could be ugly.
Chapman_is_Gone
How long do you want to ignore this user?
RedlessWardrobe said:

bearchamp said:

Next year will have Lars, Brown, Celestine, Alajiki, Kuany and any transfers, plus a recruit and the red shirts. The Bears will be better than this year. Cal won't be national champions, but they will be better.
No Jordan, no Grant, and probably no Andre. Not sure if they'll be better.


Try being optimistic for once! Geez!

Chapman expects the Bears to challenge U of A next year for second place. Now… where are my edibles?
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.