CalLifer said:

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calumnus said:

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Historic.Despite loading up on cupcakes.

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But… but… but… COVID! Err… city of Berkeley! Errr… No practice facility! Err…

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taxbear said:

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Yep. I saw a couple of 0-4 starts in the media guide, but against much better competition, but no 0-5 starts.

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stu said:

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Brown and Askew can (usually) handle the ball and pass. After those two I'd include Celestine, who was out. I haven't seen enough of Clayton or Roberson, both out, but I assume as an experienced guard Clayton would be OK.

It's tough to play with just two guards, especially with one in foul trouble.

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Cal8285 said:

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Yeah, but it's going to be worse. It is almost a lock that we get to 0-9.

The next two games are TCU and the Clemson/Iowa loser (since we're losing to TCU) in Niceville, Florida. We won't win either of those. Then USC at Haas and Arizona in Tucson. Two more losses.

Eastern Washington at least gives us a shot at a win before we lose to Butler at home.

0-9 with 4 cream puffs is pretty bad.

Cal went 0-4 twice in history, 1929-30 and 1997-98, and in both of those cases, it was tolerable.

In 29-30, the first THREE games were against Kansas, coached by the legendary Phog Allen, three nights in a row, January 2-4, the first two in Kansas City, Missouri, and third in Lawrence. That Kansas team started 13-0, faltered a little down the stretch, finishing second in conference after two losses to Missouri that made Missouri conference champ. The 4th game was a 30-28 loss to USC at the Oakland Auditorium, an SC team that went 7-2 in conference, won the PCC South Division and won the conference playoff against UW (no NCAA tourney yet). That's a pretty tough opening schedule. The 5th game was also against SC at the Auditorium, Cal won 27-19. The Bears went 6-3 in conference and finished in second.

In 97-98, they didn't have any cream puffs in the first four (at North Carolina, St. Mary's at the Coliseum, at USF, and at Houston), the team had lost all the good players from the Sweet 16 team (with apologies to Sean Marks), Braun had zero time to recruit before the 96-97 season when Braun was hired, and Carlisle and Kilgore, the two main junior transfers, were not eligible to start the season. The games against decent teams were respectable, the opener at UNC being the only blowout (3 point losses to SMC and at Houston, 9 points at USF). The Bears ended up 8-10 in conference.

IMO, there have only been two really bad starts to Cal basketball seasons, 76-77 the Bears started 2-10, and 78-79 the Bears started 2-9.

In 76-77, there was really only one cream puff in that first 12 games, with Cal beating Portland in the opener. You could look at the schedule and think VMI, a game Cal lost by 2, was a cream puff, but they weren't that year, going 25-3 in the regular season, with some good OOC opponents, and winning a tourney game before falling to Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen (only 32 teams were in the tourney). The 76-77 Cal team was decent enough to finish 7-7 in conference.

78-79 had a handful of cream puffs in the first 11, but at least we beat the first two of them. Between players off the team for academic reasons (notably Gene Ransom, but also his backup FG Tyrone Davis) and injuries (notably Kevin Singleton), it was a depleted roster, and 4-14 in the first year of the Pac-10 was pretty bad on top of a disappointing OOC performance, it was probably the worst Cal season ever until Wyking Jones came along.

You could also say that the Wyking era is in some respects comparable, because of his losses to cream puffs (his first year saw blowout losses to Chaminadein Maui, and Central Arkansas, and Portland St. at Haas, second year the blowout loss to Yale in China), but he did win some cream puff games (even if some were too close, like the Cal Poly 1 point win at Haas his second year).

But 22-23, staring at an 0-9 start with 4 cream puffs on the schedule, 3 of them at home? Wow. It will not only be 5 more losses to start the season than the previous worst seasons, something like 2-30 seems possible. The randomness of the game dictates we likely get to at least 4-28, but maybe not, no matter what, we're looking at historically bad.

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parentswerebears said:

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I refuse to go to any games until Fox is fired.

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KoreAmBear said:

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parentswerebears said:

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I refuse to go to any games until Fox is fired.

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Good man. Knowlton needs to how damaging this is.

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Cal8285 said:

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KoreAmBear said:

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parentswerebears said:

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I refuse to go to any games until Fox is fired.

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Good man. Knowlton needs to how damaging this is.

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I gave up my season tickets this season after 44 years (not sure what better message I can send), but I thought my wife and I would at least attend 3-4 conference games and 1-2 OOC games, and we'd still save a ton of money, not just by only buying 4-6 games but buying tickets on the secondary market for cheap.

Now I'm not sure I can stomach attending any. The train wreck appeal is still getting my eyes on the TV. But last night was pretty unwatchable. I probably only made it to the end because I used the DVR during much of the game to skip commercials and flip back and forth between the Niners and Bears. Cal and Texas St., two teams that didn't know how to create a decent shot, it was a weird combination of watching a train wreck and watching paint dry. Wow. We lost to a team that shot 33.9% from the floor for the game.

I have never been a fair weather fan, I've stayed through a lot of bad Cal basketball, along with some very good Cal basketball. But I may spend my college basketball money this year taking my St. Mary's grad son and girlfriend (and my Cal wife) to a couple of St. Mary's games. It will be more fun than going to see Cal.

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