socaltownie said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
philbert said:
Pretty solid and brutally honest take.
This is what should scare the crap out of you (and I've been trying to tell you this since Wyking):
Quote:
According to JohnCanzano.com, an independent sports columnist, last season's empty seats and 12-20 record didn't keep Cal from generating $153,000 more in revenue than a UCLA team that reached the Sweet 16. That's because the Bears skimped on travel expenses, coaching salaries and game-day costs, spending just $7.5 million on the entire program $4.4 million less than the Bruins.
UCLA is a basketball school and has a lot more support from students and alums. The question isn't whether Cal will increase revenue by spending more, which every post here seems to focus on. It is whether they will increase net revenue which no one seems to want to deal with because they don't like the answer. If Cal spends that $4.4M will they make $4.4M more? I doubt it, but more importantly, Cal doubts it. That is the issue.
Cal will fire Fox because the buyout isn't that large, they'll get some donor to pay it, and not firing Fox will be an open and very public white flag that will cost it more in support than paying the buyout. Those that always see losing as a coaching issue will be appeased (a group that is dwindling, but Cal is just trying to hang on as long as they can to a donor base that is aging out anyway).
Fox was a terrible hire and what many of us said at the time has quickly become obvious. He needs to be fired. It is unlikely (not impossible - you have to try - but unlikely) that a new coach is going to resolve things unless Cal changes and Cal is unlikely to change because they have no incentive to. Blaming Cal's fortunes on coaching is like blaming Old Yeller's death on a gunshot to the head. Yeah, the gunshot polished him off, but the rabies wasn't going away.
Yes. But isn't that a seperate argument and one that also involves football?
Cal (and a number of other UCs) are fairly unique creatures - unlike most other P5s there is NO compelling business case to be made for being good in sports. Cal AGAIN saw a record number of applicants this fall. They do not NEED additional selectivity to juice rankings. Indeed, given the pressure from Sacramento you could make an argument that sports success HURTS cal because getting more applicants from students looking for successful athletic teams further decreases admission rates and pisses off those in Sacto more (look at UCLA right now and the political pressure they are under on admissions).
But if you don't spend $ you can still be better than this. THere are minimal costs in finding an energic coach who will embrace east bay hoops and make cal the "local team". Indeed, such an approach WOULD solve a serious problem Cal faces - lack of diversity and the political pressures that it faces on that front.
I think that football and basketball are a different proposition at Cal. I think that investing money in football gives a better return than basketball. Cal still sees football as the key to funding all sports and Cal still wants to maintain its non-revenue sports programs. It is very possible that one or both of those variables could change in the near future, but they haven't yet, so while Cal isn't willing to break the bank on football, they will spend more. Your second paragraph is exactly right and it is what I have been saying for a long time. Cal doesn't really need revenue sports anymore and few of its applicants care enough to ding Cal for being bad, and Cal doesn't need more applicants. If you have high schoolers recently you would know that UC's do very little marketing compared to other schools. I think my kid got more marketing from Alabama than then UC's. UCLA has the most applicants of any school. The UC's don't care. Apply or don't. And if they cared, frankly, among their demographic, old school revenue sports is not where it is at.
You are absolutely right in your last paragraph. As I said, the buyout isn't large now and they'll get an alum to pay it. You have to take a shot. I'm sure we will get better because it is hard not to. (said the same thing with Wyking, and that didn't exactly work out) Whatever we are willing to spend, we should always strive to be our best for that amount, and no we haven't been our best. I just don't know that, yeah, we could be 8th place in conference is really what people here are imagining. And while there is a chance of being better, I think it is pretty small. People are grasping now. Someone says with zero evidence that the donors will fully fund NIL if Pasternak is the guy, and that has been repeated over and over because it is a tiny branch to people sinking in quicksand. He may improve things if donors have confidence in him, but I don't see Cal's NIL being competitive anytime soon. (to be clear, I think Pasternak is a good candidate, just this is overblown).
Monty's comments are at once real and also disingenuous. Do Cal and Stanford need to take lots of sub 3.0 GPA kids to succeed in basketball at the highest level. Probably. Should they? Probably not. Will they? No. It is clear that a lot of people do not understand grade inflation and Monty is playing on that lack of knowledge. 3.0 is the new 2.0. It is so easy to get a 3.0 you have to have a learning disability, be monumentally stupid, or just not care. I'm in favor of finding the kids in group 1 and helping them. We can talk academic support all we want, though. The latter group which makes up most of the talent pool, mostly just want to play basketball. They aren't looking for support. What you need is to pass them on paper, and Cal and Stanford aren't going to do that. The reality here is that the guys on the top teams are now professional, minor league players looking for the biggest pay day with the ability to focus maximum effort on training while being unfettered by stuff that isn't going to lead to a basketball career. Which makes a lot of sense for them, whether or not that minor league system should be run by America's universities. Cal doesn't have the package to offer those guys if it wanted to, and I think it is clear at this point that it doesn't want to. So you are left competing using the ones that couldn't get that deal or the ones who maybe could have, but also value the academic side. Think what would happen to Cal's ability to pull top engineering students if Cal suddenly required those students to spend 80% of their time studying history. They'd be gone. Well, why would basketball players be any different? They want to study their chosen field, not a bunch of other stuff. Plenty of schools let them do that.
I just don't see it happening. Yes, we can be better. But what I see is a college system that has evolved to have a huge success disparity. It is basically like if the MLB decided to add all the Triple A teams to the majors. Yeah, you could maybe be the best of the Triple A teams, but you are still going to get slaughtered by 30 teams. I've lost interest in that proposition.
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