Madsen may be "crushing it" with his initial recruiting, and it does look good, but I'd suggest a word of caution. The only two new players Madsen has signed came out of the portal, Fardaws Aimaq and Jalen Cone, who both have suffered serious injuries in the past, causing them both to miss a number of games. Last September, before the season at Texas Tech, Aimaq broke his foot, and was sidelined, missing the first 16 games of the season, and then the same ankle injury caused him to miss 5 more games in January and February. He returned to play on February 11, and played in the final 8 games. In all, he played in just 11 games last season, missing 21 games due to his broken foot.
Jalen Cone's ankle injury was not recent, and less serious than Aimag's broken foot, but an issue causing him to miss key games. Cone fractured his ankle as a soph at Virginia Tech, prior to the season, and was sidelined, missing the first 3 games. He played most of the season, but also reinjured the ankle, and had to miss the final 4 games of the season, including the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, as Tech lost both games without him. He has been able to play all his games at Northern Arizona for two seasons, and I hope the injury is behind him and does not affect his play. Nevertheless, any serious injury is a cause for concern and caution.
The reason I mention all this is that there were growing complaints on this board, where several fans wrote that Mark Fox was signing too many players who had previously been seriously injured. One poster actually accused Mark Fox of having a strategy of targeting injured recruits. He of course provided no evidence of this or source for this statement. Fox did sign too many injured players, as it turned out, but most coaches are almost forced to look at injured recruits or transfers to fill needs in their rosters, because there are so few good players available today. Look at the math: There are perhaps 25 great recruits every year, and most of them are scooped up by the top 10 or 20 programs. There are perhaps another 20-25 players who will either greatly help their teams, or will go on to have good careers playing in the NBA or overseas. There are another 50-100 players who will help their teams somewhat. How many D1 schools are there, 300 or 400? And all of them will be after the best recruits they can attract. And most coaches have to fill out a roster with 2-4 recruits every year, due to graduation alone. If you are one of the top coaches, you have to ink at least 4 or 5 great players every year. The point is that the best players are snapped up by the better programs, and if you still have slots to fill, you almost have no choice but to take "projects", and coach them up, or take a previously injured player who has shown good court sense and skills. All coaches do this, except for the coaches of the elite programs, Duke, UNC, Kentucky, UCLA, UConn, Kansas, et al, who just don't need to take the injured player.
Ben Braun gambled on at least Leon Powe, Harper Kamp, Omondi Amoke, and Sam Rayburn
Montgomery gambled on at least MSF, Christian Behrens, Emerson Murray, and Gary Franklin
Cuonzo gambled on Grant Mullins, Jacobi Gordon, and Jemarl Baker
Wyking gambled on Otis Thorpe
Some of these gambles paid off, some did not.
The remaining roster has Newell (injured in high school), Celestine (injured in high school, reinjured at Cal, did not play last season, Askew (missed most of the season, and ended it on the injured list), Bowser (previously injured, but able to play most of this season). Wrenn Robinson may be the only player from last season's roster who has not been injured, but I don't know that. Hopefully Brown and Curtis are healthy and good to go. With NINE of Cal's players having either entered the Portal or graduated and out of eligibility, Madsen has a huge challenge on his hands to cobble together a team. He may have to take even more injured players or projects to do this, so let's not be too hard on him as he tries to find players in a very short recruiting season.
Jalen Cone's ankle injury was not recent, and less serious than Aimag's broken foot, but an issue causing him to miss key games. Cone fractured his ankle as a soph at Virginia Tech, prior to the season, and was sidelined, missing the first 3 games. He played most of the season, but also reinjured the ankle, and had to miss the final 4 games of the season, including the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, as Tech lost both games without him. He has been able to play all his games at Northern Arizona for two seasons, and I hope the injury is behind him and does not affect his play. Nevertheless, any serious injury is a cause for concern and caution.
The reason I mention all this is that there were growing complaints on this board, where several fans wrote that Mark Fox was signing too many players who had previously been seriously injured. One poster actually accused Mark Fox of having a strategy of targeting injured recruits. He of course provided no evidence of this or source for this statement. Fox did sign too many injured players, as it turned out, but most coaches are almost forced to look at injured recruits or transfers to fill needs in their rosters, because there are so few good players available today. Look at the math: There are perhaps 25 great recruits every year, and most of them are scooped up by the top 10 or 20 programs. There are perhaps another 20-25 players who will either greatly help their teams, or will go on to have good careers playing in the NBA or overseas. There are another 50-100 players who will help their teams somewhat. How many D1 schools are there, 300 or 400? And all of them will be after the best recruits they can attract. And most coaches have to fill out a roster with 2-4 recruits every year, due to graduation alone. If you are one of the top coaches, you have to ink at least 4 or 5 great players every year. The point is that the best players are snapped up by the better programs, and if you still have slots to fill, you almost have no choice but to take "projects", and coach them up, or take a previously injured player who has shown good court sense and skills. All coaches do this, except for the coaches of the elite programs, Duke, UNC, Kentucky, UCLA, UConn, Kansas, et al, who just don't need to take the injured player.
Ben Braun gambled on at least Leon Powe, Harper Kamp, Omondi Amoke, and Sam Rayburn
Montgomery gambled on at least MSF, Christian Behrens, Emerson Murray, and Gary Franklin
Cuonzo gambled on Grant Mullins, Jacobi Gordon, and Jemarl Baker
Wyking gambled on Otis Thorpe
Some of these gambles paid off, some did not.
The remaining roster has Newell (injured in high school), Celestine (injured in high school, reinjured at Cal, did not play last season, Askew (missed most of the season, and ended it on the injured list), Bowser (previously injured, but able to play most of this season). Wrenn Robinson may be the only player from last season's roster who has not been injured, but I don't know that. Hopefully Brown and Curtis are healthy and good to go. With NINE of Cal's players having either entered the Portal or graduated and out of eligibility, Madsen has a huge challenge on his hands to cobble together a team. He may have to take even more injured players or projects to do this, so let's not be too hard on him as he tries to find players in a very short recruiting season.
SFCityBear
