drizzlybear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
CALiforniALUM said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
CALiforniALUM said:
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/insider/story/_/id/38779123/jay-bilas-unveils-1-68-men-college-basketball-rankings-2023-24-season
I know that early season rankings are largely the result of prior year play, but I was hopeful that I would find us hanging around the bottom of the rankings just based on our coach and his general respect within the basketball community as a young motivational character with a high basketball IQ.
So how long do you think it takes before we go from invisible to on the radar? Answer in terms of how many games into this or a future season.
Don't mean to be all Cal about this, but sometime between 2 games and never.
I think it is way too early to make judgments about when or if we will make it on the radar.
You make it sound like rankings are inherently correct to begin with. Judge away - little risk and little reward.
My estimate is we start to get noticed after we beat San Diego State the day after Thanksgiving.
That wasn't my point. You asked how long it would take to get on the radar. I think our situation is extremely unpredictable. We will get noticed when we do something worth noticing. I can't tell you when that will be.
We may beat SDSU, but I don't think a neutral person has a case to make for that based on a team whose core players are mostly new to the program playing for a coach that is new to the program. We have virtually nothing to go on to determine how good this team can be. I think it is awesome for fans to be fans, but you can't expect neutral observers to buy in and put us to be on the radar at this point.
If I were a gambler, I wouldn't bet a single penny for or against Cal until I saw a lot more.
I get your main point but it's not as though the players and this coach are complete unknowns. These guys have played significant roles on decent teams. And the coach has had some success coaching. And we saw that Celestine is healthy and looking good to go. So that's more than "virtually nothing to go on", especially in this age of so much annual change for most teams..
If somebody would like to make a reasoned argument that is geared toward a neutral observer and not cheerleading on a Cal board that we should expect to beat SDSU, I'm happy to listen. SDSU is a proven commodity and they handily beat an opponent that is likely significantly better than the Tommies.
I will say it again. I'm not saying we are bad. I'm saying our situation is highly unpredictable. I don't see why anyone would expect us to be on anyone's radar until we actually do something worthy of being on someone's radar.
If you want to say Hooray! We are going to beat SDSU! I can feel it! Awesome. That's what we are here for. You want recognition for what fans think we are going to do instead of what we have done, that is a heavy ask.
I suspect we will be 5-0. I'd be concerned if we weren't. And no one will care because we haven't played anyone. Win the 6th one and people may start to take notice. Top that by beating SDSU, yeah then we'll get pub. But there are a lot of if's along the way to that.
