Civil Bear said:

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Grigsby said:

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Cone makes first 67-64 Cal
Cone makes 2nd 68-64 Cal

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Love that the camera cut to Madson after the first make of the 1&1. The look of relief on his face was priceless!

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We need Tyson to do anything. Appreciated that Madsen thanked the media for coming

drizzlybear said:

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Celestine was supposed to be a question mark for the rotation. Either that was way off, or our expected starters are REALLY good. Jc looked real nice tonight. Stroke was perfect, as always, but (as HoopDreams noted) he also showed aggressiveness and strength we hadn't seen so much of before. Crazy to see that kind of performance in first game in over a year. Very exciting and very happy for him.

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I don't think there was ever a question of JC being a part of the rotation if healthy. The speculation was if he would be a starter. You could see from prior seasons that he is a gamer.

The kid plays so deliberately and under control, that it almost makes him appear unathletic.

Civil Bear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Celestine was supposed to be a question mark for the rotation. Either that was way off, or our expected starters are REALLY good. Jc looked real nice tonight. Stroke was perfect, as always, but (as HoopDreams noted) he also showed aggressiveness and strength we hadn't seen so much of before. Crazy to see that kind of performance in first game in over a year. Very exciting and very happy for him.

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I don't think there was ever a question of JC being a part of the rotation if healthy. The speculation was if he would be a starter. You could see from prior seasons that he is a gamer.

The kid plays so deliberately and under control, that it almost makes him appear unathletic.

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Yes kind of reminds me of Slo Mo the Anderson kid from UCLA. Also because he is so smooth, George Gervin came to mind. OK I'll stop there, but you know what I mean.

ducky23 said:

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SBGold said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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SBGold said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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This is frustrating as hell but St. Thomas is a damn good team.

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Not really

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Watch them win their conference.

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they didn't last year. And it's the Summit Conference, lol

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Dude relax. It's one game without three of our best players. How about we wait at least a few games first?

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Yes, everyone should relax and wait at least a few games before they judge how good or bad we are or will be.

ducky23 said:

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SBGold said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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SBGold said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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This is frustrating as hell but St. Thomas is a damn good team.

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Not really

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Watch them win their conference.

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they didn't last year. And it's the Summit Conference, lol

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Dude relax. It's one game without three of our best players. How about we wait at least a few games first?

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Don't bother feeding the clear troll that is SBGold.

bearsandgiants said:

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stu said:

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BearlyCareAnymore said:

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It's the first step of a journey. How fast we get to the destination is yet to be seen.

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Playing without 2 of our best perimeter players was tough. Our 4 guards Cone, Askew, Pavlovic, and Brown included 2 freshmen. In their combined 97 minutes they made only 6 of 20 shots (2 of 9 threes) with just 4 assists. Thankfully Celestine kept us in the game until we raised our intensity near the end.

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Assists is a misleading stat. Lots of passing last night. TONS of it. Just because we missed some shots and got second chance points without passing doesn't mean we won't be capable of logging assists. I didn't see any selfishness at all last night. We did struggle defending the arc and shooting free throws, though.

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I didn't see selfishness but I'd like to see more passes with purpose, which often lead to an assist after another pass. 6 assists for an entire game is shockingly low. St Thomas had 14. Even our historically bad 2022-23 team averaged 9.6 assists on just 58 points per game

We gave up 43% on threes and 56% on twos, IMHO both of those are too high. Better defensive numbers were +8 on rebounds and 6 steals.

I'm OK with our 73% on free throws, especially making most of them down the stretch when we needed them.

drizzlybear said:

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Celestine was supposed to be a question mark for the rotation. Either that was way off, or our expected starters are REALLY good. Jc looked real nice tonight. Stroke was perfect, as always, but (as HoopDreams noted) he also showed aggressiveness and strength we hadn't seen so much of before. Crazy to see that kind of performance in first game in over a year. Very exciting and very happy for him.

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Also of note: The announcer was pronouncing his name "Ce LES tine", instead of the previous "CEL es tine". I'm always curious how stuff like that works. Was the guy last night messing it up? Had they always had it wrong before and he never said anything? Did he change the pronunciation?

Also, he kicked azz.

Aka the Gonazaga effect.

Big C said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Celestine was supposed to be a question mark for the rotation. Either that was way off, or our expected starters are REALLY good. Jc looked real nice tonight. Stroke was perfect, as always, but (as HoopDreams noted) he also showed aggressiveness and strength we hadn't seen so much of before. Crazy to see that kind of performance in first game in over a year. Very exciting and very happy for him.

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Also of note: The announcer was pronouncing his name "Ce LES tine", instead of the previous "CEL es tine". I'm always curious how stuff like that works. Was the guy last night messing it up? Had they always had it wrong before and he never said anything? Did he change the pronunciation?

Also, he kicked azz.

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I got the impression it's one of those situations where the player corrects previously (albeit long-standing) incorrect pronunciation. I know there have been other similar situations with Cal players, though I'm not recalling specific examples now.

BearGreg said:

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SBGold said:

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LongTimeBearFan said:

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ducky23 said:

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SBGold said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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SBGold said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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This is frustrating as hell but St. Thomas is a damn good team.

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Not really

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Watch them win their conference.

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they didn't last year. And it's the Summit Conference, lol

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Dude relax. It's one game without three of our best players. How about we wait at least a few games first?

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Don't bother feeding the clear troll that is SBGold.

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How am I a troll? I'm a chairbacker STH and went last night. We did fine, I think that team we played will not get close to sniffing the tourney yet they were proclaimed to be great? Give it a few games to see what we are. I was happy with this game

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One thing to keep in mind is that a tough team early in a season will not necessarily be a great team by seasons end. Teams with a lot of older veteran players who are highly skilled and super smart tend to be a lot better early than late. Last year St Thomas won 19 games which is solid but in their first game they were leading a top 10 team on the road with less than 10 minutes to play. The best team have high ceilings and St Thomas does not have that. Doesn't mean they weren't a challenging matchup in game one.

Ben Braun came over to me and halftime to say hello and led the conversation off by saying that Cal drew a very tough opponent for the opener. Nothing worst than having your first game against a super well coached, highly disciplined team full of shooters that views the game as perhaps their biggest opportunity of the year for a marquee win.

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I was also definitely impressed with how well St. Thomas was coached. They looked pretty poised and probably had enough confidence to win in in the end if we did not generate the offense that we did

drizzlybear said:

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Big C said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Celestine was supposed to be a question mark for the rotation. Either that was way off, or our expected starters are REALLY good. Jc looked real nice tonight. Stroke was perfect, as always, but (as HoopDreams noted) he also showed aggressiveness and strength we hadn't seen so much of before. Crazy to see that kind of performance in first game in over a year. Very exciting and very happy for him.

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Also of note: The announcer was pronouncing his name "Ce LES tine", instead of the previous "CEL es tine". I'm always curious how stuff like that works. Was the guy last night messing it up? Had they always had it wrong before and he never said anything? Did he change the pronunciation?

Also, he kicked azz.

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I got the impression it's one of those situations where the player corrects previously (albeit long-standing) incorrect pronunciation. I know there have been other similar situations with Cal players, though I'm not recalling specific examples now.

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I noticed that, in the post-game presser, Madsen pronounced it "CEL es tine". Maybe the PA announcer messed up. Is he new? (Okay, this is a minor deal... unless he keeps on going for 20+ ppg, then we gotta get it right, and soon!)

Big C said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Big C said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Celestine was supposed to be a question mark for the rotation. Either that was way off, or our expected starters are REALLY good. Jc looked real nice tonight. Stroke was perfect, as always, but (as HoopDreams noted) he also showed aggressiveness and strength we hadn't seen so much of before. Crazy to see that kind of performance in first game in over a year. Very exciting and very happy for him.

---

Also of note: The announcer was pronouncing his name "Ce LES tine", instead of the previous "CEL es tine". I'm always curious how stuff like that works. Was the guy last night messing it up? Had they always had it wrong before and he never said anything? Did he change the pronunciation?

Also, he kicked azz.

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I got the impression it's one of those situations where the player corrects previously (albeit long-standing) incorrect pronunciation. I know there have been other similar situations with Cal players, though I'm not recalling specific examples now.

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I noticed that, in the post-game presser, Madsen pronounced it "CEL es tine". Maybe the PA announcer messed up. Is he new? (Okay, this is a minor deal... unless he keeps on going for 20+ ppg, then we gotta get it right, and soon!)

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20 PPG is a star, i.e. celestial, so we should call him "Cel ES tine".

Big C said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Big C said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Celestine was supposed to be a question mark for the rotation. Either that was way off, or our expected starters are REALLY good. Jc looked real nice tonight. Stroke was perfect, as always, but (as HoopDreams noted) he also showed aggressiveness and strength we hadn't seen so much of before. Crazy to see that kind of performance in first game in over a year. Very exciting and very happy for him.

---

Also of note: The announcer was pronouncing his name "Ce LES tine", instead of the previous "CEL es tine". I'm always curious how stuff like that works. Was the guy last night messing it up? Had they always had it wrong before and he never said anything? Did he change the pronunciation?

Also, he kicked azz.

---

I got the impression it's one of those situations where the player corrects previously (albeit long-standing) incorrect pronunciation. I know there have been other similar situations with Cal players, though I'm not recalling specific examples now.

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I noticed that, in the post-game presser, Madsen pronounced it "CEL es tine". Maybe the PA announcer messed up. Is he new? (Okay, this is a minor deal... unless he keeps on going for 20+ ppg, then we gotta get it right, and soon!)

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Yeah, it seemed as though Madsen didn't get the memo. The TV announcers were saying ce-LES-tine. They might've even made a comment about the change in pronunciation, but maybe I'm misremembering that. It's a tough change bc not only is that not how people have been pronouncing his name for several years now, but I've heard that name in other contexts and I've always heard it pronounced CE-les-tine. Oh well. Happy to get used to it for Jalen, especially if continues to play the way he did Monday night.

DYING FOR NEWS ON TYSON!!!!

drizzlybear said:

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DYING FOR NEWS ON TYSON!!!!

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Here you go: Correct pronunciation is like the English words "tie" and "son" together. Never "tee son".

Tyson Chicken also.

oskidunker said:

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Tyson Chicken also.

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even wearing Cal gear and a smile, I dare you to call him that to his face

Big C said:

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oskidunker said:

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Tyson Chicken also.

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even wearing Cal gear and a smile, I dare you to call him that to his face

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A friend couldnt remember his name so I told him to think of the Tyson Chicken Company. Nothing to do with him

Honesty it was a solid first game. The defense will improve because there are so many new faces and a new system and it just takes time to gel on that end compared to the offense where guys can just out-skill the opponent. We have room for growth on the offensive end but with reinforcements coming I think it should look better, there was a lot more movement of the players and the ball compared to Fox despite the overall assist numbers being low.

I wanna see what this team looks like after a few games of Tyson because he's the favorite to be our leading scorer and has played with Aimaq already and built chemistry. The Tommies were a pretty good first game test because they've played together and have experience in their system and with their teammates.

Obviously they're not going to be one of the best teams we play all year but they're still a tough first game; just look at the losses and close call openers by P5 teams (even highly ranked ones) against mid majors this year and historically. Is it a game that makes you say "we've arrived"? No, but it's a game that makes you feel that we're on the way.

And that more than anything is a complete breath of fresh air for this program and a reason for optimism. After the complete ****show of the Fox years we finally have a team that can win games and shows the promise of potential to build on, I'd say this is a good way to start the season and can't wait to see how they grow from here. Go Bears!

Bearly Clad said:

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I wanna see what this team looks like after a few games of Tyson because he's the favorite to be our leading scorer and has played with Aimaq already and built chemistry. The Tommies were a pretty good first game test because they've played together and have experience in their system and with their teammates.

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Best all-around player perhaps, but I doubt he leads the team in scoring.

I don't care who leads the team in scoring or even if we have one or two big scorers. All I want is for our team to score more than the opponents. That might be more likely if nobody can predict who will lead us in scoring on any given night.

Halftime: USC 47 CSU Bakersfield 23. We play the Roadrunners Monday night.

oskidunker said:

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Halftime: USC 47 CSU Bakersfield 23. We play the Cuonzokillers Monday night.

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fify

I'm sure we are all aware of the significance of this date in this place in history. We are going to fight a battle that was lost before most of you were born. This time, with God's help, its going to be different...

Quote from The Final Countdown, Kirk Douglas.