If Mark Fox was still the coach, I believe he would take his ugly girlfriend analogy out of his trunk in the post game to describe this W.

How could we get out-rebounded 43 to 30? That's astounding!

sonofabear51 said:

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They got lucky. Very ugly end of 1st half and into the 2nd half. I'll take it, but there is room for improvement everywhere.

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Lotta whistles went our way, too.

sluggo said:

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I am just going to be positive.

The defense in the last 7 minutes was very good. Cal got into their faces and did not allow any three pointers. One key was stopping the nonsense trapping in the half court, but they also played very hard.

I also like how they took it to the basket late in the game to press their athletic advantage. I think they had a little hard luck on a lot of good shots late in the game.

Celestine hit the key shot of the game, and they mostly hit their late free throws. Winning is better than losing.

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All great points. I like how Tyson finally showed up at the end. Almost like he said "ok, fine, I guess I need to save us here" and he suddenly made a few great plays and breaks to the basket. I can't believe we were 3rd in the league in FT entering tonight. I feel like we've been bricking from the stripe the entire season, but apparently not. In light of that, we have to do a better job getting to the line. We came out with a chip on our shoulder in this game and it translated into a monumental start. But we didn't just step off the gas. We threw in the towel. It took blowing a MASSIVE lead to wake a couple key players up. That just can't happen. Madsen should know better. He is better. I don't get it, but he has to be more on top of this stuff.

BerkeleyBAT said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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Foxesque

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Remind me which Fox team started a game off 34-8. I missed that. Interestingly both Ken Pom and Torvik (another tempo based analytic site) called this one as a 73-69 Cal win. In the end, it was 71-67.

Second half was super ugly to be sure, but if you look at the stats, the only really ugly ones are FT shooting and rebounding. 19 assists on 26 shots is WAY above normal for us, which means for a lot of the game, the ball was moving well and guys were hitting open looks.

All in all, I hoped for better, and was planning to be thrilled with a blowout after the first half, but the result, in isolation, is about what the experts expected.

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I was talking about the viewing experience from up 26 until the time of that post.

Well four wins. Hardly wonderful, but one more than coach you know who got all last season. The rest is gravy, folks. (I hope there is some gravy!)

Back from the game. Usually I try my best to get on this site and express my observations of what I see in a somewhat intelligent way. I know I am nowhere near to being an expert but since this is a game that I played regularly through high school varsity basketball and since have followed for 49 years after that, usually I'm confident that I will have something reasonably informative to say.

This game? I got nothing. NOTHING. This was the ultimate Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde. Really hard to remember the last time a Cal team showed us both ends of the spectrum within 40 minutes. I can't figure this squad out.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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Back from the game. Usually I try my best to get on this site and express my observations of what I see in a somewhat intelligent way. I know I am nowhere near to being an expert but since this is a game that I played regularly through high school varsity basketball and since have followed for 49 years after that, usually I'm confident that I will have something reasonably informative to say.

This game? I got nothing. NOTHING. This was the ultimate Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde. Really hard to remember the last time a Cal team showed us both ends of the spectrum within 40 minutes. I can't figure this squad out.

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Agree totally. Very un enjoyable and stressful.i think the Arizona game will be the first game I will miss. Hate the Arizona fans and we have no chance. A wild guess would be they go at such a high level for 15 minutes they run out of gas. Either play reserve more or slow down.

Does anyone have any idea why Jaylon Tyson didn't start? Disciplinary reasons? Small injury? Shake things up?

I saw Tyson on the exercise bike when the game began, so I am confused on what happened.

75bear said:

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Does anyone have any idea why Jaylon Tyson didn't start? Disciplinary reasons? Small injury? Shake things up?

I saw Tyson on the exercise bike when the game began, so I am confused on what happened.

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Madsen was asked this on the post game but didnt answer the question

oskidunker said:

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75bear said:

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Does anyone have any idea why Jaylon Tyson didn't start? Disciplinary reasons? Small injury? Shake things up?

I saw Tyson on the exercise bike when the game began, so I am confused on what happened.

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Madsen was asked this on the post game but didnt answer the question

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Yeah, I saw that. I guess it's a beautiful mystery.

bearsandgiants said:

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We literally have ONE guy who can shoot, and he's sometimes cold. lol. What a bonanza.

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I don't understand this. We have A LOT of guys who can shoot.

We had 5 guys in double figures against #25 Ole Miss. Prior to that, when is the last time Cal had 5 players in double figures? We know had to be more than 6 years ago.

lthe season is over before started

put askew in and finaly cel w/ keonte...

SFCityBear said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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We literally have ONE guy who can shoot, and he's sometimes cold. lol. What a bonanza.

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I don't understand this. We have A LOT of guys who can shoot.

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Yes, we somehow go cold at inopportune times, but we have shooters (Cone, Tyson, Celestine, Newell, Brown, Askew, Larson) and scorers where we have multiple guys that score in double digits every game. Our problem doesn't seem to be offense. It's defense and rebounding (it was turnovers but we have gotten better protecting the ball).

KoreAmBear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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We literally have ONE guy who can shoot, and he's sometimes cold. lol. What a bonanza.

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I don't understand this. We have A LOT of guys who can shoot.

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Yes, we somehow go cold at inopportune times, but we have shooters (Cone, Tyson, Celestine, Newell, Brown, Askew, Larson) and scorers where we have multiple guys that score in double digits every game. Our problem doesn't seem to be offense. It's defense and rebounding (it was turnovers but we have gotten better protecting the ball).

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Defense and intensity on this team comes and goes.
My opinion on "shooters", specifically guys that can shoot consistently from outside:
Cone, Celestine, Brown, Tyson
Newell, Askew, Larson, no. Not considering Aimaq because he's regarded as a scorer and only takes a shot from the outside as a last resort. No slam on Newell, I happen to think he's more of an insider player that ends up taking a higher percentage of outside shots than he should as a result of the half court offense we run.

I agree that Newell, Larson and Askew aren't exactly shooters but can make a shot in the flow of the offense. They can score though. I think the main point for me is that we do have enough scoring spread out in different ways, as opposed to the Don Coleman (or even the Matt Bradley) hero ball days.

bearister said:

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We had 5 guys in double figures against #25 Ole Miss. Prior to that, when is the last time Cal had 5 players in double figures? We know had to be more than 6 years ago.

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According to ChatGPT, the last time was on November 26, 2018 in a 78-66 win over Santa Clara.

Juhwan-Harris Dyson 15
Matt Bradley 15
Paris Austin 13
Andre Kelly 13
Justice Sueing 11

Mary Hopkin - Those Were The Days - 1968 - YouTube


GO BEARS!!!

Wow, I didn't know that ChatGPT did that type of research. Thanks!

That find is no surprise because those were 5 good players…who ended up being squandered by a broken rudder.

calbearinamaze said:

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bearister said:

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We had 5 guys in double figures against #25 Ole Miss. Prior to that, when is the last time Cal had 5 players in double figures? We know had to be more than 6 years ago.

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According to ChatGPT, the last time was on November 26, 2018 in a 78-66 win over Santa Clara.

Juhwan-Harris Dyson 15
Matt Bradley 15
Paris Austin 13
Andre Kelly 13
Justice Sueing 11

Mary Hopkin - Those Were The Days - 1968 - YouTube


GO BEARS!!!

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As I said in another thread, this team is a lot like that Wyking Jones team. A lot of talent on offense with no true facilitator and some liabilities on defense that are exacerbated by the coach pushing tempo. While this years' record is worse so far, I am confident we will see improvement as the season continues.

I can see some similarities to the second year WJ team. I remain cautiously optimistic because even at this point this team has much more experience than that team had.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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I can see some similarities to the second year WJ team. I remain cautiously optimistic because even at this point this team has much more experience than that team had.

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Agreed. That was a a VERY young team, filled with freshman and some sophomore talent (that Fox chased off, initially then eventually). This is a veteran team, even if only playing together for the first time.