sluggo said:
Big C said:
ducky23 said:
HearstMining said:
bearister said:
"Look I think madsen is great, the team has improved but holy Christ his late game management is atrocious."
That makes 4 Cal coaches in a row where the odds of winning a close game in the last two minutes greatly favor the Bears' opponent. Granted, Wyking Jones and Mark Fox may have only been in that situation once or twice.
*Coach needs to take Monty out for coffee or a beer once a week.
Heck, Madsen should contract with Monty $1000/week for twice-weekly one-hour zoom calls. One weekly meeting to discuss the previous game's results and one to game-plan for next week.
So I've had the day to think about this. Because I just dont understand why Madsen is making the late game decisions he is making. He's obviously very intelligent. He played for some amazing HOF coaches. He knows more about basketball than this entire board combined (and then some). So why does he keep making...lets call them "unconventional" decisions late in games?
This is my theory (and I could be 100% wrong, but its the only explanation I have).
If Monty were coaching that final minute, he would have micromanaged it to death. He would have had the exact personnel on the court that he wanted, he would have told his players exactly where to be on the court, it would have been completely orchestrated to EXACTLY how HE wanted it.
Madsen was a player, at a pretty high level, so I think he may coach from a player's perspective. I believe (and again I may be wrong), but I don't think he wants to micromanage. He doesn't want to sub offense for defense. He just wants to put HIS GUYS on the court and let them make decisions for themselves.
I think short term, I think its probably not super effective, because Monty wins that game. But I can see an argument where longterm, you get better buy in from your players and you know that your coach trusts you by allowing your players some leeway. Some freedom late in games.
That's all I've got. Cause the only other explanation I have for his late game decision making doesn't reflect too kindly on Madsen and I desperately want to believe in him
Great post; I had been thinking that exact thought myself: This must be an overall coaching/educational philosophy of Madsen's, to not micromanage and, rather, let the players figure it out for themselves. Wasn't it John Wooden who didn't do much coaching in the game, because that is what practice is for? (If it wasn't Wooden, I know it was somebody, dammit!)
The only thing about that is that Madsen spends most of the game on his feet, yelling stuff to the players... I assume he's yelling instructions, basically "micromanaging".
So now I'm not really sure what to think, except I'm glad we're better than we were last year.
Yes it was John Wooden. But with players so much better than anyone else, whatever strategy he used was going to work.
It is one of the classic BI posts where a Cal coach does something inexplicable but posters explain the logic behind it. It is like stars don't matter in recruiting posts, other teams win but with less class than Cal loses posts, and Cal is not even trying to win posts. Yes, but no.
Maybe, and maybe not. Most coaches of that era that I saw were not micromanaging games, not talking to players except in timeouts. Newell sometimes did not call timeouts, not because he wanted his players to figure it out themselves, but to needle the opposing coach. It sends a message to the opposing coach that his players are better prepared than the players of the opposing coach. It used to personally offend Wooden that Newell would not call a timeout, when Wooden felt Newell should call one. "What could he know that I don't know?" "What could Newell have up his sleeve?" It was a game of chess. Wooden always had better players than Newell, and in fact during the first half of Newell's career, Wooden used to beat Newell's teams at USF and Cal most of the time. However, the last four years of Newell's career before he retired, his Cal teams defeated Wooden's UCLA teams, eight straight games beginning with the last game in the 1957 season, and then 2 games in 1958, 2 games in 1959, and 3 games in 1960. During those four seasons, Newell's Cal teams would win 4 straight Conference Championships, have 2 Elite 8 finishes, one NCAA Runnerup finish, and one NCAA championship. Pete Newell and Cal, during those four years, OWNED JOHN WOODEN. And then Pete retired from coaching.
It would take four more years before John Wooden would win his very first NCAA Championship. And it would take several more years before Wooden would acknowledge that he had learned a lot about defense from Newell, and they became friends in the end. Not good friends, but friends, so the story goes.
SFCityBear
