In my opinion, what Cal needs most is better defensive coaching. Here are some 2024 Cal defense stats, per game:

Points allowed........ 314th in NCAA Division One

Field Goals allowed .......296th

Field Goal Attempts allowed........290th

Field Goal Percentage allowed.......244th

2Pt Percentage allowed..........193rd

3Pt Percentage allowed.........314th

Shot Blocks..............234th


Defense is not rocket science. Players don't need great individual skills to play good defense. What players need most is aggressiveness, and a dogged determination not to let their man score, and not let him do anything else he wants to do. They need to gave great stamina to play long minutes hounding their opponent, with little reward, other than looking at a W on the scoreboard at the end of games. They need anticipation, but that comes with experience and studying his opponent. Footwork, slide steps, are all simple things to learn.

What Cal could most use, in my opinion, would be a good defensive assistant coach, to focus on teaching defensive techniques, and teaching different defensive strategies. Right now, Cal does not seem to have that, and they should think about hiring one.

3Cats4CAL said:

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So what are each of the current assistant coaches' responsibilities- none of them are assigned teaching defense?

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Maybe 4thGen can answer that. To be fair, this coaching staff was assembled quickly, and had to deal with teaching and coaching a bunch of players who were new to them. Madsen had Aimaq before, but I don't know about the others. I'm not advocating firing anyone from this staff. They had a successful season, in my mind, digging Cal out of a deep hole. But after another year or two, if we don't start seeing improvement in Cal's defense, Madsen might want to think about making changes in his staff to bring us better defense. The defense we have now is not acceptable, if we want to improve our chances to make the NCAA Tourney. Giving up 77 ppg is not acceptable. We need to cut that by 15-20 points. And cut it by 10-12 points right away. That would do it for me, anyway.

What I saw this season wrt defense.

Not horrible fundamentals, but lets call it sloppy
Some players (Aimaq) have physical limitations (extending to the perimeter, foot speed) that the scheme ignored
Team defense (spacing, switching, etc) improved dramatically during the season
SFCity's comment about aggressiveness is spot on. I call it defensive culture. It was only there in spurts.

Not sure a coaching change is needed, but my sense is that it is more a matter of emphasis. And that the staff was balancing a lot of issues with a major roster change. My guess is that defense was coached, the emphasis may have been there, but it may not have stuck as much as the staff would like.

In Ken Pom we were #121 in offense and #146 in defense.

Not horrible in either, relatively better offense, but plenty of room for improvement in both.
https://kenpom.com/

We will have almost a completely new starting 5 next year.

This season we showed we can play competent ball, which had been lacking for a half-decade.