This team is a complete unknown. From those in the know or have seen the team practice. … do we have a realistic chance to be im the top half of the ACC?

Fucla

barsad said:

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One way to answer this thread's question is just to look at the ACC median team from last year, Virginia Tech.
19-15 overall record, quality wins against KenPom top 50s NC State and Wake Forest, a few bad losses to the likes of Notre Dame and Miami (twice). Early exits in both ACC and NIT tourneys. In short, kind of a meh team, but STILL ranked 58th on KenPom, so a Madness bubble team. That compares to No. 121 for Cal last year. I also did the sad exercise to find out what year it was when Cal fared 58th or better on KenPom…. wait for it … yeah, it was 2016, miss you Jaylen, Ivan and Jabari.
Based on the Hokies comparison I am setting my sights lower than the median ACC team, but I know that won't stop someone from creating the new thread, "Do we have a chance at March Madness?" around January with a 6-9 record.
I trust in Madsen, too, I just want fans to track realistic improvement year over year… otherwise you get the situation we had in the Football forums where one bad game = teeth gnashing and calling for Wilcox's head.

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One or two bad games is forgiven in basketball since there are 3 times the number of games2 loses in football,probably means you dont make the playoffs.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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All I know is I learned my lesson last year about expectations from a team, (even labeled with talent), that features basically an entire squad of players that have never played together before.

First of all, it's always hard to know if the talent is overrated, underrated, or rated correctly. And if we do have some better than average players, last year told us better than anything that how quick the team comes together - both offensively and defensively, is a crapshoot. Thus, for my own sanity, I am keeping expectations cautiously low.

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Whoops. Wrong board.

sluggo said:

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I think of Cal being on a two year plan. This year will not be very good. They lack scoring. However, almost everyone comes back. So, I am hoping that by next year at least one player, most likely Stojakovic or Wilkinson, becomes a solid scorer. Add Jovani Ruff, who is an excellent recruit with a funky shot (but it goes in). Then add one strong player from the portal, and the team could be competitive.

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I'll go along with that. Although it seems overly simplistic, we do know that last year was a one year plan, and barring an NIL collapse, at least a few of these guys will be back next year.

sluggo said:

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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sluggo said:

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I think of Cal being on a two year plan. This year will not be very good. They lack scoring. However, almost everyone comes back. So, I am hoping that by next year at least one player, most likely Stojakovic or Wilkinson, becomes a solid scorer. Add Jovani Ruff, who is an excellent recruit with a funky shot (but it goes in). Then add one strong player from the portal, and the team could be competitive.

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I'll go along with that. Although it seems overly simplistic, we do know that last year was a one year plan, and barring an NIL collapse, at least a few of these guys will be back next year.

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I could say more about the team. Good depth, average size, below average shooting, average athleticism, average coaching. Other than depth, I don't see any aspect of the team that is better than average for the conference. Should win some out of conference but in conference will be a struggle. Maybe all that depth will help when teams travel over 2000 miles to Haas. I do believe success next year will be very closely related to developing scorers. Sometimes the world is simple.

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Unfortunately, that sounds about right. I'm hoping the athleticism is a bit better than average, but we'll see. I am also concerned about a few early upset losses that always seem to occur with teams that have a lot of new players.

barsad said:

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One way to answer this thread's question is just to look at the ACC median team from last year, Virginia Tech.
19-15 overall record, quality wins against KenPom top 50s NC State and Wake Forest, a few bad losses to the likes of Notre Dame and Miami (twice). Early exits in both ACC and NIT tourneys. In short, kind of a meh team, but STILL ranked 58th on KenPom, so a Madness bubble team. That compares to No. 121 for Cal last year. I also did the sad exercise to find out what year it was when Cal fared 58th or better on KenPom…. wait for it … yeah, it was 2016, miss you Jaylen, Ivan and Jabari.
Based on the Hokies comparison I am setting my sights lower than the median ACC team, but I know that won't stop someone from creating the new thread, "Do we have a chance at March Madness?" around January with a 6-9 record.
I trust in Madsen, too, I just want fans to track realistic improvement year over year… otherwise you get the situation we had in the Football forums where one bad game = teeth gnashing and calling for Wilcox's head.

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Coaches don't get bad games after 8 years of sub .500. Very much sub .500 against comparable competition. It's just that simple. Madsen is still in the grace period.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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I know we're all Cal fans, I get it. But I am humbly requesting that we leave all comments and comparisons to J Wilcox alone, that's all on the football board. If we're going to use a measuring stick for Madsen, keep it in the sport of basketball, i.e. other basketball coaches. Although Wilcox' abilities are relevant to us as Cal fans, it still has no relevance to Cal basketball.

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I've edited my comment. How's that?

Thanks for editing, but now we can move forward.
Between all new players, and a brand new conference, I feel like this season is completely impossible to predict. At least we're all in this together.

Non-conference comparisons: this team is deeper and more athletic than last year's team. Moreover, I expect much better guard play, and hopefully less injuries. The injuries and lack of depth really impacted last year's early play. I expect that this year's team will do much better. The schedule seem about the same as last year, though I have no idea really how good some of the teams on the schedule are and even the couple power conference teams are somewhat unknown due to personnel changes, etc. (e..g, USC). I got 8 possible wins.

Conference Comparisons: Cal got healthier last year and was somewhat lower middle tier (9-11) in terms of Pac. This conference is a whole lot better. There is some advantage that opponents have to travel so far for home games, which of course works the other way when the team goes back East. Basketball is a lot more impacted than football. But in going through the schedule, I came-up with about 8 possible wins, most of them at home, and beating Furd both times.

This admittedly is early, and judging most team by how good they were last year. Best case I have 16-15 and lower middle tier in conference. IF I had to put money down I would say 12-19. This isn't a bottom dweller team, but it is a team that will struggle in a tough conference.

This guy thinks we're under rated in the ACC preseason rankings. He sees good things ahead for Madsen.

"Second-year coach Mark Madsen is building something special in Berkeley and Stanford transfer Andrej Stojakovic could be the next breakout star."

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/acc-predicted-order-of-finish-2024-25-virginia-nc-state-overrated-louisville-underrated-in-preseason-poll/

sluggo said:

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Cal needs to add difference makers. I think Ruff could be one, but he is not coming until next year.

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Difference makerS plural is the key there… Cal often has one difference maker (Tyson), or in a good year two (Rabb-Brown). Yet they never seem to achieve that much success because one or two guys don't make a top tier team. In retrospect even in 2015, arguably the best Cal squad in the last 20 years, we underachieved with the talent we had (three future NBA guys).
So I agree there's mid-tier ACC talent on paper for this season, but until we see the minimum two difference makers arise with a strong supporting cast, let's not put the burden of a March Madness appearance on these guys yet.

I guess we have different viewpoints on what a successful season is. Getting beat by 11 points by a 13-seed (we were a 4 seed, not a 6) that had never won a March Madness game doesn't qualify as success for me, no matter what the excuses are. They dropped their 2nd round game to Utah in the Pac-12 tourney, also a disappointment.
We can say, "Great job on the regular season guys," and have some good memories of that season, but some kind of postseason success has to be there for a program to progress. I blame the coaching staff, not the players, for that debacle. For God's sake, they had a guy who was going to be an NBA Finals MVP on the floor, and he had 4 points on 1-6 shooting against an inferior team!
Anyway, my original point was, keep our expectations for this roster somewhere between reasonable and hopeful.

Like so many things in sports, success can have a fluid definition, depending on a variety of factors. A team can establish a standard of success ( win totals, consecutive post season appearances, post season victories, etc.). But we don't really have that in our DNA.

So we are left with success in the moment. Football is a growing, soon to be raging dumpster fire. Success there is .500 and lose a random minor bowl.

Basketball success isn't even that good. I would consider success to be winning a first round ACC Tournament game, and an invite to one of the consolation post season tournaments.

That's it. A game or three above .500 at best. The big tell will be how the team evolves as they gain more game time with each other.

[url=https://ibb.co/zF8gFZk][/url]

We might beat Bakersfield

We definitely should beat Bakersfield. Maybe one way to measure success is one month at a time -- if the team beats the should-beats and are competitive with both the maybe-beats and a few not-a-chance opponents (Duke/NC), then that's success for me. So take November: 7 games total, 3 should-beats, 4 maybe-beats (CSUB, Poly and Mercyhurst as the should-beats -- on the fence on where Sac State falls).
Give me a 4-3 record and we're on the road to success.

As an X-factor on success I'm encouraged by something BJ Omot said in his Meet the Bears YouTube (nice to get a few personal details on these guys). He said he already had connections to the guys on the squad and that they were "family." That's the kind of thing that translates to roster chemistry, good teamwork and hot shooting streaks on the floor. Go Bears!