HoopDreams said:
wow you guys are a tough crowd. guess there is nothing positive about our team or coaches
Hoops. First thing is, I appreciate you. Really. I do. It is clear you love Cal basketball no matter what. You like watching the guys play win or lose. Cal could lose the next 100 games and you will be there. At the end of every year, whether we go winless or win the tourney, you are going to come in with we'll get em next year analysis showing how close we were to doing better. That is awesome. Everyone needs that.
But everyone also needs a countering sober analysis of the situation. I don't think it is healthy after a 14-19. 6-14, 15th place finish in conference year for there not to be some people that are going to opine that no, we weren't all that close.
You have declared several times as fact that Madsen is a great developer of talent. You have opined that we were one or two free throws away from three more wins. You have opined that Steph Curry is a super elite ball handler (true), and that Jerome Randle "is close to his level in ball handling" (?????).
I'm sorry, but that last one is crazy time and can only come from the finger tips of someone who is carried away with their fandom. I loved and love Jerome Randle, but there is nothing in the basketball realm that he does close to the level of Steph Curry. Given that Curry is one of the greatest basketball players the universe has ever produced, I don't think that is an insult to Jerome Randle. Is Randle a very good ball handler? Yes. Is he a great developer of players. I don't know. Never seen him do it. Is your idea a bad one? Absolutely not.
Regarding the free throw issue, beyond my argument, I'm not really sure why you picked this as a point of emphasis. Cal was not really poor in free throw shooting. They were well above average. They were 8th in the conference. By contrast, they were last in FG%. Third to last in 3pt FG%. 2nd to last in both opponent FG% and opponent 3pt FG%. If Cal finished in the top 20 nationally in FT%, they would have made 2/3 of a free throw more per game.
But the biggest problem with your argument there is that we won't have the same team. Namely Wilkinson won't be on it. No Wilkinson far outweighs the impact of any marginal improvement in free throws. In our 2 overtime losses Wilkinson was our leading scorer, scoring 36 and 25. In our 3 point loss, he was our second leading scorer, scoring 14.
Regarding the statement as fact that Madsen is a great developer of talent, that is just not clear. My opinion is that he has not proven to be a great or good developer of talent. He has not proven to be a bad developer of talent.
You have pointed to Jaylon Tyson, Jeremiah Wilkinson, and Andrej Stojakovic as proof that he is a great developer of talent.
First of all, great talent development is shown over much of the roster. You can't make everyone better, but you should make most better. Just like one failure to develop does not prove poor development, one success does not prove good development. Players improve. (especially guys who have their roles increase as all did, and guys who move from high school to college as Wilkinson did)
For instance. Matt Bradley significantly improved Mark Fox's first year. Mark Fox sucks.
Beyond Tyson, there was very little individual improvement last year, Cone and Kennedy arguably took a step back.
You say in Tyson Madsen took a role player and developed him into a first round pick. Tyson was not a role player. He played 29 minutes a game and scored double figures on a team that had 5 good scoring options. He then moved to a team where he was the best scoring option on a team that had 2 competent scoring options. His effective FG% dropped from 56.5% to 51.8%. His 3 point percentage dropped from 40% to 36%. His 2pt FG% dropped from 53.8% to 50.9%. His assists and turnovers both went up significantly. The main thing that happened with Tyson was that his usage rate drastically increased. As I've said before, someone has to score points. (reminder, Don Coleman was our leading scorer a few years back). Tyson most definitely improved. I think you are drastically exaggerating that improvement by not factoring in that he went from a team full of competent scorers to a team bereft of competent scorers.
I'll really take issue with crediting Madsen for developing Wilkinson. In games 5-8, Wilkinson played big minutes. He averaged 20.5 points a game over that stretch. Slightly more than he averaged after being made a starter (even though he still played substantially fewer minutes in that 4 game stretch. If you take out the games where Wilkinson played fewer than 20 minutes, his scoring totals were pretty consistent. Wilkinson is who he was when he walked in the door with a little added improvement for having experience in the college game. Wilkinson's main issue was his coach took 19 games to realize his best player was riding pine half to 2/3 of the time.
Stojakovic is straight up increase in playing time and usage rate. His effective FG% is virtually the same (down a hundredth of a point). His 2 point percentage is up slightly. His three point percentage is down slightly. His assists and turnovers both doubled. His performance dropped against better competition. I don't see the development there.
Many, many people are of the opinion that our schemes on both sides of the floor are either straight up poor or a really bad match for our personnel. But bottom line is, our offense is terrible. Our defense is beyond terrible (see conference field goal percentages listed above).
We finished in 15th place. We had zero good wins. So, I'm sorry, but no, there was not much positive this year. I don't think that is actually being a tough crowd. I think that is honesty.
Honestly, IMO, last year's team once they got going was quite a bit better than this year's team. What I was waiting for with this year's team was seeing if the staff could do what they (reasonably) couldn't do last year keep it together and build. That was the only thing that was going to be an improvement over last year. Well, they couldn't. Wilkinson was the key piece to that. And they are losing supporting pieces as well.
Again, I really appreciate your positivity. But we can't all just say that next year is going to be better every year. A lot of us don't see that right now. It will be proven out next year either way, but until that happens, here we sit at 14-19, 6-14, 15th place. I'm afraid most of us are at "show me".