calumnus said:

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HearstMining said:

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Knezevic had a couple of things going for him:

• He was from Serbia at a time when they had/has a reputation for producing good basketball players
• He was athletic.

Unfortunately, he was a lousy basketball player at the major college level. Cal has had several good athletes over the years who just weren't very good basketball players, Sam Alajiki being a prime example. Imagine Alajiki as a tight end! Too bad he couldn't shoot, was just a so-so rebounder, and played with a bunch of other so-so players. A good team might have a guy like that as their #9 player, but on talent-starved Cal, he's in the rotation, of not starting.

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He was also a lefty and very good at driving left. However, once teams scouted him it became obvious he could not dribble right and could not shoot, he had little going for him other than being taller than Randle.

While I was down on Knezevich I was super high on Randle and could not see why others were not also.

But what was super crazy was that Braun spent much of that season playing Randle and Knezevich at the same time, in the same backcourt THAT made ZERO sense. That team had front line players Hardin, Anderson, Jordan Wilkes, Harper Kamp, Jamal Boykin but Braun often went small with a starting lineup of Randle, Knezevic, Christopher, Vierniesal, Anderson and finished second to last in conference and got fired.

We never saw the lineup I wanted: Randle, Christoper, Boykin, Anderson, Hardin.

Knezevic barely played for Monty.

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to be fair, that was an absolutely loaded conference. A team with a losing conference record made the tournament. 3 of the top 5 picks in that draft (and 6 of the top 21) were from the conference. That didn't include a future NBA MVP.

The team that finished directly ahead of Cal had 4 NBA players. The team direct ahead of them was Arizona with 3 NBA players and a bunch of other talent. Ahead of them was James Harden's ASU team.

Monty was a better coach than Braun. Absolutely. He's also in the college basketball Hall of Fame so he's a better coach than most coaches. Braun was not an amazing coach but I'd love to have Braun level results at this point.

barsad said:

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The Bulldog! There's a reason that was Randle's nickname, and it wasn't just his short stature. He had tenacity and confidence (maybe too much), and those are two things I haven't seen on the Cal hardwood in many years.

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Matt Bradley?

barsad said:

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For 3 years, yes.
In my book you lose all your tenacity points when you desert your team, I don't care how bad your coach is. Tenacious means seeing your teammates through 4 years, not just your style of play.

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Your argument might have a leg to stand on if the coach in question wasn't Mark Fox. This is like saying you shouldn't switch jobs if you have a crappy boss because you'd be deserting your coworkers. Nobody believes that.