BearlyCareAnymore said:

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Which is why I think the donors and university need to push all their chips in on Madsen now and let him succeed or fail. If they are just going to incrementally improve support as results incrementally improve, they are going to hit a wall.

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Amen!

calumnus said:

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Strykur said:

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glutton said:

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BearlyCareAnymore said:

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Golden One said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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This game was the entire season in a nutshell, and I feel like we have the basketball version of Wilcox.

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Wilcox could only wish he could win 2/3 of his games like Madsen did this season.

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This is not a commentary on Madsen but a commentary on Cal and Cal fans and how we keep making the same mistakes.

Wilcox never won 2/3 of his games. He came very close in year 3.

Madsen has not won 2/3 of his games. He came very close in year 3.

After year 3, Wilcox had shown incremental improvement every year, went 8-5, and went 4-5 in conference.

After year 3, Madsen has shown incremental improvement every year, went 21-11, and went 9-9 in conference.

Madsen's year 3 is very slightly better than Wilcox's. I'd submit that we are in virtually exactly the same position with Madsen in Year 3 that we were in with Wilcox Year 3. I think most people have guarded optimism now and most people had guarded optimism after Year 3 of Wilcox. I think there is/was acknowledgment of progress. I think there is/was acknowledgement that we hadn't "arrived" where we want to be, and is/was some optimism that we are/were on the path to getting there.

I am in no way saying that Madsen is Wilcox. There have been many coaches who have had exactly this trajectory and have gone on to great success. And there have been many coaches who have gone on to, well, be Wilcox. Madsen is ahead of Bruce Snyder's trajectory and essentially at the same place Snyder was at in Year 4. I think we'd all be happy if Madsen had Snyder's Year 5. I don't think it is helpful to declare him Wilcox, or Snyder, or to anoint him an obvious success or an obvious failure.

What he is is a guy who has met reasonable expectations. He hasn't exceeded expectations. He hasn't proven he can be very successful. He has shown he can put a competent team on the floor. I have elsewhere said I'm not convinced he is good or bad, but I am convinced that he has earned the chance to see what he can do with reasonable NIL and other support from the university and university community.

My view of Wilcox is that I would have moved on from him after he showed regression in 2021. (he showed regression in 2020, but Covid year was a mess). My view is that Madsen has done enough to see more, but not enough to protect him from significant regression and if we were looking at something like 15-15, 6-12 next year I would move on.

However, when Wilcox did regress, we had extended him for the long term and were stuck. This came with a lot of Cal fans (who will never admit it now) indicating we were screwed and back to square one if Wilcox left.

Similarly, we have already extended Madsen for the long term and are probably not in a position to respond if things go south. Similarly, with even rumors that Madsen might be up for the ASU job, a lot of Cal fans indicated we would be screwed and back to square one if Madsen left.

We continue to make the same mistakes on the same time frames. We can sit here and say that Madsen is not Wilcox because we went through the last 6 years of Wilcox. We wouldn't have (and didn't) said that after year 3 of Wilcox.

I have hope for Madsen. He has not been extraordinary. I'm not convinced we have our guy. I'm not convinced we don't.

Madsen is not Wilcox. Whether he will meet or exceed, or heaven forbid fail to meet that standard is yet to be seen.

However, Cal is still Cal. If things unravel next year, we will be looking at 3 years of buyout and wondering how bad things have to be to pay it.

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The biggest difference that you seemto be ignoring is that Wilcox inherited a 5-7 team, while Madsen inherited a 3-29 team and had to basically start with nothing due to the NIL era. He has quickly made Cal competitive again.

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He has at least another season to prove something but Madsen took over the worst situation ever in P5 and has us trending upward (although taking longer than expected), next year will be big though

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As BCAM pointed out above, "trend" doesn't really matter in college basketball in 2026. He has had essentially three completely new teams each year. He built the team he built. To the extent it matters it is just his own growth. Last year we were a terrible three point shooting team, this year we were very good.
Overall, I really liked this year's team and if we had Petraitis, Dort, Yeanay all year, or Bell and Camden hadn't both had shooting slump's simultaneously, we win a few more and make the dance, which would have been huge.

We will see what team he assembles next year. Maybe with Bennett headed to ASU we can grab some St Mary's players?

However, given the contract extension Knowlton gave him, he will be our coach at least two more years. So there is not much reason to debate that question at this point.

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There are certainly scenarios where we could have been better this year, but I think overall this team overperformed. There are what ifs for everyone. I think if you ran 100 simulations with this team our results this year would come in about 20.

BearlyCareAnymore said:

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calumnus said:

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Strykur said:

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glutton said:

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BearlyCareAnymore said:

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Golden One said:

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bearsandgiants said:

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This game was the entire season in a nutshell, and I feel like we have the basketball version of Wilcox.

---

Wilcox could only wish he could win 2/3 of his games like Madsen did this season.

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This is not a commentary on Madsen but a commentary on Cal and Cal fans and how we keep making the same mistakes.

Wilcox never won 2/3 of his games. He came very close in year 3.

Madsen has not won 2/3 of his games. He came very close in year 3.

After year 3, Wilcox had shown incremental improvement every year, went 8-5, and went 4-5 in conference.

After year 3, Madsen has shown incremental improvement every year, went 21-11, and went 9-9 in conference.

Madsen's year 3 is very slightly better than Wilcox's. I'd submit that we are in virtually exactly the same position with Madsen in Year 3 that we were in with Wilcox Year 3. I think most people have guarded optimism now and most people had guarded optimism after Year 3 of Wilcox. I think there is/was acknowledgment of progress. I think there is/was acknowledgement that we hadn't "arrived" where we want to be, and is/was some optimism that we are/were on the path to getting there.

I am in no way saying that Madsen is Wilcox. There have been many coaches who have had exactly this trajectory and have gone on to great success. And there have been many coaches who have gone on to, well, be Wilcox. Madsen is ahead of Bruce Snyder's trajectory and essentially at the same place Snyder was at in Year 4. I think we'd all be happy if Madsen had Snyder's Year 5. I don't think it is helpful to declare him Wilcox, or Snyder, or to anoint him an obvious success or an obvious failure.

What he is is a guy who has met reasonable expectations. He hasn't exceeded expectations. He hasn't proven he can be very successful. He has shown he can put a competent team on the floor. I have elsewhere said I'm not convinced he is good or bad, but I am convinced that he has earned the chance to see what he can do with reasonable NIL and other support from the university and university community.

My view of Wilcox is that I would have moved on from him after he showed regression in 2021. (he showed regression in 2020, but Covid year was a mess). My view is that Madsen has done enough to see more, but not enough to protect him from significant regression and if we were looking at something like 15-15, 6-12 next year I would move on.

However, when Wilcox did regress, we had extended him for the long term and were stuck. This came with a lot of Cal fans (who will never admit it now) indicating we were screwed and back to square one if Wilcox left.

Similarly, we have already extended Madsen for the long term and are probably not in a position to respond if things go south. Similarly, with even rumors that Madsen might be up for the ASU job, a lot of Cal fans indicated we would be screwed and back to square one if Madsen left.

We continue to make the same mistakes on the same time frames. We can sit here and say that Madsen is not Wilcox because we went through the last 6 years of Wilcox. We wouldn't have (and didn't) said that after year 3 of Wilcox.

I have hope for Madsen. He has not been extraordinary. I'm not convinced we have our guy. I'm not convinced we don't.

Madsen is not Wilcox. Whether he will meet or exceed, or heaven forbid fail to meet that standard is yet to be seen.

However, Cal is still Cal. If things unravel next year, we will be looking at 3 years of buyout and wondering how bad things have to be to pay it.

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The biggest difference that you seemto be ignoring is that Wilcox inherited a 5-7 team, while Madsen inherited a 3-29 team and had to basically start with nothing due to the NIL era. He has quickly made Cal competitive again.

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He has at least another season to prove something but Madsen took over the worst situation ever in P5 and has us trending upward (although taking longer than expected), next year will be big though

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As BCAM pointed out above, "trend" doesn't really matter in college basketball in 2026. He has had essentially three completely new teams each year. He built the team he built. To the extent it matters it is just his own growth. Last year we were a terrible three point shooting team, this year we were very good.
Overall, I really liked this year's team and if we had Petraitis, Dort, Yeanay all year, or Bell and Camden hadn't both had shooting slump's simultaneously, we win a few more and make the dance, which would have been huge.

We will see what team he assembles next year. Maybe with Bennett headed to ASU we can grab some St Mary's players?

However, given the contract extension Knowlton gave him, he will be our coach at least two more years. So there is not much reason to debate that question at this point.

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There are certainly scenarios where we could have been better this year, but I think overall this team overperformed. There are what ifs for everyone. I think if you ran 100 simulations with this team our results this year would come in about 20.

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Clearly every team has what ifs, though I think with our lack of roster depth we had less margin for injury and shooting slumps.

What was nice about this team, which is generally true about three point shooting teams, is that when we have a good game we can hang with anyone. It gives us a punchers' chance even with weak interior defense. The problem was those games were not frequent enough. I don't think we were particularly lucky or unlucky, and so I essentially agree with your 20%. Most times we would have ended up exactly where we ended up: in the NIT.

However, if we played a stronger OOC schedule (not strong, but #200 instead of #325), and had a better NET, I think our chances would have been more like 50/50.

Bottom line is I would be VERY happy to have this team return next year for another shot. Right now I am feeling like the chances we are better are about the same as the chances we are worse. We will see who Madsen keeps and who he brings in.