I have to say this thread has gotten self indulgent and frankly way divorced from reality.
1) When were those golden days of yore?Our best performance in since Newell was with a 2 and done kid (pun intendend) who has been off and on in his relationship with the university and who has never returned for his degree. Our second best (regular season record) performance was with a one and done and a 2 and done. Now both kids have had a good relationship with the university but I am not sure either has actually walked yet. Now I LIKE both those teams but to say that they were full of 4 year seniors who graduated is some myth.
Indeed, Cal BB has been generally "meh". It never reached the comparative level of the best tedford years. It has failed to put a graduating senior into the NBA as has MANY blue bloods. Except for the monster class it never really has won many head to head recruiting battles. Do you really pin for the days of losing to UCLA 60 straight games and finishing 9 out of 12 in the conference or the depths that fox and jones took the program?
2) Other teams are retaining players, we are just cheap as ****.Look at Illinois. Duke. Michigan State. Those teams ARE retaining guys for 2+ years. But Cal 1) refuses to impose a student fee, 2) Has taken 3 decades to catch up with EVERY OTHER p4 and build a practice facility 3) Has no institutional structure (contrast with football) to engage major donors in BB and doesn't do a thousand other things that schools who need to care do.
Look, I am not saying we SHOULD do those things but the idea that NIL is a hellscape just isn't true. It is a hellscape for CAL because of its own choices (see below)
3) And it probably STILL is the best chance to compete.There are players that care about college education. But with the advent of the NBA rule regarding 19 year olds Cal was ALWAYS at a disadvantage because most kids that can help you win do not care more aabout a 4 year degree than making generational transformative wealth in the NBA. And that system was unethical in the extreme. There were NUMEROUS locks for the first round of the NBA that got hurt or broke down in college. They never would get paid. Ivan Rabb - looking at you. And as this board *****ed and *****ed, we just were not set up to do that.
And it was CLEAR that you needed one and dones. Coach K tried. Even HE couldn't avoid that and started to recruit them. Do you think you are somehow smarter than the smartest coach of our time? Of course not. If he got that talent matters so should you.
4) But really this thread pisses me off because I have been on a ****ING island.Look, I am sympathetic to some of your arguments. I actually think it is structural - that a large public land grant university that is highly selective AND under pressure to take in more in state kids doesn't need big time ICA. Indeed, it hurts it to an extent as if we really started to win Sacto will get pissed about acceptance rate dropping even more. It is also the case that the fundrraising argument by team relevance is hogwash because numerous UCs do fine without it - because they have adapted.
But when I made that argument - to the point of getting near banned and now blocked by SB where the **** where ANY of you? Circkets. You want to ***** about the status quo but not back it up. Now I readily admit a bit of puckish troll. I also will never concede an argument of really BAD counterpoints not grounded in fact. But irrespective of that, very very few others wanted to take on the whales. So you ***** in this thread but won't stand up to where the real juice is.
And it IS real juice. My biggest fear is that team relevance will not let this go. That when realignment comes along and Cal is not picked (I give that about 70%) those people will personally lobby the chancellor and president for membership in the P12 because at least we COULD go to the playoffs. That will increase the deficit, further make ICA irrelevant to current undergrads and further divorce Cal from what it COULD do - drop down and compete with the other UCs and still have a shot at the BB tournament and then play local football with teams where current undergrads have high school friends and actually would go to the game.
So enjoy this thread. Sorry for the rant. But really I don't know why you are complaining about NIL because there was no golden age - just one in which we went 7 and 11 in the old Pac 12 and our failure in that world is not because of the world but because of choices Cal is making each and every day.
PS. It actually could be worse. We will get picked for a reduced share OR under strings (as does every other professional league) of minimum standards of investment and capital expenditure. Thus the deficit balloons even more even as the students show each and every day they don't really care. And if ICA isn't for THEM then it is for the hobbyists. And that really sucks.
Take care of your Chicken
