It's hard to believe that after the strong start up against the Oregon schools, and the Zona win, we are left out of the dance.

And, freaking Stanfurd gets in.

This one hurts.

After football season, and now this... 2013-14 can kiss my a$$!

SonomaBear;842293492 said:

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It's hard to believe that after the strong start up against the Oregon schools, and the Zona win, we are left out of the dance.

And, freaking Stanfurd gets in.

This one hurts.

After football season, and now this. 2013-14 can kiss my a$$

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This was probably the most disappointing season for me since 03-04, which had its own "Monster" class (TBH, that class actually was a "Monster class" compared to this one). Let's hope things turn out better for this crew. At this point I don't want to think about the future of this program quite yet. Lots and lots of question marks. I expected a lot better this season, but for some reason I'm not terribly surprised by how it turned out.

I'm in the same boat. My least favorite team in the last 10 years probably. This team just doesn't play hard all the time and plays with such little emotion. Such clear lack of chemistry with this team and I just can't quite figure out why.

I think part of the problem stems from lack of clear roles, particularly at the 2 guard. One game Matthews would start but the following game he would only play 8 mins off the bench. One game Singer plays the last 10 mins in crunch time only to not play at all the next two games. Same goes for Bird and Kreklow. This led to players seemingly competing with each other for minutes rather than playing together. I have no facts or quotes to really back up my theory; rather, it's just my perception after watching this team and past Monty teams.

seattlebear02;842293501 said:

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I'm in the same boat. My least favorite team in the last 10 years probably. This team just doesn't play hard all the time and plays with such little emotion. Such clear lack of chemistry with this team and I just can't quite figure out why.

I think part of the problem stems from lack of clear roles, particularly at the 2 guard. One game Matthews would start but the following game he would only play 8 mins off the bench. One game Singer plays the last 10 mins in crunch time only to not play at all the next two games. Same goes for Bird and Kreklow. This led to players seemingly competing with each other for minutes rather than playing together. I have no facts or quotes to really back up my theory; rather, it's just my perception after watching this team and past Monty teams.

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I saw this, too. But, hard to blame Monty, at least on this issue. He gave guys chances, but aside from the two great games from Matthews no one stepped up and made plays. There were so many easy to make-able shots created by the offense that were missed. It was indeed a hard team, and hard season to watch.

seattlebear02;842293501 said:

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I'm in the same boat. My least favorite team in the last 10 years probably. This team just doesn't play hard all the time and plays with such little emotion. Such clear lack of chemistry with this team and I just can't quite figure out why.

I think part of the problem stems from lack of clear roles, particularly at the 2 guard. One game Matthews would start but the following game he would only play 8 mins off the bench. One game Singer plays the last 10 mins in crunch time only to not play at all the next two games. Same goes for Bird and Kreklow. This led to players seemingly competing with each other for minutes rather than playing together. I have no facts or quotes to really back up my theory; rather, it's just my perception after watching this team and past Monty teams.

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Yup. It was just kind of weird. Guys were either confused or didn't understand what their roles were.

I would add that I do blame Monty and the staff for the team not competing harder night in and night out, regardless of what seemed to me like a lack of talent at the wing positions.

Least favorite Cal team in recent memory. There have been some bad teams that play poorly, as expected. But this team that has the ability to beat Arizona, and hung w Syracuse the whole game without Solomon - starts 5-0 in conference play then just falls apart at the end.

Senior PG and Senior C...highly touted rookie class. Team played with no sense of urgency or emotion. In a sense I'm glad that we did not squeak into the Tourney - Cobbs & Solomon are gone, but the rest of these guys need to realize that the NCAAs are not a birthright, you lose focus and you will be on the outside looking in.

Silver lining is that this team could actually be hungry come fall and might actually look like they want it.

SonomaBear;842293508 said:

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I would add that I do blame Monty and the staff for the team not competing harder night in and night out, regardless of what seemed to me like a lack of talent at the wing positions.

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I don't think we lack "talent" on the wing. It was actually our deepest spot. Wallace improved (though I'll be worried if he's our leading scorer next season) and JM had some moments and a great game at Oregon. And obviously, the injuries to Bird and Kreklow slowed them down and Bird in particular looked nothing like he did earlier in the season. Hopefully they'll prove me right next season.

SonomaBear;842293504 said:

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I saw this, too. But, hard to blame Monty, at least on this issue. He gave guys chances, but aside from the two great games from Matthews no one stepped up and made plays. There were so many easy to make-able shots created by the offense that were missed. It was indeed a hard team, and hard season to watch.

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FWIW, Mathews was our high scorer in 4 games:
@UCSB (22)
@Oregon (32)
@UCLA (18)
UCLA (16)

I think the injuries and then poor play when they came back of Bird and Kreklow really hurt us. There was a big difference in their play (especially 3pt shooting) before and after. Without 3pt shooting teams were able to take away our inside scoring--they collapsed on Solomon and Kravish moved away from the basket. I think Monty should have been more willing to play Powers, our best shooter. As for his/our defense, we went on a run last year when we switched to zone at the end of the season. I think that would fit well with our personnel (good length and smarts, not necessarily good strength/quickness--see Kravish, Kreklow, Solomon, Powers, Wallace, Singer, Rooks, Behrens and Mathews).

You appear to be consumed by Cal Athletics at work, even when the basketball team has failed to make the NCAA tournament and the football team finishes 1-11.

Failure to keep your focus on your job during work hours with too much time spent on the internet on non-work related issues. I don't see the fire or the commitment. Maybe you are unclear on your role here at the office. At first, one would think it's a failure of management, but for goodness sake, take some responsibility for your half-hearted effort and get to work.

I did not enjoy this team very much. They played "ugly" basketball and lacked effort and emotion. The staff lacked creativity, in my opinion. Even without Crabbe I expected it to be a tourney team. It had a senior point guard and a senior center. Throw in experienced guys like Kravish, Kreklow, and Wallace and the team should have had the composure to play well down the stretch. In today's college basketball that is a veteran team. I think there must be some behind the scenes chemistry issues. Something was off with this group for a long stretch. Monty said they seemed mad at each other and that they stopped listening to him. Laser tag is desperation time. Monty as well said over and over again they didn't play hard. Some bad reviews from the coach. Next year is going to be very rough, in my opinion.

johtwe1;842293551 said:

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You appear to be consumed by Cal Athletics at work, even when the basketball team has failed to make the NCAA tournament and the football team finishes 1-11.

Failure to keep your focus on your job during work hours with too much time spent on the internet on non-work related issues. I don't see the fire or the commitment. Maybe you are unclear on your role here at the office. At first, one would think it's a failure of management, but for goodness sake, take some responsibility for your half-hearted effort and get to work.

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Office outing for laser tag????

I, too, found this a "least favorite" team, but what's sad is that along with most posters, I was saying that this was my MOST favorite team after the 5-0 start in the P12. I loved the way they competed against Syracuse, how they fought Stanford, etc., etc. In a million years, I never expected that they would succumb to a lack of effort; lose some games, sure, but not that they'd fail to compete hard.

I don't think Monty is a great motivator. He's fine on X and O's and the fundamentals of basketball. But I don't see any players running through a brick wall for him. I remember early in the season Cobbs was playing as a tv announcer and Monty who was caught off guard was embarrassed by the whole thing. A younger coach would have played along with what was going on, not Monty. I think Monty is a grandfather figure, not a father to his players. Playing basketball should be fun, I don't see the players having fun. I don't see the Bears getting past the second round of the NIT either.

johtwe1;842293551 said:

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You appear to be consumed by Cal Athletics at work, even when the basketball team has failed to make the NCAA tournament and the football team finishes 1-11.

Failure to keep your focus on your job during work hours with too much time spent on the internet on non-work related issues. I don't see the fire or the commitment. Maybe you are unclear on your role here at the office. At first, one would think it's a failure of management, but for goodness sake, take some responsibility for your half-hearted effort and get to work.

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A+

That's what I thought too tsuba, but I watched so many games where the wings had trouble making plays and hitting wide open shots that were created by Cobbs and the offense.

Maybe we got spoiled a bit with Crabbe last year.

SonomaBear;842293508 said:

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I would add that I do blame Monty and the staff for the team not competing harder night in and night out, regardless of what seemed to me like a lack of talent at the wing positions.

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Ridiculous. It has been said, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Apropos.

:Monty

I wasn't a rah rah type of coach either when I was coaching HS football. RAH rah is a waste of energy. Personally, I think Monty tries to develop a hard hat approach. Bring your lunch pale and get to work. There is no right answer. But Montys style is no different than Izzo's.

No question this was a disappointing team, especially after starting 5-0 in the Pac-12 but this team was a letdown the whole season, getting blown away by Dayton, losing big at Creighton, losing at UCSB. I think the problem is Monty has to start recruiting better role players and kids who have no pro aspirations. I looked at Virginia yesterday and they don't have freakish athletes or a bunch of Top 100 players but they have a slew of role players who know their role and play with savvy.

The only players we had like that recently are Harper Kamp and Robert Thurman. You see other BCS teams and they have dudes who look older, their bodies look like they hit the weight room, they're rugged college players, they know how to play, commit hard fouls, etc. We respond with Kreklow, who still looks lost at times or Rooks or Matthews, who will be a solid player by the time he's done. Maybe we need to hit the JC ranks but Monty definitely needs to shake up the roster if they are to compete next season. I was told by a Pac-12 coach once that your recruit a bunch of good players to compete for limited spots and he who wins out gets playing time and players transferring is part of the deal. It seems like Monty needs to adjusts how he recruits and get some of these guys who want to compete and win and are willing to do the little things. This team was far from that level.

UrsaMajor;842293571 said:

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I, too, found this a "least favorite" team, but what's sad is that along with most posters, I was saying that this was my MOST favorite team after the 5-0 start in the P12. I loved the way they competed against Syracuse, how they fought Stanford, etc., etc. In a million years, I never expected that they would succumb to a lack of effort; lose some games, sure, but not that they'd fail to compete hard.

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That's the thing. A season with some definite highlights, most notably the Arizona game, one of the great wins of Cal history. Seeing the individual heart of some players, most notably Cobbs, was also cool. And we had a winning conference record. But it was the ultimate "failure" of the teamto take that and to finish strongly that disappointed.

gwashburn14;842293620 said:

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No question this was a disappointing team, especially after starting 5-0 in the Pac-12 but this team was a letdown the whole season, getting blown away by Dayton, losing big at Creighton, losing at UCSB. I think the problem is Monty has to start recruiting better role players and kids who have no pro aspirations. I looked at Virginia yesterday and they don't have freakish athletes or a bunch of Top 100 players but they have a slew of role players who know their role and play with savvy.

The only players we had like that recently are Harper Kamp and Robert Thurman. You see other BCS teams and they have dudes who look older, their bodies look like they hit the weight room, they're rugged college players, they know how to play, commit hard fouls, etc. We respond with Kreklow, who still looks lost at times or Rooks or Matthews, who will be a solid player by the time he's done. Maybe we need to hit the JC ranks but Monty definitely needs to shake up the roster if they are to compete next season. I was told by a Pac-12 coach once that your recruit a bunch of good players to compete for limited spots and he who wins out gets playing time and players transferring is part of the deal. It seems like Monty needs to adjusts how he recruits and get some of these guys who want to compete and win and are willing to do the little things. This team was far from that level.

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It is easy to point to a team like Virginia this year and say that we should be doing it like them. I would argue we are doing it like them. They hadn't won a conference championship in how many years? Sounds very much like the kind of success that Cal has had. Virginia is not an example for sustained successs.

MinotStateBeav;842293605 said:

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I wasn't a rah rah type of coach either when I was coaching HS football. RAH rah is a waste of energy. Personally, I think Monty tries to develop a hard hat approach. Bring your lunch pale and get to work. There is no right answer. But Montys style is no different than Izzo's.

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Actually, Izzo can be a really fiery guy at times. He's known as a great motivator. He even described himself as a "rah rah" kind of coach in an interview a while back.

gwashburn14;842293620 said:

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No question this was a disappointing team, especially after starting 5-0 in the Pac-12 but this team was a letdown the whole season, getting blown away by Dayton, losing big at Creighton, losing at UCSB. I think the problem is Monty has to start recruiting better role players and kids who have no pro aspirations. I looked at Virginia yesterday and they don't have freakish athletes or a bunch of Top 100 players but they have a slew of role players who know their role and play with savvy.

The only players we had like that recently are Harper Kamp and Robert Thurman. You see other BCS teams and they have dudes who look older, their bodies look like they hit the weight room, they're rugged college players, they know how to play, commit hard fouls, etc. We respond with Kreklow, who still looks lost at times or Rooks or Matthews, who will be a solid player by the time he's done. Maybe we need to hit the JC ranks but Monty definitely needs to shake up the roster if they are to compete next season. I was told by a Pac-12 coach once that your recruit a bunch of good players to compete for limited spots and he who wins out gets playing time and players transferring is part of the deal. It seems like Monty needs to adjusts how he recruits and get some of these guys who want to compete and win and are willing to do the little things. This team was far from that level.

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Virginia is a nice story, but it will be interesting to see if they can sustain that. They have seniors this season, which is a factor in that system. That doesn't happen every season, though. I'm very impressed with what Michigan has done in winning the Big Ten even after losing Burke to the Draft and McGary to injury.

Jabari Bird, especially after his injury, was a massive disappointment this season. He didn't even make Honorable Mention All-Freshman team in the conference, and he wouldn't have deserved it had he been so recognized.

He didn't come close to matching Allen Crabbe's production or impact when Allen Crabbe was a freshman.

I hope Jabari doesn't turn into the next D.J. Seeley, a highly rated recruit who didn't have any impact at Cal.

seattlebear02;842293501 said:

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I'm in the same boat. My least favorite team in the last 10 years probably. This team just doesn't play hard all the time and plays with such little emotion. Such clear lack of chemistry with this team and I just can't quite figure out why.

I think part of the problem stems from lack of clear roles, particularly at the 2 guard. One game Matthews would start but the following game he would only play 8 mins off the bench. One game Singer plays the last 10 mins in crunch time only to not play at all the next two games. Same goes for Bird and Kreklow. This led to players seemingly competing with each other for minutes rather than playing together. I have no facts or quotes to really back up my theory; rather, it's just my perception after watching this team and past Monty teams.

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MinotStateBeav;842293605 said:

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I wasn't a rah rah type of coach either when I was coaching HS football. RAH rah is a waste of energy. Personally, I think Monty tries to develop a hard hat approach. Bring your lunch pale and get to work. There is no right answer. But Montys style is no different than Izzo's.

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OK....except I would point out that I think Izzo's approach (ditto Howland's) is PERFECT for "second cousin" schools. Basically 40K+ Michigan State students and hundreds of thousands of alumni wake up each and every f'ing day with a HUGE chip on their shoulder. It probably is no reach to get in a kids grill and say, "Michigan hated on you. Those Panies at Ann Arbor didn't think you were good enough. They look down on you and will your whole life. Now go grab a rebound (or defend the paint or get out on jumpers) and show those a-holes just how wrong they were." And don't doubt for a MINUTE that izzo isn't doing that. A lot of that "motivation" was why you could see Alan Crabbe work that much harder when we played UCLA since they didn't offer him....or I think what drove Jorge so much.

But it is hard to do at Cal for a whole team. We really are NOT a second cousin school. Needs a different approach - and one probably Monty is still seeking out.

(BTW - the above is why I thought USC was seriously DUMB not to go after Howland. He would have been PERFECT recruiting and motivating so Cal kids that didn't get offered by the Ruins.)

bar20;842293577 said:

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I don't think Monty is a great motivator. He's fine on X and O's and the fundamentals of basketball. But I don't see any players running through a brick wall for him.

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Jorge Gutierrez exists.

Bear_Elegance;842293728 said:

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Jorge Gutierrez exists.

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I give Monty credit for finding him, signing him and playing him, but Jorge "I don't need easy, I need possible" Guttierez would run through a brick wall for any coach (or really, no coach, as he is the epitome of "self-motivated").

The team was not easy to watch......Period.

I just don't see very much talent and consistent talent is the motivating reason for me to follow and watch the fortunes of a team.

Overall, I wish we were better at recruiting.......

SFCityBear;842293595 said:

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"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

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I agree with this in regards to players making shots when they are put in a position to be successful.

But, when a team comes out flat to start an important game, I put that on the coaching staff. I think most coaches would agree with that.

I was very disappointed too, given how good we looked v. Cuse and Arkansas and the 5-0 start.

But if you had said before the season that you expected us to go 10-8 in conference and be on the NCAA bubble a lot of reasonable people would have said that's a fair expectation especially if they knew that Bird would have a bad injury. We lost an important role player in Thurman whose production was not replaced and lost the best player in the conference in Crabbe. We didn't come close to replacing Crabbe, on offense, defense or rebounding from the 3.

Monty did a lousy job this season. Never quite get why some are always compelled to spin the results. We won't be a good team next year. We don't have enough good players - unless the incoming class has a couple of world-beaters...Laser tag wasn't the answer.

SmellinRoses;842293905 said:

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Monty did a lousy job this season. Never quite get why some are always compelled to spin the results. We won't be a good team next year. We don't have enough good players - unless the incoming class has a couple of world-beaters...Laser tag wasn't the answer.

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I could see our team being much better. It is more the norm than the exception to see players make a huge jump between their freshmen and sophomore years.

I think to take this team to the next level we are going to have to find a way to bring in a couple of JC transfers to bolster what I think are above average high school players. We need to get rid of the few non scholarship athletes taking up space at the end of the bench and work on moving on when certain players don't show results due to injury or ability. Seems like as long as I can remember Cal has had a very soft bench, full of players who just don't belong on the team. Would rather kick them to the curb and bring in a few seasoned JCs to fill out the quality players we already have and can get.

Just like football with all the dead weight. Cal doesn't pull scholarships.

Doh!

"We don't always play hard" I like Montgomery and am not in favor of changing coaches at this time.But when I discussed this response with another coach and asked him why this would be, he said, :"That's the coaches responsibility, isn't it"???

I am not sure we are not playing hard all the time. Maybe someone else with a clearer vision knows

I really will miss Cobbs game! I fear next year, and that we might be slipping down into the bottom half. Unless Rorie and Diallo can provide something big. I am concerned this is the beginning of the end for Monty. He got by for a number of years without having big recruits. This year, his big recruit underperformed and so did his own motivational leadership. I have the feeling that the cupboard is getting bare, and he doesn't care. I know this doesn't necessarily make sense, but that is the sinking feeling in the back of my mind.

6 months ago, I posted a very different feeling, that Bird would be Crabbe 2.0 and we'd challenge for the conference title again, that Monty would be here another 4 or 5 years to bring his win totals up to the top of the pac12 lead, and become one of only a few head coaches to surpass 800 wins, that he'd then be elected to the HOF. The first didn't happen, and now everything else *feels* like it could cascade downward.