SmellinRoses;842640079 said:

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1) Need to get the ball to Rabb LOWER in the block. Need to find the open man when he is doubled.

2) Why are we waiting 5-10 secs to start our offense when we are DOWN 6-12 pts.

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We ain't got no offense.

Not a very smart team, guards can't play defense, SOS

Horrible offense the second half except Brown did us in.

As always the key is whether we can grab a split on the road. Time to move on.

[SIZE=4]Just figured out why it was such a bad broadcast. The announcers weren't courtside. They weren't even in SaltLakeCity. They were so bad, they were worse than our performance from 3 pt line in the 2nd half, and worse than the Refs.

Now. THAT is Saying SOMETHING![/SIZE]

NYCGOBEARS;842640086 said:

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Horrible offense the second half except Brown did us in.

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LOL! They shot 59% in the second half. I doubt any offensive juggernaught is going to help there. Plus we missed a BUNCH of wide open threes.

ESPN is so hurting for cash they broadcast the game from the studio. PATHETIC

socaltownie;842640064 said:

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Games like this make it hard for me to see Rabb as a top 10 draft pick. I am sure he will be and the show drafts on potential but the diff between his game and Poetls is vast.

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I think he would be with another year in college. Jaylen Brown would probably be the #1 pick if he stays another year. Good to hear the ESPN guys pushing Brown to stay one more year.

socaltownie;842640087 said:

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As always the key is whether we can grab a split on the road. Time to move on.

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Yep. Road wins are gonna be real tough for anyone this year.

i thought the refs weren't bad in this game
actually, they called a foul on Poertl that didn't look like a foul to me

HoopDreams;842640093 said:

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i thought the refs weren't bad in this game
actually, they called a foul on Poertl that didn't look like a foul to me

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Yeah, best ref performance in a road game for us. We just could not hit open shots, or prevent layups.

calfanz;842640090 said:

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ESPN is so hurting for cash they broadcast the game from the studio. PATHETIC

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Apart from the announcing, the actual sound quality was horrible. Very thin and it did sound like sound booth with no ambient sound spill. Totally fake sounding.

That was an "acceptable" road loss unlike Oregon and Stanfurd.

bearister;842639952 said:

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We better than Utah and they knows it.

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My career as a sports prognosticator passed away in a dry state tonight.

blungld;842640104 said:

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That was an "acceptable" road loss unlike Oregon and Stanfurd.

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Actually not in aggregate since we lost to UVa, Oregon, Oregon State, Furd and Utah (and maybe even SDSU and Richmond) in very similar fashion. Look good at times, competitive, have runs, but give up really ugly runs, and ultimately don't know how to win away from Haas.

I wonder if this is how it was in that last Tennessee season. There is hope since that team put it all together in March. But like that team, the problem is that you are starting to put yourself in the play-in game just to get into the Big Dance. That's a really ugly thought to squeak in like that with this team. Just think how many hundreds of programs would love Rabb, Brown, Bird, Ty and others on their team, and what damage they would do.

Let's see a breakthrough v. CU.

KoreAmBear;842640107 said:

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Actually not in aggregate since we lost to UVa, Oregon, Oregon State, Furd and Utah (and maybe even SDSU and Richmond) in very similar fashion. Look good at times, competitive, have runs, but give up really ugly runs, and ultimately don't know how to win away from Haas.

I wonder if this is how it was in that last Tennessee season. There is hope since that team put it all together in March. But like that team, the problem is that you are starting to put yourself in the play-in game just to get into the Big Dance. That's a really ugly thought to squeak in like that with this team. Just think how many hundreds of programs would love Rabb, Brown, Bird, Ty and others on their team, and what damage they would do.

Let's see a breakthrough v. CU.

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Again, they are great players but we are pretty flawed when it comes to being able to have a PG that can penetrate. Tell me we wouldn't be QUANTUMLY better with Brandon Taylor. Sam can sorta do it but he gets tenative....thought he did much better against Zona than against Utah. Plus we can't shoot....and when we have Rabb and K on the floor teams can simply pack it in with impunity against us.

Simply put - there are still missing pieces.

socaltownie;842640110 said:

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Again, they are great players but we are pretty flawed when it comes to being able to have a PG that can penetrate. Tell me we wouldn't be QUANTUMLY better with Brandon Taylor. Sam can sorta do it but he gets tenative....thought he did much better against Zona than against Utah. Plus we can't shoot....and when we have Rabb and K on the floor teams can simply pack it in with impunity against us.

Simply put - there are still missing pieces.

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The missing pieces would be filled in if Bird and Mathews showed up together. They should be expected to score, and if they don't, that's why we lose.

KoreAmBear;842640111 said:

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The missing pieces would be filled in if Bird and Mathews showed up together. They should be expected to score, and if they don't, that's why we lose.

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That is true.

socaltownie;842640110 said:

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Again, they are great players but we are pretty flawed when it comes to being able to have a PG that can penetrate. Tell me we wouldn't be QUANTUMLY better with Brandon Taylor. Sam can sorta do it but he gets tenative....thought he did much better against Zona than against Utah. Plus we can't shoot....and when we have Rabb and K on the floor teams can simply pack it in with impunity against us.

Simply put - there are still missing pieces.

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You must not have watched Taylor very much this season if you think he'd make us better. He's been terribad this season. Shooting 37% with a Win Shares per 40 minutes of 0.070. His Offensive Rating of 97.4 is the worst on their team and his Defensive Rating of 104.3 is near the bottom on their team as well, which is why Ute fans have wondered why he's still getting big minutes.

That he's played two good games against us is not a good look, as most other teams have locked him up. I would have at least tried to see what Chauca could do. Not that he's the answer or anything, but this was a game he could have played in.

Amazing that Krystkowiak can do so well with those players. Not much individual talent on that roster, other than Poeltl, and even he is pretty soft on defense.

We are just a really bad road team. I don't think that I have ever seen a Cal team that was this good at home and so horrible on the road.

tsubamoto2001;842640118 said:

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You must not have watched Taylor very much this season if you think he'd make us better. He's been terribad this season. Shooting 37% with a Win Shares per 40 minutes of 0.070. His Offensive Rating of 97.4 is the worst on their team and his Defensive Rating of 104.3 is near the bottom on their team as well, which is why Ute fans have wondered why he's still getting big minutes.

That he's played two good games against us is not a good look, as most other teams have locked him up. I would have at least tried to see what Chauca could do. Not that he's the answer or anything, but this was a game he could have played in.

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The two Utah guards didn't shoot well but they each had 6 assists, might have been more if we hadn't committed so many shooting fouls. I just didn't see us stopping their guards from penetrating. Shooting will come and go, but I think our defense did us in tonight.

CalEnviroLaw;842640122 said:

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We are just a really bad road team. I don't think that I have ever seen a Cal team that was this good at home and so horrible on the road.

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But it's a weird horrible. Every game is reasonably competitive. The UVa should have been a win. That was actually the closest road win. Every other game we are in it, then we have some awful 15-2 run we allow that gives the other team enough separation and confidence to finish us off while we make a slight comeback.

BisonBob;842640032 said:

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Both Rabb and Brown have so much to learn, and neither one is close for the NBA. If drafted they will sit for years, and slow their development. I would love to see a min of two years before one can enter, but the agents etc will never let it happen. If they leave Cal is back to zero and will never develop a sustained program. That is the problem with recruiting top 10 talent.

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Calipari's UK is the only program to thrive consistently with OADs and even they've had some bumpy seasons. Everyone else needs to supplement with solid complementary core of 3 and 4 year players to be successful when highly reliant on OADs. Duke knew that Okafor would be OAD, but didn't expect Winslow and Jones to be OAD too. Other than UK, the most successful teams consistently utilizing OAD talent will have a solid veteran core and at most two OADs.

Cuonzo wouldn't and shouldn't have turned down Rabb and Jaylen, but he also knew he'd have an uneven season with hopes the team would get hot and go on a roll in March.

Unless a potential OAD has significant ties/affinity to a particular school, the best personal strategy is to find a coach with a proven development record with their skill set (Poeltl-K or Monty) or a very high profile program (UK or Duke).

Calipari may be scummy, but he's very good at paring down offense and defense and integrating inexperienced talent. K's not as good at that, but he compensates by not expecting his OADs to be complete players. Jabari Parker was a disaster on defense and still went second in the draft. His team greatly underachieved however. Get why people hate Calipari, but he's done an exceptional job adapting to the circumstances in a very flawed era.

NBA collectively (players union and owners) doesn't care if they've screwed college basketball and can withstand individual busts and train wreck franchises like the Sixers. W's may not collectively have the best talent, but they're extremely well run and have a seamless culture.

CalEnviroLaw;842640045 said:

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When Brown develops an outside shot, he will be LeBron.

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LeBron was LeBron long before he developed an outside shot...

NYCGOBEARS;842639879 said:

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+1 Also, the lighting looks weird.

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Lighting on the UNC @ VirginiaTech on Sunday was significantly worse. Assumed snowmageddon affected the broadcast equipment for Sunday, but last night's telecast was a mess on all levels (announcing, lighting, sound). Yikes!

Trend: the Bears abandon ball movement in the second half and JB goes 1 on 5. People say how great JB is, but his 1 on 5 won't win games against good competition. When JB goes 1 on 5, others adopt the same; Mathews, Bird. Bears need more discipline on offense to keep moving the ball.

south bender;842640232 said:

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LeBron was LeBron long before he developed an outside shot...

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Yup, I remember watching LeBron try to shoot pregame threes in AAU ball and thinking huh, so this is the great LeBron? Of course once the game started I understood. He would essentially get the ball at the elbow and either blow by the defender to the rack or take a dribble towards the basket and automatically hit an unguardable fadeaway from about 10 feet.

He was also the best passer in the open court that I had seen since Kidd.