concordtom;842669382 said:

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Huh? What are you talking about.
Done! Forgiven! That was accomplished before the final horn.
Trot out a team less 2 starters, your junior senior 1 and 2 guards, that's gonna be tough, I don't care who you are.

It was a great season. On to next year! Er uh, banquet first!

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So people must have imagined the post about Bird's faking an injury?!? There was a long nasty thread lashing out after the loss and sadly there wasn't only one poster trashing Cuonzo on Friday.

Most people here like Cuonzo, but he's not without some isolated haters. Same thing for Ty. Both deserve some reasonable criticism, but there are some who go out of their way to trash both and others who think any criticism is pure hate. Both camps are tiny, but they exist and everyone else rolls their eyes at blatant trolling/baiting.

+1

Didn't ASU running back DJ Foster want out of his LOI when his former head coach, turned ASU assistant , left? And ASU refused. So DJ stayed and played.

Jolly apparently talked with Martin for "3 or 4 days" and felt comfortable with the decision. Hmmm...

singer, bird, and mathews will be seniors next season. in my opinion seniors win games. we will better then most fans think. yes thats without jolly, rabb, and brown.

tsubamoto2001;842669422 said:

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Jolly apparently talked with Martin for "3 or 4 days" and felt comfortable with the decision. Hmmm...

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Oh my...not a good sign.

+

NYCGOBEARS;842669123 said:

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Give him his release. Makes no sense to make someone go where they don't want to.

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There was an hilarious poll asking if Cal would be better without Wallace. Some voted yes. Sometimes :hatters

I read where Jolly says that he is at peace with his decision to de-commit from Cal, and he has several schools calling him. Those schools are Texas, Florida, Ohio State and Xavier. Jolly is from Oklahoma, but he played in Florida this past year and he plans to choose a school closer to home this time, saying he will look in the Big 12 area. Time for us to move on. I dont think Martin will be able to change his mind. Lets hope our Super Frosh turn into Super Sophmores. These last few days have really tested us all.

Go Bears.

Basketball Bear;842669516 said:

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I read where Jolly says that he is at peace with his decision to de-commit from Cal, and he has several schools calling him. Those schools are Texas, Florida, Ohio State and Xavier. Jolly is from Oklahoma, but he played in Florida this past year and he plans to choose a school closer to home this time, saying he will look in the Big 12 area. Time for us to move on. I dont think Martin will be able to change his mind. Lets hope our Super Frosh turn into Super Sophmores. These last few days have really tested us all.

Go Bears.

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This actually makes sense. The kid got a taste of life away from home...and now he wants to figure that in. Good for him. Ivan Rabb had the same thoughts or similar.

I say we let him go. We will find someone else I'm sure.

NewYorkCityBear;842669224 said:

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It was the AD's decision and Tulane's AD at the time was.....(wait for it) Sandy Barbour.

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As the great Keanu Reeves would say...

Whoa!

The thing I don't quite understand is, why is YH doing CM this way? CM hasn't done anything to YH so why is he making things miserable for CM?? Seems to me he may be burning any future bridges he may have with other coaches because of the way he has treated CM in this matter...

bearmanpg;842669629 said:

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The thing I don't quite understand is, why is YH doing CM this way? CM hasn't done anything to YH so why is he making things miserable for CM?? Seems to me he may be burning any future bridges he may have with other coaches because of the way he has treated CM in this matter...

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I'm not sure what has been going on between CM and Huf over the last months. CM absolutely knew what Huf did since he received the complainant's email in July last year with the details and copies of the texts and emails. I could see CM being absolutely furious with Huf over it all and somewhat freezing Huf to some extent over the season. And the story is that, when the report finally came out, CM was the one who fired Huf. So perhaps Huf feels that CM didn't and doesn't have his back. And it may well be that CM did not and does not have Huf's back. I could well imagine CM being furious with Huf for bringing disrepute into the program.

All of this is complete speculation of course.

Basketball Bear;842669516 said:

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I read where Jolly says that he is at peace with his decision to de-commit from Cal, and he has several schools calling him. Those schools are Texas, Florida, Ohio State and Xavier. Jolly is from Oklahoma, but he played in Florida this past year and he plans to choose a school closer to home this time, saying he will look in the Big 12 area. Time for us to move on. I dont think Martin will be able to change his mind. Lets hope our Super Frosh turn into Super Sophmores. These last few days have really tested us all.

Go Bears.

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Yanni's going scorched earth, but he's not going to get a job next season for delivering Jolly to Texas, Florida, Ohio State, or Xavier. Apparently Cuonzo really wanted Jolly and tried to convince him to stay, but Yanni poisoned the well. Don't see Yanni hooking up with a blueblood or heading back to the Ivies either.

Allegedly Amaker interviewed on the farm. Doubt they would be going back to the K tree immediately and can't imagine they would want Amaker to bring along his one-time ace recruiter after this mess.

BearDevil;842669634 said:

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Yanni's going scorched earth, but he's not going to get a job next season for delivering Jolly to Texas, Florida, Ohio State, or Xavier. Apparently Cuonzo really wanted Jolly and tried to convince him to stay, but Yanni poisoned the well. Don't see Yanni hooking up with a blueblood or heading back to the Ivies either.

Allegedly Amaker interviewed on the farm. Doubt they would be going back to the K tree immediately and can't imagine they would want Amaker to bring along his one-time ace recruiter after this mess.

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Amaker going to Stanford would be a hilariously bad hire and one that Cal fans should root for. He's basically Steve Alford Part II--failed at the high-major level but dominated a weaker conference due to having better players than the competition. None of K's protgs have been successful save for Mike Brey, who's lasted a long time at a football school.

tsubamoto2001;842669638 said:

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Amaker going to Stanford would be a hilariously bad hire and one that Cal fans should root for. He's basically Steve Alford Part II--failed at the high-major level but dominated a weaker conference due to having better players than the competition. None of K's protgs have been successful save for Mike Brey, who's lasted a long time at a football school.

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Amaker didn't really dominate at Harvard. This year's Ivy League champ was Yale.

Uh, they won the Ivy in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. I'd say that was domination.

jaccpot10;842669668 said:

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Amaker didn't really dominate at Harvard. This year's Ivy League champ was Yale.

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Look at his record. He won the Ivy outright 4 years in a row. His starting PG, Siyani Chambers, tore his ACL before this season, which was a big blow.

tsubamoto2001;842669695 said:

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Look at his record. He won the Ivy outright 4 years in a row. His starting PG, Siyani Chambers, tore his ACL before this season, which was a big blow.

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That's true. It's just hard for me to characterize someone who coached Harvard to a 14-16 record this year as having a dominant conference team.

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet, but Jolly received his complete release. What this means going forward, it's hard to say. I guess the LOI doesn't mean much anymore.

That seems like a bad sign.

tsubamoto2001;842670010 said:

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Surprised this hasn't been posted yet, but Jolly received his complete release. What this means going forward, it's hard to say. I guess the LOI doesn't mean much anymore.

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Dammit, we are such pansies.

jaccpot10;842669095 said:

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I agree. We release too many players when the wind suddenly blows in another direction (Kennedy Winston, Garrett Sim), while other schools routinely refuse to grant the release of their players to Cal (Solomon Hughes). We are patsies too often and too easily.

Why on earth should we voluntarily release Tyson Jolly? One assistant coach had termination proceedings start against him due to his own poor judgment and a holier-than-thou Cal administration. So what. Hufnagel is not the head coach, and everything else is still the same.

People need to honor their commitments and live up to their word. Promises have meaning, and when you commit, you commit to the school, not to an assistant coach.

You don't just get a divorce from your wife just because you find out after you are married that she farts in her sleep. Yeah, it's an annoyance and not quite what you expected, but so what.

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The better analogy is that you don't force your wife to be married to you when she no longer loves you; and you don't rationalize it by saying you could have married other women along the way had she never agreed to marry you.

grandmastapoop;842670460 said:

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The better analogy is that you don't force your wife to be married to you when she no longer loves you; and you don't rationalize it by saying you could have married other women along the way had she never agreed to marry you.

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Agreed, you can't force a kid to stay against his will, even if you want to.
The recruiting repercussions would be huge. You take the high road, and part ways. It just didn't work out.
The program looks better in the long run.

There are a lot of petulant, childish fans on internet boards and you get that lashing-out crap when anything goes wrong. It's day to day with a lot of them if they love or hate. The same people will be singing his praises if he lands another great recruiting class. I ignored that thread but anyone suggesting Bird faked an injury is just an asshole.

BearDevil;842669396 said:

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So people must have imagined the post about Bird's faking an injury?!? There was a long nasty thread lashing out after the loss and sadly there wasn't only one poster trashing Cuonzo on Friday.

Most people here like Cuonzo, but he's not without some isolated haters. Same thing for Ty. Both deserve some reasonable criticism, but there are some who go out of their way to trash both and others who think any criticism is pure hate. Both camps are tiny, but they exist and everyone else rolls their eyes at blatant trolling/baiting.

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DrDanger;842670474 said:

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Agreed, you can't force a kid to stay against his will, even if you want to.
The recruiting repercussions would be huge. You take the high road, and part ways. It just didn't work out.
The program looks better in the long run.

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I disagree that recruiting repercussions are huge. Most programs aren't going to let a kid out of his LOI without a really compelling reason, there is no "high road" we need to be taking. If you always let kids out of the LOI, then a signed LOI has almost no more meaning than a verbal commit. Recruiting repercussions are NOT huge. It isn't like pulling a scholly. Sick relative far away, unexpected head coaching change, it is the high road to part ways. "There's uncertainty in the program," or "The assistant who recruited me left," those are not reasons to let a kid out of the LOI.

No, you can't force a kid to stay against his will. But there are consequences to making a commitment and then backing out. There isn't NECESSARILY anything wrong with making a kid suffer the consequences of his decision.

IF the real reason Jolly wants out is immediate uncertainty regarding Cuonzo's status, as opposed to being upset that Yanni thinking with his genitals instead of his brain got him fired, AND assuming that Cuonzo/Cal still really wants Jolly, then I would refuse to release him, get the "uncertainty" settled, and then see if he still wants out. That "uncertainty" would likely be settled before the appeal was heard, another sit-down could be had, and Cal could release him if appropriate (Jolly would then be in a position where he'd know the appeal would likely be lost if the "uncertainty" had been settled in a manner where Cuonzo stays). Yes, if Cal releases him later, it might limit some of his options because signing day might pass by, but there would still be plenty of quality slots left for him to take.

On the other hand, if there is real uncertainty about how Jolly will fit academically at Cal (and given his need to do a year of prep school, I'm not sure why there wouldn't be great uncertainty), or if Cuonzo thinks that he is going to end up with an equally good or better replacement by freeing up that scholarship, then I'm all for, "OK, Tyson, sorry to see you go, best of luck in your career."

It may be the right decision to let him out, it may be the wrong one, I don't have enough facts to know. The decision has, in any event, been made. If I had faith in our decision makers, I would assume it is the right decision and not worry about it. I do not have such faith.

Sorry, we disagree.
I'll bet our coach would rather let it go than to force the kid into staying.
You're either "all in", or you're not.

(This is assuming that he could get admitted. Cal will not publicly say anything about his academic standing regardless.)

I thought it was typical that if a coach left a program this student was given the opportunity to not attend the college. You hear about this when a coach takes another job or even gets fired the student is no longer obligated to attend. Am I incorrect on this? I know YH was not the head coach but he was the coach that recruited him.

Basketball Bear;842670630 said:

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I thought it was typical that if a coach left a program this student was given the opportunity to not attend the college. You hear about this when a coach takes another job or even gets fired the student is no longer obligated to attend. Am I incorrect on this? I know YH was not the head coach but he was the coach that recruited him.

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As much as head coaches rotate around colleges, assistant coaches rotate around colleges more. If it was common practice to release high school recruits every time their primary assistant coach contact during recruiting season left the school, almost every team would experience 2-3 recruiting defections every couple of years.

tsubamoto2001;842670010 said:

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Surprised this hasn't been posted yet, but Jolly received his complete release. What this means going forward, it's hard to say. I guess the LOI doesn't mean much anymore.

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Damn.

Add Tyson Jolly to the list of Kennedy Winston (Alabama) and Garrett Sim (Oregon) of recruits who signed LOIs with Cal but who immediately wound up at other schools, anyway. The list is far longer for Cal recruits who verbally committed to Cal but eventually backed out: Derek Burditt, Justin Davis, De'End Parker, Julian Sensley, Ahmaad Rohrie, Drew Viney, etc., etc.

DrDanger;842670519 said:

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Sorry, we disagree.
I'll bet our coach would rather let it go than to force the kid into staying.
You're either "all in", or you're not.

(This is assuming that he could get admitted. Cal will not publicly say anything about his academic standing regardless.)

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Well, the decision has already been made to release Tyson Jolly from his LOI, so now, time will only tell whether we can make up for it with some last minute recruiting.

The last time this happened with Sim, it turned out pretty well for us with Jorge Gutierrez. I don't know if there is another diamond in the rough out there like Jorge was for us, but the coaches know the recruiting landscape better than any of us.

DrDanger;842670519 said:

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Sorry, we disagree.
I'll bet our coach would rather let it go than to force the kid into staying.
You're either "all in", or you're not.

(This is assuming that he could get admitted. Cal will not publicly say anything about his academic standing regardless.)

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About 90 minutes ago, I was having a discussion with the father of a current high school senior athlete and a high school coach/athletic director. They disagreed with your position, they acted like I was an ignorant idiot to think it was possible that there could be negative recruiting repercussions from the failure to release a player from his signed LOI. They confirmed what I thought, the general understanding among recruits and their advisors is that you sign the LOI, you're stuck, not only is there absolutely no expectation that if you change your mind and ask out, you get out, but the expectation is the exactly the opposite.

Again, you can't force a kid to stay. It isn't a choice between "let it go" and "force the kid to stay." You're setting up a false choice. Saying no doesn't force him to stay, only forces him to suffer some consequences for leaving. When Tulane didn't let Solomon Hughes out of his LOI, he wasn't forced to stay, and he didn't stay. He left, off to a year of prep school, not knowing if he would have to sit out a year at the school he would eventually choose. He had to sit out about 3 weeks, since his appeal wasn't granted until after the season started. No, "force the kid to stay" isn't what a refusal does.

The problem with saying no has nothing to do with recruiting repercussions. It has more to do with whether, in the particular situation, the school would rather guarantee freeing up the scholly than have the kid POSSIBLY decide to stay. In that case, you release him. Yes, for the most part, if a kid wants out, if he isn't all in, you don't want him to stay, but you also don't want kids signing LOI's who aren't all in, and one way to make that more likely is not to grant release requests when a kid changes his mind, keeping expecations as they are, that signing the LOI is a binding decision, not one you get out of just for the asking.

By the way, this is why I advocate that the elite athletes for whom a team will hold a spot based on a non-binding commitment, never sign an LOI. It is stupid, circumstances change and you might want to get out of the LOI (again, coaching changes happen, family circumstances can change). If failure to sign an LOI won't cause you to lose a scholarship slot, then don't sign. The LOI, in theory, is for the benefit of the recruit, to make recruiters go away, but there are ways to make recruiters go away besides signing an LOI.

If Jolly was really that intent on getting out, he probably could have purposely failed his remaining classes and failed to qualify. It's ridiculous, I agree, but perhaps so is forcing him to honor his LOI knowing he would refuse to play upon arrival.

I'm guessing Martin let him out because he was concerned that Jolly really now doesn't want to play with him, and would be a potentially disruptive influence. I don't think it affects future recruiting one way or the other, but it does raise a Tosh-like concern about the relative influence of Martin and Huffnagel on the strength of our classes. If the key to our recruiting was Huffnagel, that's a basketball problem, even though from an ethical standpoint, he had to go, based on what I read in the report on his behavior.