Jones Reflects on Season and Future of the Program

This is a quick fix

One of your documents expired

This caused your account to be deactivated. Find out which document needs to be updated so you can reactivate your account.

CLICK HERE

After going through the trials of a tough season overseeing one of the youngest and least-experienced rosters in the country and suffering through the predictably trying results, Cal head coach Wyking Jones had the chance to step back and get away for a bit to recharge, refocus and reevaluate what went wrong in the 2017-18 season and what can built upon.

What did he do in his time away?

"Just watching film and took a break," said Jones. "I took about a week where I didn’t want to talk about basketball. Spent time with the family and then after about a week, 'Alright, we gotta get back into it.' Let the guys have a week where they just didn’t do anything. They just focused on school and went back to being just normal people. Just enjoying being a student and that’s it. 'You’re not a student-athlete right now, you’re just a student for the next week' and so we didn’t do anything and we didn’t really even talk too much basketball."

Coming into the season, Jones and staff made the calculation that with a distinctive lack of scorers on the roster, an uptempo, pressing style of play might level the playing field a bit and allow his young team to have a better chance than simply trying to match up 5-on-5 against more talented and experienced rosters on any given night.

“From the jump, from the press conference, to talking about style of play, I wanted to be aggressive and play the style of pressing and be aggressive offensively, but when it was all said and done, we weren’t ready to play that way," said Jones. "I think, when it was all said and done, I felt like we would have been better suited to ease into that style with our youth and with it being a new system.

"I also feel like I gave the guys too much freedom early on because I felt like that was the right thing to do. I always felt like you play better basketball when you have the freedom offensively to feel like you can just play your game. But going through the season I learned that we were a lot better when we slowed things down and worked to get the shot that we wanted and the ball in the hands of the guys that myself and my staff wanted the ball in their hands."

It was during one of the few bright spots of the season where the change of philosophy showed itself to be the appropriate course of action, as Jones and the Bears changed tracks and slowed the tempo against NCAA qualifier San Diego State in the Bears' 63-62 upset victory on the road December 9.

“San Diego State was a first time I felt like I just said, 'You know what, let’s just work clock,'" said Jones. '"We’re in a hostile environment. If we absolutely have a fast break transition opportunity, we’ll take it. But if it’s not an absolute transition opportunity, we’re gonna use some clock.' And I remember in that game Don([Coleman) played a lot of point guard for the first time and he even got a 10-second call walking the ball up the court one time.

"But that game we controlled tempo. We got the shot that we wanted and it wasn’t just us coming down and thinking that we had an open look, but it wasn’t really a great look. Or the person who was shooting the ball wasn’t necessarily who we wanted shooting the ball. There were certain guys who we wanted the ball in their hands so I felt like San Diego State was a good example of that.

The next game, the Bears again beat an NCAA qualifier, defeating Fullerton State, 95-89 in overtime.

Following the win over Fullerton, the Bears went on the road to Seattle and defeated Seattle University decisively, 81-59. Seattle U ended their season 20-14.

“Seattle up at their place, we slowed it down tremendously and we came away with a good win," said Jones. "And Stanford in the second half. I felt like we played to their tempo in the first half and in the second half when we really started to just really pick and choose who we wanted the ball, whose hands we wanted the ball in, we did a much better job and Justice ended up being that guy for that particular game.

"Even as late as Arizona on the road, we walked it up every single time. I told the guys, 'Look, don’t even look at the rim until there's 15 seconds left on the shot clock. We ran a spread action four out and one in: dribble hand off, dribble hand off, dribble hand off, dribble hand off, run some clock, and then we looked to attack and I thought that that played in our favor to the point that I think we were whatever it was. He (Juhwan Harris-Dyson) got the fifth foul and then Justice (Sueing) turned it over and they got a breakaway and that was the game."

Often it was the little things that separated the wins from tough losses and with a distinct lack of scorers and viable bench players on the roster, their margin for error was between slim and none.

“I always said to the guys that for us to win, everybody has to be able to give us something," said Jones. "It can’t be these three guys played well and these two guys were just ok. It was always a situation where for us to win, everybody had to give us something and when you go back and you look at the times we did win: San Diego State, Seattle, Oregon State, everybody came off that bench, everybody that was in that lineup gave us something. If somebody had an off night, we weren’t going to win. If somebody didn’t have a great night we probably weren’t going to win. So it was tough.”

The past is now the past and all the Bears can do is hope to learn from their mistakes and chart a new course with a deeper and more talented roster next season.

The Bears' recruiting class is off to a solid start, with a pair of talented 4 star wings in 6-7 Jacobi Gordon and 6-5 Matt Bradley along with 6-8 forward Andre Kelly. They hope to add two more bigs and possibly another point guard to go along with junior transfer Paris Austin.

“I’m very excited about those three guys," said Jones. "From a culture standpoint, they 100 percent fit what we’re all about. They’re all great young men.

"From a basketball standpoint, when you talk about Matt Bradley, he’s probably the first kid that I’ve ever recruited that he’s gonna get here and I’m gonna say you’re not allowed to lift weights. You can only do band work and stretching. Because he’s so muscular and physically imposing. But he’s a kid that he brings a high level of toughness and he’s physical. He uses that body. He can really shoot the ball from three and also midrange, and so to be able to add another shooter, because that was definitely something that we lacked this year, to be able to add a shooter, someone that can stretch the floor is what I’m most excited about with him and and he’s a competitor.

“Now Jacobi is a kid that I’m excited about because I can play him at a bunch of different positions because he’s versatile. He’s a really good rebounder, he shoots the ball, he posts up, he can take you off the bounce. And so with him I’m very excited about his versatility and being able to play him at a bunch of positions and he has a level of toughness that I’m excited about, as well as a high IQ.

“Andre is probably the least talked about of the three, but I’m really really excited about him, because he knows how to score the ball in a number of ways. He shoots a three, he’s good at pick and pop, he’s got really really good footwork, great feet, great hands, he feels really really comfortable shooting it (from 3), and he’ll get better when he gets here. So I’m really excited about him even though he’s probably the most under-the-radar guy because you've got a guy who’s a natural scorer at the post while Kingsley was a defensive-minded guy. Marcus had games where he scored, had games where he didn’t. Now you got a guy that feels really comfortable putting the ball in the hole. So I’m excited to have a guy in the program that can do that. Ivan obviously could do it when he was here. So you have somebody that you can count on that you can throw the ball in to them and then get a bucket.”

Jones and staff have at least two more scholarships available after junior guard Don Coleman announced his intention to transfer and the Bears are working hard to add some size to their roster with the spring signing period approaching in two weeks, running through late May.

"With our situation, the graduate transfer is definitely a prospect that we’re looking at," said Jones. "I think everybody is. If you see a grad transfer that can play, I think everybody in the country is interested in that. You can’t make up for experience. Experience is everything. The game’s a lot younger because you got so many guys that are coming in and they’re leaving and leaving early and the really good ones don’t stay for very long, and so experience can put you over the top."

Fortunately for the Bears, they have several solid leads in the grad transfer department and hope and expect to sign a viable grad transfer post player in the coming months.

The Bears have also gone hard after 6-11 5 star  Prolific Prep power forward Jordan Brown and are amongst his leading finalists a month after his official visit as he prepares to play in this weekend's McDonald's All-American game.

The Bears will look much different next season with a lot of new talent joining the team and their trio of key freshmen -guard Darius McNeill, wing Juhwan Harris-Dyson and forward Justice Sueing- will have a year of experience and a lot of minutes under their belt to help smooth the transition with Junior Paris Austin taking over at the point and five new players pushing to start or see solid minutes on the floor.

"They’re all hungry to get back out there and start their sophomore year and be able to put their freshman year in the rear view," said Jones of the trio. "Get ready to compete. They’re competitors. So they’re all working hard in their offseason workouts to try to get better so we don’t have to go through the type of season that we had this year.

“I think they stayed positive. I think they continued to fight. I think everybody saw that. They didn’t throw in the towel and continued to compete. It started with myself and my staff. 

"The best thing that happened to me this year is, late in the season I had a conversation with Pete Newell, Jr. and he said, ‘Coach, you’ll be fine.’ And I said, ‘Really?’ This was probably two months ago and he said to me, ‘My dad was 1-11 in conference his first year and 9-16 overall.’ And he said, ‘You’ll be fine.’ It made me feel better.”

Lest anyone feel that the added perspective and encouragement might be taken as license to take the Bears rebuilding project at a slow pace, one look in Jones' eyes will tell you that he and his staff never want to go through a season like last season's disaster again.

The ingredients the Bears are assembling for their 2018-19 season have the look of a far more competitive program. How competive will largely rest of the shoulders of the final key elements of the 2018 recruiting class as it comes together in the coming weeks.