Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

Paul Loveday, as far as I can recall. Not Lovely...that was theDesoto.

SFCityBear said:

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Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

---

SFCity-

I don't think the class you are attributing to Ben Braun is fairly attributed to him. If memory serves, Bozeman was fired well after the signing period and extremely late because of the NCAA violation. Braun had nothing to do with that class. His first class IMO, was extraordinary under the circumstances, filling a depleted roster with transfers like Gill, Carlisle and Kiligore, and getting Sean Lampley. I know those were the players who came his first season, but Jackson signed under Bozeman and all reasonable possibilities for recruits were already signed when he was hired.

Edit: found it. Bozeman was fired on August 28. School was already in session. The recruiting class you list for Braun was in school before he was hired.

SFCityBear said:

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Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

---

The list is not accurate at all! Without going through it Year to year; for example, Yogi Stewart was signed by Campinelli and Keith Smith was his first signed recruit. Dick Kuchen's first recruits were Mel Holland and Kevin Sparks. Jim Padgett 's first class was John Coughran. Have no idea what you're looking at for reference?
Btw, Lou Campinelli inherited: Leonard Taylor, Dave Butler and Jevin Johnson to name a few. He inherited the mother lode!!!

Who signed Jackie Ridgle?

barabbas said:

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SFCityBear said:

---

Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

---

The list is not accurate at all! Without going through it Year to year; for example, Yogi Stewart was signed by Campinelli and Keith Smith was his first signed recruit. Dick Kuchen's first recruits were Mel Holland and Kevin Sparks. Jim Padgett 's first class was John Coughran. Have no idea what you're looking at for reference?
Btw, Lou Campinelli inherited: Leonard Taylor, Dave Butler and Jevin Johnson to name a few. He inherited the mother lode!!!

---

Yes, there seems to be some inconsistency, SF City, as to what you are referring to when you say "first recruiting class", as noted that Kuchen's first recruiting class, shortly after being hired was Kevin Sparks and Mel Holland. His second recruiting class was Michael Pitts, Michael Chavez, Darrell Haley, John Ritchie and Reid Poole. (Unbelievable that I pulled that out of my head with ease... the same head that can't remember where I put the TV remote just a short while ago.)

Still though, some interesting historical info and analysis. Thanks!

Regardless of who recruited who in that list it is clear that we don't recruit very well. Maybe the coach doesn't matter when it comes to recruiting and we are losing the recruiting battle for other reasons. I might surmise that many athletic kids may not covet a degree from Cal in the same way our Alums who never played a sport in college do. Further, most of the kids out there have probably pursued athletics in part to avoid or differentiate themselves from the academic crowd.

CALiforniALUM said:

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Regardless of who recruited who in that list it is clear that we don't recruit very well. Maybe the coach doesn't matter when it comes to recruiting and we are losing the recruiting battle for other reasons. I might surmise that many athletic kids may not covet a degree from Cal in the same way our Alums who never played a sport in college do. Further, most of the kids out there have probably pursued athletics in part to avoid or differentiate themselves from the academic crowd.

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It may be true that over the years Cal has been outrecruited by other schools; however, this list doesn't really prove that (regardless of accuracy). Most coaches recruit poorly in their first year because they are typically hired late in the recruiting cycle. Early LOI period is in November, and the late period starts in April. Often coaches aren't hired until after the tournament, so very little time to catch up.

CALiforniALUM said:

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Regardless of who recruited who in that list it is clear that we don't recruit very well.

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Not really. Compiling a list from transition years doesn't indicate a whole lot.

CALiforniALUM said:

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Regardless of who recruited who in that list it is clear that we don't recruit very well. Maybe the coach doesn't matter when it comes to recruiting and we are losing the recruiting battle for other reasons. I might surmise that many athletic kids may not covet a degree from Cal in the same way our Alums who never played a sport in college do. Further, most of the kids out there have probably pursued athletics in part to avoid or differentiate themselves from the academic crowd.

---

This was not my point at all. My point was to show that Wyking Jones had not done as unimpressive a job of recruiting in his very first recruiting class in his first year at Cal as some of his predecessor coaches had done.

The list was only a list of the very first recruiting classes of coaches in their first year of coaching at Cal. We can't with any honesty extrapolate that small sample of recruiting classes in to making such a general statement about all Cal coaches for all their years of recruiting basketball players to come to Cal, "it is clear that we don't recruit very well." No, it isn't clear. We have recruited many terrific players and many more very good ones. We many not get enough of them together in at one time as many schools seem to do, but that is debatable. In any case your statement is unfair to all the good recruiting that has been done, even by some of our below average coaches, and unfair to all the good players who have played for the Blue and Gold.

What we don't do very well is hire great or even good coaches. In basketball we have hired only one great one, Pete Newell, and one good one, Mike Montgomery, in the last 63 years. The present coach is still an unknown quantity, and time will tell if he can he prove himself to be great, good, average, or below average coach.

oskidunker said:

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Paul Loveday, as far as I can recall. Not Lovely...that was theDesoto.

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Your are right. Quite frankly, I was getting a little dizzy making this list. Thanks for the correction.

Inaccurate, to the say the least. Most people who follow college hoops know that the real "first" recruiting class of a new coach is the one he signs after his first season. Wyking wasn't the HC when these guys got offered or were evaluated during the summer. Jones didn't get Sueing, JHD, or even Anticevich. And he ended up running off 2 of the guys he got after he was named the HC. Also, why include walk-ons as part of the tally? They're walk-ons for crying out loud. Not really expected to be actual on-court contributors.

Austin
Bradley
Gordon
Kelly
Vanover

This is Jones' real 1st recruiting class.

SFCityBear said:

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CALiforniALUM said:

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Regardless of who recruited who in that list it is clear that we don't recruit very well. Maybe the coach doesn't matter when it comes to recruiting and we are losing the recruiting battle for other reasons. I might surmise that many athletic kids may not covet a degree from Cal in the same way our Alums who never played a sport in college do. Further, most of the kids out there have probably pursued athletics in part to avoid or differentiate themselves from the academic crowd.

---

This was not my point at all. My point was to show that Wyking Jones had not done as unimpressive a job of recruiting in his very first recruiting class in his first year at Cal as some of his predecessor coaches had done.

The list was only a list of the very first recruiting classes of coaches in their first year of coaching at Cal. We can't with any honesty extrapolate that small sample of recruiting classes in to making such a general statement about all Cal coaches for all their years of recruiting basketball players to come to Cal, "it is clear that we don't recruit very well." No, it isn't clear. We have recruited many terrific players and many more very good ones. We many not get enough of them together in at one time as many schools seem to do, but that is debatable. In any case your statement is unfair to all the good recruiting that has been done, even by some of our below average coaches, and unfair to all the good players who have played for the Blue and Gold.

What we don't do very well is hire great or even good coaches. In basketball we have hired only one great one, Pete Newell, and one good one, Mike Montgomery, in the last 63 years. The present coach is still an unknown quantity, and time will tell if he can he prove himself to be great, good, average, or below average coach.

---

I understand your point, SFCity, and I would expand it, frankly, to football as well. In the same time frame, we've had one great coach (Pappy Waldorf), two good ones (Jeff Tedford, Bruce Snyder), one cheater (Mike White) and a bunch of "who he."

As stated in other posts, the list is not complete.
The 1993 list should include Sean Marks and the 1969 list should include Jackie Ridgle and Charley Johnson.

tsubamoto2001 said:

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Austin
Bradley
Gordon
Kelly
Vanover

This is Jones' real 1st recruiting class.

---

I would put Austin in his 0th class since Austin was actually recruited last season. In that class I'd give him full credit (or blame) for Austin, McNeill, Winston, and McCollough. Also half credit for Sueing, Harris-Dyson, and Anticevich since he must have been involved in their recruiting and they decided to come after the coaching change.

IMHO so far so good.

tsubamoto2001 said:

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Inaccurate, to the say the least. Most people who follow college hoops know that the real "first" recruiting class of a new coach is the one he signs after his first season. Wyking wasn't the HC when these guys got offered or were evaluated during the summer. Jones didn't get Sueing, JHD, or even Anticevich. And he ended up running off 2 of the guys he got after he was named the HC. Also, why include walk-ons as part of the tally? They're walk-ons for crying out loud. Not really expected to be actual on-court contributors.

Austin
Bradley
Gordon
Kelly
Vanover

This is Jones' real 1st recruiting class.

---

Your post is irrelevant, to say the least. You missed the point. My point was that we've heard so much chatter over the course of the season that we had no material at all, the weakest roster in years, etc, and even though Cuonzo Martin was generally held to be responsible for that, still Wyking Jones was getting blamed for some of that, by not bringing in better recruits, and my post was an effort to defend him. I showed that most previous coaches had not done much or any better than Jones.

And any one who knows basic English knows that first means first, in the dictionary or in a court of law. First does not mean second in basketball or anywhere else I know of. It is true the second recruiting class of a coach is more meaningful, more important, because a coach is able to devote serious time and effort to evaluate these recruits better and make the connections necessary to sign him. However, Wyking Jones is not just a new head coach with no experience or no previous connections to the players he signed. He was an assistant coach with a lot of recruiting responsibilities under Cuonzo Martin, and likely already had knowledge and personal contact with some or many of the recruits he did sign later. You had a bias against Jones before he blew his first whistle at practice as head coach, and you are just twisting my post into something to continue to bash the man, and rip me while you are at it. What evidence do you have that Jones was not involved in recruiting Sueing, JHD, or Anticevich during Martin's tenure?

I didn't like running off Winston and McCullogh either (if they were the two you meant), but that has no relevance to to this discussion. He did give both of them plenty of minutes in the pre-conference season, and they did not perform at the level expected of a scholarship player, did they?

As to your snide remarks about walkons, I included them because they are players who a coach brings in to play on his team, whether by invitation, or by answering their inquiry for a chance. There are no tryouts where 50 guys show up to try out for one or two spots, like in the old days before your time. Walkons are all contributors in some form, even if you have contempt for them as not being contributors on the floor. Would you say that Jeff Powers did not contribute? Or Robert Thurman? Or Nick Hamilton? Coaches think they contribute, and they reward some with scholarships eventually. Remember Brandon Smith? Brendan Glapion? Cole Welle?

You are so married to your precious recruit rankings as the be-all to end all, the nirvana to bring Cal to another NCAA title, that you can't understand it is TEAM and COACH that can do that, not a bunch of 5-stars thrown together on a floor with two hoops. It takes chemistry. Andre Iguodala said that, after the Warriors landed Kevin Durant. Walkons do contribute, when the studs get hurt or fail to perform. And the better the bench is, the better the practices will be, and the better the team will be. Anyone who has played some team basketball would understand how important the bench is to a team. So I included all the freshmen on each coach's roster, whether he was a starter, rotation member, or non-scholarship walk-on. Take it or leave it.

barabbas said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

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The list is not accurate at all! Without going through it Year to year; for example, Yogi Stewart was signed by Campinelli and Keith Smith was his first signed recruit. Dick Kuchen's first recruits were Mel Holland and Kevin Sparks. Jim Padgett 's first class was John Coughran. Have no idea what you're looking at for reference?
Btw, Lou Campinelli inherited: Leonard Taylor, Dave Butler and Jevin Johnson to name a few. He inherited the mother lode!!!

---

With all due respect, I believe my list is accurate. My references are the website: www.sports-reference.com and the old Cal Bears site. According to the references, Yogi Stewart was a freshman on the 1993-94 Cal team, recruited in the 1993 recruiting class of Todd Bozeman. Campanelli was fired in February of 1993. Yogi was still playing high school ball in 1993, so if Campanelli signed him then it would have to be before the end of his high school season. I don't know if the NCAA rules at the time permitted that. In any case, it was up to only Stewart and Bozeman whether he would join the Cal team in the Fall of 1993, and he was part of Bozeman's first class.

Keith Smith was not Campanelli's first signed recruit. Campanelli's first season was 1985-86, and Smith was not signed until after that season, in Campanelli's second recruiting class. Smith played as a freshman on the 1986-87 team.

Dick Kuchen's first year was 1978-79. His 1978 recruiting class included the following players:

Kevin Sparks, starting guard.
Mel Holland, a bench player, possibly last man in an 8 man rotation.
John Carson, a bench player
The class also included the following players who did not accumulate any statistics in 1978-79, and probably redshirted that season: Carlos Addison, Michael Chavez, Darrell Haley, Bob Owen, Michael Pitts, Reid Poole, and John Ritchie.

My mistake was including Holland among the walkons, and most of the walkons were not walkons, they were probably redshirts.

John Coughran was not in Pete Padgett's first recruiting class. Pete Padgett was head coach at Cal from 1968 to 1972. His first recruiting class was in 1968 for the 1968-69 season and was as I stated in the original post. John Coughran played high school ball in 1968-69 and was signed by Padgett in his SECOND recruiting class in 1969. Coughran played for the Cal frosh, I believe, in 1969-1970, and his first varsity year was 1970-71, as a sophomore.

I hope this clears it up for you. www.sports-reference.com is an excellent website for history and statistics, and was recommended to me by Tsubamoto, our resident statistics and recruit ranking guru, when he pointed out that the statistics on web pages produced by colleges themselves, are not as accurate.

OaktownBear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

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SFCity-

I don't think the class you are attributing to Ben Braun is fairly attributed to him. If memory serves, Bozeman was fired well after the signing period and extremely late because of the NCAA violation. Braun had nothing to do with that class. His first class IMO, was extraordinary under the circumstances, filling a depleted roster with transfers like Gill, Carlisle and Kiligore, and getting Sean Lampley. I know those were the players who came his first season, but Jackson signed under Bozeman and all reasonable possibilities for recruits were already signed when he was hired.

Edit: found it. Bozeman was fired on August 28. School was already in session. The recruiting class you list for Braun was in school before he was hired.

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I realized that Braun came on quite late, but I like Braun, in the early part of his career at least, and thought he was always a pretty good recruiter. I wanted to give him credit for signing or inviting all the freshman on the roster. I think the only one who might have been an actual recruit was Jackson, so the others might not have been held to signing deadlines. Do walkon or invited players ( I think nowadays they call them recruited walk-ons) have to actually sign according to the rules that actual recruits are held to? In any case, I wanted this list to be a comparison between first year classes recruited before a new coach coaches his first game. Braun had a chance in September and maybe October, I guess to sign some players, and I suspected the walkons were added to the team then, and maybe not added by Bozeman before he was fired.

By not having much time at all to recruit anyone for his first season, it is amazing what Braun was able to do with the team he inherited. What I would still consider Braun's second class of Gill, Kilgore, Carlisle, and Lampley was really a very good one.

joe amos yaks said:

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Who signed Jackie Ridgle?

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Ridgle was signed by Rene Herrerias in 1967 and played on the 1967-68 Cal frosh. As a Cal assistant coach at the time, Padgett was a lead recruiter for Herrerias, so he may have had an influence in Jackie coming to Cal, but Rene gets the credit.

EricBear said:

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Jules Erving is a walk-on. I don't believe he can accurately be described as part of a "recruiting class."

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I agree with that, especially in the modern terminolgy. I just wanted to give all the coaches credit for all the new freshmen they brought in to their Cal teams. All walk-ons get a chance to contribute, and while most don't see much action, some do and some of those make a meaningful contribution, like recenty Nick Hamilton, Jeff Powers, Robert Thurman, Brandon Smith, etc.

.Brandon Smith was a scholarship athlete as a Cal freshman out of De La Salle in Concord. Others, like Nick Hamilton were walk ins who earned a scholarship for a time during their Cal careers. I think that's the point being made. There are players listed who weren't scholarship athletes alongside those who were.

SFCityBear said:

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barabbas said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

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The list is not accurate at all! Without going through it Year to year; for example, Yogi Stewart was signed by Campinelli and Keith Smith was his first signed recruit. Dick Kuchen's first recruits were Mel Holland and Kevin Sparks. Jim Padgett 's first class was John Coughran. Have no idea what you're looking at for reference?
Btw, Lou Campinelli inherited: Leonard Taylor, Dave Butler and Jevin Johnson to name a few. He inherited the mother lode!!!

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With all due respect, I believe my list is accurate. My references are the website: www.sports-reference.com and the old Cal Bears site. According to the references, Yogi Stewart was a freshman on the 1993-94 Cal team, recruited in the 1993 recruiting class of Todd Bozeman. Campanelli was fired in February of 1993. Yogi was still playing high school ball in 1993, so if Campanelli signed him then it would have to be before the end of his high school season. I don't know if the NCAA rules at the time permitted that. In any case, it was up to only Stewart and Bozeman whether he would join the Cal team in the Fall of 1993, and he was part of Bozeman's first class.

Keith Smith was not Campanelli's first signed recruit. Campanelli's first season was 1985-86, and Smith was not signed until after that season, in Campanelli's second recruiting class. Smith played as a freshman on the 1986-87 team.

Dick Kuchen's first year was 1978-79. His 1978 recruiting class included the following players:

Kevin Sparks, starting guard.
Mel Holland, a bench player, possibly last man in an 8 man rotation.
John Carson, a bench player
The class also included the following players who did not accumulate any statistics in 1978-79, and probably redshirted that season: Carlos Addison, Michael Chavez, Darrell Haley, Bob Owen, Michael Pitts, Reid Poole, and John Ritchie.

My mistake was including Holland among the walkons, and most of the walkons were not walkons, they were probably redshirts.

John Coughran was not in Pete Padgett's first recruiting class. Pete Padgett was head coach at Cal from 1968 to 1972. His first recruiting class was in 1968 for the 1968-69 season and was as I stated in the original post. John Coughran played high school ball in 1968-69 and was signed by Padgett in his SECOND recruiting class in 1969. Coughran played for the Cal frosh, I believe, in 1969-1970, and his first varsity year was 1970-71, as a sophomore.

I hope this clears it up for you. www.sports-reference.com is an excellent website for history and statistics, and was recommended to me by Tsubamoto, our resident statistics and recruit ranking guru, when he pointed out that the statistics on web pages produced by colleges themselves, are not as accurate.

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Regarding the Kuchen years, no, the Pitts/Chavez/Haley/Ritchie/Poole class was his second class. If you have info that says they were part of the first class, then that info is wrong. Here, you want a breakdown, off the top of my head?
Those five all came in in 79/80.
Pitts was a skinny, 6-11, highly-recruited center who played well for Cal.
Chavez was a 5-9 guard, imagine Chauca +1, who was over-matched but improved a bit over his 4 yrs.
Haley was a 6-7 undersized PF who became a decent starter by his senior year.
Ritchie was a 6-10 forward center, who was not that good and may have left after 2-3 years.
Poole was a rather heavy, 6-9 post who left after his first year.

Feel free to cite your source that you believe validates your accuracy, but I will just repeat that that info is wrong, in this one case. You have your eras of expertise; I have mine. Lucky you: In some of your eras, you got to see some darn good basketball!

RichyBear said:

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As stated in other posts, the list is not complete.
The 1993 list should include Sean Marks and the 1969 list should include Jackie Ridgle and Charley Johnson.

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According to www.sports-reference.com, Todd Bozeman recruited Sean Marks in 1994 which was Bozeman's 2nd recruiting class as far as the record shows. Marks played in 1994-95 as a freshman, and there is no record of a redshirt in 1993. Jackie Ridgle and Charley Johnson were signed in 1967 by Rene Herrerias and played for the Cal frosh in 1967-68.

Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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barabbas said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

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The list is not accurate at all! Without going through it Year to year; for example, Yogi Stewart was signed by Campinelli and Keith Smith was his first signed recruit. Dick Kuchen's first recruits were Mel Holland and Kevin Sparks. Jim Padgett 's first class was John Coughran. Have no idea what you're looking at for reference?
Btw, Lou Campinelli inherited: Leonard Taylor, Dave Butler and Jevin Johnson to name a few. He inherited the mother lode!!!

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With all due respect, I believe my list is accurate. My references are the website: www.sports-reference.com and the old Cal Bears site. According to the references, Yogi Stewart was a freshman on the 1993-94 Cal team, recruited in the 1993 recruiting class of Todd Bozeman. Campanelli was fired in February of 1993. Yogi was still playing high school ball in 1993, so if Campanelli signed him then it would have to be before the end of his high school season. I don't know if the NCAA rules at the time permitted that. In any case, it was up to only Stewart and Bozeman whether he would join the Cal team in the Fall of 1993, and he was part of Bozeman's first class.

Keith Smith was not Campanelli's first signed recruit. Campanelli's first season was 1985-86, and Smith was not signed until after that season, in Campanelli's second recruiting class. Smith played as a freshman on the 1986-87 team.

Dick Kuchen's first year was 1978-79. His 1978 recruiting class included the following players:

Kevin Sparks, starting guard.
Mel Holland, a bench player, possibly last man in an 8 man rotation.
John Carson, a bench player
The class also included the following players who did not accumulate any statistics in 1978-79, and probably redshirted that season: Carlos Addison, Michael Chavez, Darrell Haley, Bob Owen, Michael Pitts, Reid Poole, and John Ritchie.

My mistake was including Holland among the walkons, and most of the walkons were not walkons, they were probably redshirts.

John Coughran was not in Pete Padgett's first recruiting class. Pete Padgett was head coach at Cal from 1968 to 1972. His first recruiting class was in 1968 for the 1968-69 season and was as I stated in the original post. John Coughran played high school ball in 1968-69 and was signed by Padgett in his SECOND recruiting class in 1969. Coughran played for the Cal frosh, I believe, in 1969-1970, and his first varsity year was 1970-71, as a sophomore.

I hope this clears it up for you. www.sports-reference.com is an excellent website for history and statistics, and was recommended to me by Tsubamoto, our resident statistics and recruit ranking guru, when he pointed out that the statistics on web pages produced by colleges themselves, are not as accurate.

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Regarding the Kuchen years, no, the Pitts/Chavez/Haley/Ritchie/Poole class was his second class. If you have info that says they were part of the first class, then that info is wrong. Here, you want a breakdown, off the top of my head?
Those five all came in in 79/80.
Pitts was a skinny, 6-11, highly-recruited center who played well for Cal.
Chavez was a 5-9 guard, imagine Chauca +1, who was over-matched but improved a bit over his 4 yrs.
Haley was a 6-7 undersized PF who became a decent starter by his senior year.
Ritchie was a 6-10 forward center, who was not that good and may have left after 2-3 years.
Poole was a rather heavy, 6-9 post who left after his first year.

Feel free to cite your source that you believe validates your accuracy, but I will just repeat that that info is wrong, in this one case. You have your eras of expertise; I have mine. Lucky you: In some of your eras, you got to see some darn good basketball!

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I gave you the reference in the last paragraph. Of course, you would have to go to the reference and look for the roster of the actual year in question. I am getting worn out having to defend every little detail in my original post, when I have proved nearly all of what I wrote was accurate. Those five players according to the reference I cited all were on the roster in 1978-79, all had no statistics that season, and all played their first season in 1979-80.

I will do the work for you. Here is the link to the 1978-79 roster: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/california/1979.html

Maybe sports-reference made 5 mistakes in this case. Unless you can cite your source showing something different, I will continue to believe sports-reference,com and that my post was accurate. So be my guest, and cite your reference, so we can compare.

And what are my "eras"? I don't understand that one.

petalumabear said:

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.Brandon Smith was a scholarship athlete as a Cal freshman out of De La Salle in Concord. Others, like Nick Hamilton were walk ins who earned a scholarship for a time during their Cal careers. I think that's the point being made. There are players listed who weren't scholarship athletes alongside those who were.

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You could be right about Brandon, and probably are. My recollection was that he originally agreed to come to Cal as a walk-on, but that a scholarship opened up for him early on, either before he arrived, or very soon thereafter. I thought I remembered Montgomery talking about it. There were several players on the previous 2009 team who left the team prior to graduation: Taylor Harrison retired due to injury, Jordan Wilkes retiring from basketball, Eddie Miller transferring to Davis, and Nican Robinson also left, so maybe it could have been one of those scholarships. I couldn't find any info to back up my claim. My memory is not what it once was, so I try and look things up, and I should have looked this up before I mentioned Brandon. I do remember fans complaining when Monty recruited him, and whether that was because of his low recruit ranking or taking up a scholarship, I don't know. I'm glad he came to Cal, especially a year later when Gary Franklin quit the team after 12 games and Brandon was there to give Cal his best year.

I listed all the players, scholarship and non-scholarship because of the reasons I stated earlier. It was my original post and I get to choose my parameters, right? There are many scholarship players who don't live up to their recruit ranking, and there are a few non-scholarship players who played well enough to have earned a recruit ranking, and I think a coach should get credit (or blame) for all the players he adds to his team, not just the scholarship players.

UrsaMajor said:

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SFCityBear said:

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CALiforniALUM said:

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Regardless of who recruited who in that list it is clear that we don't recruit very well. Maybe the coach doesn't matter when it comes to recruiting and we are losing the recruiting battle for other reasons. I might surmise that many athletic kids may not covet a degree from Cal in the same way our Alums who never played a sport in college do. Further, most of the kids out there have probably pursued athletics in part to avoid or differentiate themselves from the academic crowd.

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This was not my point at all. My point was to show that Wyking Jones had not done as unimpressive a job of recruiting in his very first recruiting class in his first year at Cal as some of his predecessor coaches had done.

The list was only a list of the very first recruiting classes of coaches in their first year of coaching at Cal. We can't with any honesty extrapolate that small sample of recruiting classes in to making such a general statement about all Cal coaches for all their years of recruiting basketball players to come to Cal, "it is clear that we don't recruit very well." No, it isn't clear. We have recruited many terrific players and many more very good ones. We many not get enough of them together in at one time as many schools seem to do, but that is debatable. In any case your statement is unfair to all the good recruiting that has been done, even by some of our below average coaches, and unfair to all the good players who have played for the Blue and Gold.

What we don't do very well is hire great or even good coaches. In basketball we have hired only one great one, Pete Newell, and one good one, Mike Montgomery, in the last 63 years. The present coach is still an unknown quantity, and time will tell if he can he prove himself to be great, good, average, or below average coach.

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I understand your point, SFCity, and I would expand it, frankly, to football as well. In the same time frame, we've had one great coach (Pappy Waldorf), two good ones (Jeff Tedford, Bruce Snyder), one cheater (Mike White) and a bunch of "who he."

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When did Mike White cheat? I've forgotten. My memories of the bad things tend to fade away. Actually, don't tell me. That Mike White 1975 team was perhaps the best Cal team I ever saw. Now if only Muncie hadn't dropped that Joe Roth 4th down pass over the middle against UCLA, we might have had a trip to Pasadena. Curses.............

According to source inside the Waldorf era, Waldorf excelled as an organizer and allowed his assistants to perform their duties. so, does "greatness" consist of teaching, organizing or winning ? Or, two of the three or one of the three. so much depends on definition. He was a good guy who loved dirty limericks. i wrote him a letter one time and he had the decency to respond. This was when he was a 49er scout. He later was instrumental in helping me to land a job in the Scouting Organization named Quadra headquartered in Palo Alto. I was mostly a desk jockey but I did time and weigh local players. My boss was Hampton Poole, former Ram HC. Also a really good guy. He told me that the Cowboys and Rams were the first to use computers when evaluating football players, and as a result, were light years ahead of everyone else.

SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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barabbas said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

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The list is not accurate at all! Without going through it Year to year; for example, Yogi Stewart was signed by Campinelli and Keith Smith was his first signed recruit. Dick Kuchen's first recruits were Mel Holland and Kevin Sparks. Jim Padgett 's first class was John Coughran. Have no idea what you're looking at for reference?
Btw, Lou Campinelli inherited: Leonard Taylor, Dave Butler and Jevin Johnson to name a few. He inherited the mother lode!!!

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With all due respect, I believe my list is accurate. My references are the website: www.sports-reference.com and the old Cal Bears site. According to the references, Yogi Stewart was a freshman on the 1993-94 Cal team, recruited in the 1993 recruiting class of Todd Bozeman. Campanelli was fired in February of 1993. Yogi was still playing high school ball in 1993, so if Campanelli signed him then it would have to be before the end of his high school season. I don't know if the NCAA rules at the time permitted that. In any case, it was up to only Stewart and Bozeman whether he would join the Cal team in the Fall of 1993, and he was part of Bozeman's first class.

Keith Smith was not Campanelli's first signed recruit. Campanelli's first season was 1985-86, and Smith was not signed until after that season, in Campanelli's second recruiting class. Smith played as a freshman on the 1986-87 team.

Dick Kuchen's first year was 1978-79. His 1978 recruiting class included the following players:

Kevin Sparks, starting guard.
Mel Holland, a bench player, possibly last man in an 8 man rotation.
John Carson, a bench player
The class also included the following players who did not accumulate any statistics in 1978-79, and probably redshirted that season: Carlos Addison, Michael Chavez, Darrell Haley, Bob Owen, Michael Pitts, Reid Poole, and John Ritchie.

My mistake was including Holland among the walkons, and most of the walkons were not walkons, they were probably redshirts.

John Coughran was not in Pete Padgett's first recruiting class. Pete Padgett was head coach at Cal from 1968 to 1972. His first recruiting class was in 1968 for the 1968-69 season and was as I stated in the original post. John Coughran played high school ball in 1968-69 and was signed by Padgett in his SECOND recruiting class in 1969. Coughran played for the Cal frosh, I believe, in 1969-1970, and his first varsity year was 1970-71, as a sophomore.

I hope this clears it up for you. www.sports-reference.com is an excellent website for history and statistics, and was recommended to me by Tsubamoto, our resident statistics and recruit ranking guru, when he pointed out that the statistics on web pages produced by colleges themselves, are not as accurate.

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Regarding the Kuchen years, no, the Pitts/Chavez/Haley/Ritchie/Poole class was his second class. If you have info that says they were part of the first class, then that info is wrong. Here, you want a breakdown, off the top of my head?
Those five all came in in 79/80.
Pitts was a skinny, 6-11, highly-recruited center who played well for Cal.
Chavez was a 5-9 guard, imagine Chauca +1, who was over-matched but improved a bit over his 4 yrs.
Haley was a 6-7 undersized PF who became a decent starter by his senior year.
Ritchie was a 6-10 forward center, who was not that good and may have left after 2-3 years.
Poole was a rather heavy, 6-9 post who left after his first year.

Feel free to cite your source that you believe validates your accuracy, but I will just repeat that that info is wrong, in this one case. You have your eras of expertise; I have mine. Lucky you: In some of your eras, you got to see some darn good basketball!

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I gave you the reference in the last paragraph. Of course, you would have to go to the reference and look for the roster of the actual year in question. I am getting worn out having to defend every little detail in my original post, when I have proved nearly all of what I wrote was accurate. Those five players according to the reference I cited all were on the roster in 1978-79, all had no statistics that season, and all played their first season in 1979-80.

I will do the work for you. Here is the link to the 1978-79 roster: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/california/1979.html

Maybe sports-reference made 5 mistakes in this case. Unless you can cite your source showing something different, I will continue to believe sports-reference,com and that my post was accurate. So be my guest, and cite your reference, so we can compare.

And what are my "eras"? I don't understand that one.

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I clicked the link you graciously provided and looked at the info. It is mistaken. The five players I mentioned (Pitts/Chavez/Haley/Ritchie/Poole) were not on the roster or at Cal in 78/79. They came in the next year, in Kuchen's second recruiting class.

Believe what you want. My source is me, as I was there and fairly close to the program at the time. This is what I meant by 'eras': You are going by an Internet source, as you were not close to the program at that time, obviously. There are certain eras of Cal Basketball in which you have excellent knowledge and I would not pretend to tell you about the way things were during those eras because you were there and you know.

Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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barabbas said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Here are the first-year recruiting classes for Cal Coaches since freshmen were declared eligible to play varsity.

Wyking Jones, 2017:
Justice Suing
Darius McNeill
Juwan Harris-Dyson
Grant Anticevich
Deschon Winston
Austin McCullough
Jules Erving

It is unfair to judge the worth of recruits in just one year of play, but even saying that, Jones did recruit three players who already have shown well in year one, and show some promise to be good players in the future. Jones' first year is already one of the best first year recruiting classes in Cal history, IMO.

Cuonzo Martin, 2014
Kingsley Okoroh
Nick Hamilton
Cole Welle
Brandon Chauca

Only Okoroh was a good contributor, and not until year three.

Mike Montgomery, 2008
Jorge Gutierrez
D. J. Seeley
Max Zhang
Nigel Carter
Nican Robinson

Monty struck gold with Jorge, but the rest of his class was a flop. Max was already landed by Braun, I think.

Ben Braun, 1996
Sean Jackson
and 5 Walk-ons

In the running for the weakest first year classes of all time, but what a good year the Bears had on the floor in Braun's first season.

Lou Campanelli, 1986
LeVord Jenkins
Jan Svoboda

Probably the weakest first year class. Campy took over one of the weakest teams in Cal history, and whipped them into shape, maybe literally, with no good recruits to speak of.

Todd Bozeman, 1993
Anwar McQueen
Michael Stewart
Randy Duck
Dan Gura

Duck pretty good for 3 years, but Stewart took time to develop.

Dick Kuchen, 1979
Michael Pitts
Michael Chavez
Darrell Haley
Kevin Sparks
and 6 Walk-ons

Kuchen was left with a bare cupboard just like Wyking Jones, and he brought in a large number of recruits who made good contributions.

Dick Edwards, 1973
Rickie Hawthorne
Brady Allen
Bill Kellar
Vance Schram

Hawthorne and Allen were good players from the get-go.

Jim Padgett, 1969
Bill Duwe
Bob White
Paul Lovely
Bob Albright

One of Cal's best recruiters ever, but his best recruiting perhaps was done as an assistant to Rene Herrerias. As a head coach, his first recruiting class was just average, with the only contributors being Duwe and White.

Here are my awards for the best:

Best player recruited by a first year coach in his first season: Several, but my favorite would be Jorge. I think he could have started for Pete Newell, and Newell hardly ever chose to even start a sophomore.

Best recruiting by a first year coach, based only on their first year of play: Edwards' 1973 class. Hawthorne and Allen were solid from the get-go.

Best first year class by a first year coach: I'd still go with Edwards' 1973 class, but Wyking Jones 2017 class still has three years left to play, so I'll hold off my judgment until we see what happens with them in the next 3 years. Bozeman's class and Kuchen's class were pretty good as well. Most of Cal's coaches did not have a good first recruiting year, and some still went on to have some good seasons, even with the slow start.

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The list is not accurate at all! Without going through it Year to year; for example, Yogi Stewart was signed by Campinelli and Keith Smith was his first signed recruit. Dick Kuchen's first recruits were Mel Holland and Kevin Sparks. Jim Padgett 's first class was John Coughran. Have no idea what you're looking at for reference?
Btw, Lou Campinelli inherited: Leonard Taylor, Dave Butler and Jevin Johnson to name a few. He inherited the mother lode!!!

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With all due respect, I believe my list is accurate. My references are the website: www.sports-reference.com and the old Cal Bears site. According to the references, Yogi Stewart was a freshman on the 1993-94 Cal team, recruited in the 1993 recruiting class of Todd Bozeman. Campanelli was fired in February of 1993. Yogi was still playing high school ball in 1993, so if Campanelli signed him then it would have to be before the end of his high school season. I don't know if the NCAA rules at the time permitted that. In any case, it was up to only Stewart and Bozeman whether he would join the Cal team in the Fall of 1993, and he was part of Bozeman's first class.

Keith Smith was not Campanelli's first signed recruit. Campanelli's first season was 1985-86, and Smith was not signed until after that season, in Campanelli's second recruiting class. Smith played as a freshman on the 1986-87 team.

Dick Kuchen's first year was 1978-79. His 1978 recruiting class included the following players:

Kevin Sparks, starting guard.
Mel Holland, a bench player, possibly last man in an 8 man rotation.
John Carson, a bench player
The class also included the following players who did not accumulate any statistics in 1978-79, and probably redshirted that season: Carlos Addison, Michael Chavez, Darrell Haley, Bob Owen, Michael Pitts, Reid Poole, and John Ritchie.

My mistake was including Holland among the walkons, and most of the walkons were not walkons, they were probably redshirts.

John Coughran was not in Pete Padgett's first recruiting class. Pete Padgett was head coach at Cal from 1968 to 1972. His first recruiting class was in 1968 for the 1968-69 season and was as I stated in the original post. John Coughran played high school ball in 1968-69 and was signed by Padgett in his SECOND recruiting class in 1969. Coughran played for the Cal frosh, I believe, in 1969-1970, and his first varsity year was 1970-71, as a sophomore.

I hope this clears it up for you. www.sports-reference.com is an excellent website for history and statistics, and was recommended to me by Tsubamoto, our resident statistics and recruit ranking guru, when he pointed out that the statistics on web pages produced by colleges themselves, are not as accurate.

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Regarding the Kuchen years, no, the Pitts/Chavez/Haley/Ritchie/Poole class was his second class. If you have info that says they were part of the first class, then that info is wrong. Here, you want a breakdown, off the top of my head?
Those five all came in in 79/80.
Pitts was a skinny, 6-11, highly-recruited center who played well for Cal.
Chavez was a 5-9 guard, imagine Chauca +1, who was over-matched but improved a bit over his 4 yrs.
Haley was a 6-7 undersized PF who became a decent starter by his senior year.
Ritchie was a 6-10 forward center, who was not that good and may have left after 2-3 years.
Poole was a rather heavy, 6-9 post who left after his first year.

Feel free to cite your source that you believe validates your accuracy, but I will just repeat that that info is wrong, in this one case. You have your eras of expertise; I have mine. Lucky you: In some of your eras, you got to see some darn good basketball!

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I gave you the reference in the last paragraph. Of course, you would have to go to the reference and look for the roster of the actual year in question. I am getting worn out having to defend every little detail in my original post, when I have proved nearly all of what I wrote was accurate. Those five players according to the reference I cited all were on the roster in 1978-79, all had no statistics that season, and all played their first season in 1979-80.

I will do the work for you. Here is the link to the 1978-79 roster: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/california/1979.html

Maybe sports-reference made 5 mistakes in this case. Unless you can cite your source showing something different, I will continue to believe sports-reference,com and that my post was accurate. So be my guest, and cite your reference, so we can compare.

And what are my "eras"? I don't understand that one.

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I clicked the link you graciously provided and looked at the info. It is mistaken. The five players I mentioned (Pitts/Chavez/Haley/Ritchie/Poole) were not on the roster or at Cal in 78/79. They came in the next year, in Kuchen's second recruiting class.

Believe what you want. My source is me, as I was there and fairly close to the program at the time. This is what I meant by 'eras': You are going by an Internet source, as you were not close to the program at that time, obviously. There are certain eras of Cal Basketball in which you have excellent knowledge and I would not pretend to tell you about the way things were during those eras because you were there and you know.

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Just trying to help out here guys. I did a search on "Michael Pitts Cal Basketball" and found the article below from Cal when Pitts won the Pete Newell award. It says he was CIF high school player of the year in 1979, so if accurate that precludes him being on Cal's roster in 1978. Second article is from his high school retiring his number and also cites his 1979 CIF player of the year award. So I think Big C is correct that sports reference is mistaken. I will say that I have used sports reference before and it is about as good as you are going to find, but the further back you go the more iffy it gets. I've come across other occasions where they seemed to have assumed players redshirted as freshmen or otherwise were sloppy. When you look at their stats for Michael Pitts, it just says 1978 and is empty and has no listing for later years.

http://calbears.com/news/2016/2/1/210672482.aspx?path=mbball

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/fast-break/2011/jan/30/sweetwater-star-michael-pitts-honored-in-jersey-re/

Whoa this thread turned into ________

going4roses said:

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Whoa this thread turned into ________

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This thread is a red herring. As others have noted, so many of these head coaches were hired very late in a recruiting cycle, or even later, and any legit comparison would be to the year after all of those listed in the OP.

In other words, compare Wyking's 2018 class, once they've played enough to assess them, with the fall 2015 Jaylen Brown/Ivan Rabb class recruited by Cuonzo Martin's staff, and move ahead one year for all of the other coaches as well.

BearSD said:

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going4roses said:

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Whoa this thread turned into ________

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This thread is a red herring. As others have noted, so many of these head coaches were hired very late in a recruiting cycle, or even later, and any legit comparison would be to the year after all of those listed in the OP.

In other words, compare Wyking's 2018 class, once they've played enough to assess them, with the fall 2015 Jaylen Brown/Ivan Rabb class recruited by Cuonzo Martin's staff, and move ahead one year for all of the other coaches as well.

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Should we maybe start calling these things "blue herrings"?

SFCityBear said:

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RichyBear said:

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As stated in other posts, the list is not complete.
The 1993 list should include Sean Marks and the 1969 list should include Jackie Ridgle and Charley Johnson.

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According to www.sports-reference.com, Todd Bozeman recruited Sean Marks in 1994 which was Bozeman's 2nd recruiting class as far as the record shows. Marks played in 1994-95 as a freshman, and there is no record of a redshirt in 1993. Jackie Ridgle and Charley Johnson were signed in 1967 by Rene Herrerias and played for the Cal frosh in 1967-68.

Your correct that Jackie Ridgle and Charley johnson played for the Cal Frosh in 1967-1968, but your wrong on Bob White and Bill Duwe being freshmen in 1969, they were on the 1967-68 frosh team with Ridgle and Johnson. (I believe Tony barthlamew was the center on that frosh team.) Ridgle, Johnson, Duwe , and White were all starters as Sophs on the 1968-1969 varsity team, along with SR Bob Presley.

Sean Marks was a frosh on the 1993, along with Stewart, McQueen, and Randy Duck. He was redshirted by Bozeman because of an injury. If we still had the old boards I could scan a copyof the 1993 Roster to show it, but under the current system I can't.

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BearSD said:

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going4roses said:

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Whoa this thread turned into ________

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This thread is a red herring. As others have noted, so many of these head coaches were hired very late in a recruiting cycle, or even later, and any legit comparison would be to the year after all of those listed in the OP.

In other words, compare Wyking's 2018 class, once they've played enough to assess them, with the fall 2015 Jaylen Brown/Ivan Rabb class recruited by Cuonzo Martin's staff, and move ahead one year for all of the other coaches as well.

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Yup, pretty pointless thread, other than to show that just because you can pull some info from a website doesn't make it accurate.