OaktownBear said:
Big C said:
SFCityBear said:
Big C said:
SFCityBear said:
barabbas said:
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!!!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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/
Well, I clicked on this thread late in the game. Oaktown, you are correct in thinking Big C is correct that sports reference is mistaken.
I think that SFCityBear is making a huge mistake in thinking, "There is a link on the Internet that says these guys were on the roster, so it must be true unless you can cite another source that says otherwise." Faithful posters WHO WERE THERE are better than the unverifiable sports reference. When sports reference puts Pitts/Chavez/Haley/Ritchie/Poole on the 78-79 roster, it is WRONG.
Oaktown provides good evidence about Pitts here. My best source can't be linked, my media guides from 78-79 and from 79-80 (back when they weren't available to the general public, I used to get media guides from a friend who worked in what was known then as the Sports Information Department). Unfortunately, media guides from the 20th Century aren't on the Cal website (or anywhere else on-line I know of), but the hard copy of those guides leave ZERO doubt that Pitts/Chavez/Haley/Ritchie/Poole were NOT on the roster in 78-79. Sorry, SFCityBear, your source is crap, and I have the documents to prove it.
Actually, SFCityBear, sports reference guide made SIX mistakes. The sports reference guide also lists Bob Owen on the 78-79 roster. He was also a true freshman in 79-80. I believe Brian Guinn is the only true freshman from 79-80 who is NOT listed in sports reference as being on the 78-79 roster. He only played garbage time and I believe was only on the roster that one season. He was more of a baseball player, eventually a 30th draft round pick and while never playing in the majors, he did help the A's win 3 straight pennants by being one of the 3 minor leaguers traded to the Cubs for Dennis Eckersley (pretty much Guinn's biggest claim to fame). He was part of one of my favorite Cal baseball plays. Guinn pinch running at first in a tie game in the bottom of the 9th (pretty sure it was the 9th and not extra innings) against Stanford, and when a double was hit over Elway's head in center that died against the cloth fence, Elway threw a perfect one hop laser to the plate from dead center, best throw I've ever seen in a baseball game, it was jaw dropping. It beat Guinn to the plate, although just barely. When the catcher didn't hold on, Guinn scored. Cal wins, Stanford sucks.
Meanwhile, Kevin Sparks, Mel Holland, and John Carson, the ONLY three members of Kuchen's first recruiting class, all lived in Unit II as freshmen, so I saw them in the dining commons often (even if they did not live in the same hall I was in). Over Christmas break freshman year, I almost killed Sparks while I was driving and he was on a bike. It was night, I was turning right onto College from Forest Ave (just south of Derby), and Sparks was going the wrong way on College with no lights on his bike and somewhat hidden by the parked cars on College. As I made my turn, there he was in front of me. We both made good moves to avoid the collision.
But I digress. The real lesson, don't believe everything you read on the Internet, even if I suggest you should believe me. You can find an incredible number of "reliable" sources on the Internet to say that Carol Channing performed at halftime of Super Bowl IV. Channing has said herself she was there. Pepsi even made an ad about it. But I WAS THERE. I KNOW it wasn't true. There were many performers, Channing wasn't one of them (and the recreation of the Battle of New Orleans was at that halftime show was, when witnessed live at the stadium, even better than seeing live the recreation of Columbus bringing the first citrus seed to the new world at halftime show of the Cal-Clemson Citrus Bowl). You can also find on-line full video of the Super Bowl IV halftime show that establishes she wasn't there, so I have backup to support my account, but still, in this case, yes, I am a better source that a LOT of internet sites. I was an eyewitness.
Big C and I were also eyewitnesses to the 78-79 and the 79-80 teams, we are better sources than the weak sports reference roster that has no stats for them, but if SFCityBear won't take our word for it, surely some library at Cal, or some Athletic Department archives, have those same media guides that I still have. If SFCityBear doesn't want to believe those of us who were there and can corroborate each other, he can go look at those media guides.
