I saw yesterday's game, after having been away throughout the Pac-12 season, so have not seen the team since late November.
Certainly the team has improved substantially since last I last saw them, but all college teams should be better in March than they were in November.
Generally, the offense still has little movement without the ball, a paucity of screens, and no one capable of getting passes into the post. Kelly looks lost, but am not surprised, since he gets open inside, at least open enough to receive a pass, which almost never comes. My guess is that he has been misused, as he had been in the out of conference games, and that his confidence and enthusiasm have been drained.
It should be obvious that he and Vanover could be an effective tandem, with one high and the other low. Certainly both should be significant parts of our offense. However, the ball mainly moves around the perimeter, with no effective screening. To my knowledge, Wyking has no options that regularly involve these two bigs, who are or should be among are our first options to score.
So often Austen ends up with the ball and some really low percentage shot from a distance or an ineffectual drive. And if not with Austen (the least likely of the perimeter guys to nail a shot) with one of the other perimeter guys who get no help from screens by other of our players.
I was impressed yesterday with the improvement of Bradley.
In sum, I was pleased to see the team's improvement in their defeat yesterday, but came away believing that Wyking should be replaced. This group of players could have done better with a more competent coach. There are many coaches that could have done better with these players over the last two years. Pretty much an average coach with some competence could have done better.
Hopefully, Cal can land such a coach. And he does not have to be a Newell, a Wooden, a Montgomery, in order to do significantly better than Jones.
