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Cal Basketball

The 2018-19 Men's Basketball Season in Review

March 15, 2019
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The Cal Men’s Basketball program finds itself at arguably the nadir of its 112-year history.

Back to back 12th (and last) place finishes in the Pac 12 along with a 25% win percentage set the mark for futility since the program’s inception in 1907.   Dick Kuchen’s 1979-80 and 1980-81 seasons also saw the Bears finish last in the then Pac-10 but were able to post a slightly more robust overall win percentage.  

And, while the Bears have only been conference champions once since the Pete Newell days, it’s not as if Cal has been a league doormat in recent years. In fact, in the previous nine seasons prior to former AD Mike Williams hired Wyking Jones, the Bears finished in the top half of the conference and played in the postseason eight times.  In fact, between 2008 and 2017, Cal had the 3rd best overall record in conference play behind only Arizona and UCLA. When you factor in all of the players who turned professional from those years (Anderson, Wallace, Brown, Rabb, Bird, Powe…name any/all), the Cal Men’s basketball program may not have been a college basketball powerhouse, yet it was certainly viewed as more than just respectful.

To put the above in further context, according to Jeff Sagarin’s USA Today College Basketball Ratings, the Pac 12 was the weakest Power 6 conference in the nation in 2017-18 and this current season had the ignominy of finishing ranked 8th in KenPom’s conference tally, the Pac-12 was rated behind all six of the power conferences as well as the American Athletic Conference, known for such powerhouse hoops programs such as East Carolina, Tulane and SMU.   On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “The Worst Pac-12 Season Ever”.  This is the state of the conference in which the Bears have twice in a row been cellar dwellers. 

Nationally, Cal is currently ranked as the 260th team by KenPom (out of 353 Division I teams).  The four teams ranked just ahead of the Bears are in order:  Holy Cross, Air Force, Army, and Middle Tennessee.   Only two other Power 6 conference teams fell below 131st nationally - Wake Forest at 163rd and Washington State at 211th, one of the three teams Cal beat this year in Pac 12 play.

So what’s happened?  On the court, look no further than the Bears defensive performance to understand why they’ve struggled to win games.   KenPom’s Defensive Efficiency Ratings have Cal as the 297th team in stopping opponents nationally.  This offsets a below average offense which ranked 197th in scoring efficiency.  The defense has been hard to watch at times, with lapses in both effort and decision making.

While we cannot rewrite history, it’s important to remember the circumstances that led Mike Williams to hire Wyking Jones.   The former had no athletics administration experience when led the search for Cuonzo Martin’s successor.  Perhaps not surprisingly, he hired someone who had never even been a number one assistant coach nor interviewed for a head coaching role at any level. 

Still, there was a scintilla of hope when Jones was hired.  Cal was coming off relatively successful back to back seasons under Coach Cuonzo Martin and there was momentum on the recruiting front with the Bears.  Martin had inked a 2017 class that included a top 75 player in JeMarl Baker and two top 150 players in Justice Sueing and Juhwan Harris-Dyson.  Charlie Moore was coming off a strong freshman season at PG and former 5 star PF, Marcus Lee was eligible to play as a transfer.   Cal’s entire athletic department was on fiscal alert in trying to manage Memorial Stadium debt leading Williams to hope that in hiring Jones he would both create continuity and demonstrate fiscal prudence.

Williams put Jones in a difficult situation.  Wyking had a limited chance to re-recruit the incoming class or the roster as Baker de-committed three days after Wyking was named the head coach and Moore announced his transfer two weeks later.  Kameron Rooks later choose to become a grad transfer and left for SDSU.  More importantly, Williams ran the search in a haphazard fashion with little communication to or with the involvement of Cal’s major donors.   Many donors commented that it was the first time that this typically fractious group of big donors had ever agreed on something. They universally loathed Williams and felt the hiring of Jones was a total disaster. A too late and ill-advised attempt to appease this group, Williams mandated that Jones hire former Cal basketball favorite, Theo Robertson, as one of his assistants. 

Within six weeks of taking the job, Williams had left Jones with no donor support, a depleted roster that had to be rebuilt with all five starters leaving from the previous years' team and an assistant coach he didn’t want.   The first-time head coach was forced to scramble and reached to fill scholarships with lightly recruited Deschon Winston and Austin McCullough.  These were decisions Jones would come to regret as both refused to relinquish their scholarships a year later when the staff let them know they were unlikely to ever see the court at Cal.  

This year's roster is young with the top seven rotation players consisting of four sophomores and two freshmen.  It’s also small with only three scholarship roster players 6’7 or taller.   Finally, with the departure of Winston and McCullough, there are only 10 scholarship players period.   Being shy on overall depth, especially in the frontcourt made practices and player development more difficult.  

Important to note that while Cal is young (nationally KenPom ranks the roster 342nd out of 353 Division 1 Teams), it’s actually older than Stanford and UCLA's and the conference as a whole is far younger than any of the other Power 6 conferences.  It’s also important to look beyond years out of high school when judging relative experience.  For example, take a look at the top 7 rotation players for both Colorado and Cal after Wednesday’s Pac 12 Tournament Matchup against career minutes played.

Colorado     California  
Siewert 1760   Austin 2270
Wright 1042   McNeil 1051
Bey 629   Sueing 1023
Schwarz 418   Harris-Dyson 582
Gatling 383   Anticevich 170
Batty 0   Bradley 0
Koontz 0   Vanover 0

With that level of experience, the Buffaloes have gone 20-11 and play tonight in the Pac-12 Tournament Semifinal.

Similarly, this is not a great year for Pac 12 frontcourts.  Only four teams can boast of a regular rotation with more than two players 6’9 or taller.   Again, that includes Colorado who eliminated the Bears with a rotation of only 4 players taller than 6’4 and those three were 6’7, 6’7, 6’8 and 6’10.  Nationally, Cal’s roster ranked 95th in terms of average height according to KenPom, well above average.   So while this is a young and smaller roster relative to recent ones in Cal’s past, it was not abnormal nationally nor in this years Pac-12.

Is there a talent deficit?  As Nathan Allen’s article here shows, Power 6 teams with relatively worse talent (based on recruiting rankings) are performing at a high level, albeit with a lot more experience and depth.   Still, this is clearly a challenge for the Bears.  A roster of only ten scholarship players and only five of those with top 150 credentials coming out of HS.   The roster and talent challenges when Jones took over were objectively significant.   Yet, the decision to offer scholarships to Winston and McCullough along with the failure to bring in another big man in 2018 sealed the fate for this years team.  And that’s squarely on Jones.

Let's take a look at player development, focused on the three players who returned after playing significant minutes the season prior.   Historically, college basketball players take their biggest leaps forward after their freshman season.  Did the Bears?

Justice Sueing

  FG% 3FG% Rebounds Assists Turnovers Points
2018-19 .432 .302 6.0 2.0 1.7 14.3
2017-18 .434 .311 5.4 1.4 2.1 13.8

Darius McNeil

 

FG%

3FG% Rebounds Assists Turnovers Points
2018-19 .391 .349 1.4 0.9 1.1 11.0
2017-18 .381 .353 2.9 2.2 2.2 11.3

Juhwan Harris-Dyson

  FG% 3FG% Rebounds Assists Turnovers Points
2018-19 .408 .00 2.0 1.0 1.1 3.5
2017-18 .493 .00 3.4 1.0 1.8 6.2

As is clear from the above both Sueing and McNeil had substantially similar seasons in their 2nd year while Harris-Dyson took a clear step back.  On a more positive note, give the Staff credit for the in-season development of Connor Vanover.  Vanover’s improved fitness and strength led him to be Cal’s most effective two way player by season’s end.

There’s a solid but not spectacular incoming recruiting class on its way in 2019.   Canadian PG Joel Brown is a nice combination of elite quickness and athleticism with a pure point guard mentality (a clear missing ingredient from this years team).  Charles Smith IV is a good athlete with a great jump shooting stroke.  And DJ Thorpe brings great length and the pedigree of having an NBA star for a father.

That said, the class is not a panacea.  Thorpe missed almost all of his senior season with an injury and is not nearly physical enough to contribute right away.  Smith is on his fourth high school in four years and saw his national rankings plunge this past Summer because of what we believe are entirely unfounded character concerns, centered primarily on the fact that he transferred high schools several times.  And Joel Brown is still working on finding a jump shot.

The high points this year start and end with the fight and spirit with which this team has played.  It could have given up at countless points and instead has improved as the season has progressed culminating in a three-game win streak which included a victory over Pac 12 regular season champion UW at home.  

Discussion from...

The 2018-19 Men's Basketball Season in Review

18,752 Views | 37 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by SFCityBear
calbear80
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This is an excellent analysis of Cal MBB season by the Bear Insider staff.

Most importantly, this article clearly rebuks Jones apologists by showing that how Colorado with better coaching has already won 21 games despite the fact that they have less experienced players than Cal.

The Bear Insider article also states that both UCLA and Stanford teams are younger than Cal, another clear rebuke of the Jones apologists.

Go Bears!
socaliganbear
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The Cal basketball brand has been broken. Disgraceful.
71Bear
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The article appears to be incomplete. The last couple paragraphs were not written as conclusions. They were a continuation of the overall assessment. Perhaps the article was cut off for some reason?
calbear80
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71Bear said:

The article appears to be incomplete. The last couple pargraphs were not written as conclusions. They are more a continuation of the overall assessment. Perhaps the article was cut off for some reason?

Maybe the Bear Insider staff can clarify if there are missing paragraphs that need to be added.

Go Bears!
concordtom
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socaliganbear said:

The Cal basketball brand has been broken. Disgraceful.
No worse so that the US Presidency.
But both can be re-established.
All is not lost.
concordtom
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And look who is still head coach of the team!
That was one bit left unspoken in the year-end review.
I do not have opinion, just know that many had many predictions.

I'm looking forward to watching Vanover develop. What can he become?
BearGreg
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Staff
71Bear said:

The article appears to be incomplete. The last couple paragraphs were not written as conclusions. They were a continuation of the overall assessment. Perhaps the article was cut off for some reason?
The conclusion to this article will be written by fans on these forums. We've laid out the information - what does it all mean? What should Jim Knowlton do?
bearmanpg
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JMHO.....Hire Travis DeCuire when his season is complete....Not too expensive to buy out a Big Sky coaches contract....If you allow him to go to Wazzu, you would be upping his buy-out considerably in the future....He is the right choice for this job...recruits kids to Montana who could play in the Pac-12....Has deep Seattle connections as well as California......If DeCuire is Knowlton's choice, everything that is happening now makes sense...If not, waiting to make a move or not making a move at all is the wrong action....
BeachedBear
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BearGreg said:

71Bear said:

The article appears to be incomplete. The last couple paragraphs were not written as conclusions. They were a continuation of the overall assessment. Perhaps the article was cut off for some reason?
The conclusion to this article will be written by fans on these forums. We've laid out the information - what does it all mean? What should Jim Knowlton do?
As many have said (including me), Knowlton should have been evaluating potential replacements all season. At this point in time, he should be determining if any superior candidates are willing to take the job, under reasonable budgetary concerns. If that works, replace Jones. If not, then kick the can down the road another season.

In other words, I don't think Jones should be shown the door, purely on poor performance. For example, I'm certain there are many D1 assistants who would take the job if offered (like Jones did). We should not go that direction at this point in time. Replacement doesn't need to be a sure thing, but must at least have evidence of relevant success. Decuire and Turner names get tossed here a lot, I think both of those would be good moves. I also think there are other options as well.

As much as it pains me to say this, this season may be a bad one to find a replacement. There is going to be a lot of coaching vacancies (maybe more prominent programs due to scandals) and other programs are in much better position than Cal to hire - financially and qualitatively.

We may end up taking our sister to the Prom.
concordtom
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BearGreg said:

71Bear said:

The article appears to be incomplete. The last couple paragraphs were not written as conclusions. They were a continuation of the overall assessment. Perhaps the article was cut off for some reason?
The conclusion to this article will be written by fans on these forums. We've laid out the information - what does it all mean? What should Jim Knowlton do?
I think I now know what your opinion is.

:-)
bearister
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calbear80 said:

..Most importantly, this article clearly rebuks Jones apologists by showing that how Colorado with better coaching has already won 21 games despite the fact that they have less experienced players than Cal....


I experienced shrinkage reading this rebuk.

Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside
venividivici
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Anyone who thinks we don't need a new coach is delusional. D1 sports is a business. Butts in seats. How many will return with the satay us who. In the decades since Pete Newell retired Cal has had just one A level coach, Mike Montgomery. A laughable record. Hopefully the AD can see and count empty seats. What top player wants that scene. Time to get real. Play the game or move to D3.
Blueblood
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venividivici said:

Anyone who thinks we don't need a new coach is delusional. D1 sports is a business. Butts in seats. How many will return with the satay us who. In the decades since Pete Newell retired Cal has had just one A level coach, Mike Montgomery. A laughable record. Hopefully the AD can see and count empty seats. What top player wants that scene. Time to get real. Play the game or move to D3.
There you go....what this poster said. But, hey, Cal could be the talk-of-the-town in both football and basketball
while playing in the MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE. Oh, I know many of you see such a move as a laughable degradation to Cal sports....and for awhile, maybe it would be...but such fans don't see that Cal's administration of sports is already reflective of a MWC school. Cal is beginning to walk like a duck....quack like a duck....and is surely acting like a duck.....so maybe the Bear should be replaced with a duck?

Cal could eventually bring the Bear back by leading the charge to create a new conference, for example, without the u$C's or stanfurds.....????
bearchamp
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Cal sports is big business, but it shouldn't be. Cal is a school, not a franchise. Those seeking to go all out "big time" should transfer to Kentucky.
stu
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bearchamp said:

Cal sports is big business, but it shouldn't be. Cal is a school, not a franchise. Those seeking to go all out "big time" should transfer to Kentucky.

+1

I for one would be fine with Cal switching to a smaller-budget conference or division.
oskidunker
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  • So would I.
Go Bears!
Civil Bear
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And we could just Cal ourselves Berkeley and be done with it.
SFCityBear
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With all due respect, does anyone at the Bear Insider proof read articles before they publish them?

This article has so many misstatements of fact, leading to incorrect conclusions, that it is hard to know where to begin. We did not have a good season, and we were not a good team, but why must we look for more bad in our team than we already know about, and why misstate facts to make ourselves look worse?

First off, the author does not seem to know what a rotation is. It is the players who get major minutes in a game. Look at any team's statistics for a season. The rotation players are the 5, 6, 7, 8, or sometimes 9 players who get major minutes per game, generally 17-18 minutes a game and above. In the Cal vs Colorado game, Colorado went with a 7 man rotation, and Cal went with a 5 man rotation. JHD got only 11 minutes. He is not in the rotation, and Kelly with 8 and Anticevich with 5 are not in the rotation either. Anticevich has not been a rotation player all season for more than a few games.

The author does not mention that rotations change over the course of the season. Colorado had an 8 man rotation to start the season, one senior, 3 juniors, and 3 sophs, and a freshman. 4 games in, Namon Wright, Colorado's only senior, and expected team leader, injured his foot. He came back to play 9 more games, but elected to have surgery and not play any more this season. 9 games in, their premier defender, junior Deleon Brown suffered an ankle injury, and then was declared academically ineligible. So Boyle elevated freshman Daylen Kountz into what is now a 7 man rotation, and a younger one. The roster when they played Cal was 2 juniors, 3 sophs, 2 frosh.

Cal's rotation changed as well. At the start of the season, the rotation was one junior, 3 sophs, and 3 frosh, with frosh Bradley and Kelly starting and frosh Gordon coming off the bench. Both Gordon and JHD played nearly the entire season with injury. By the Colorado tournament game, Cal's rotation was down to 5 players, one junior, 2 sophs, and 2 frosh, with Vanover replacing Kelly in the rotation.

The author makes an error when he states that Cal's roster has only 3 scholarship players 6-7 or taller. Our latest rotation had just two, Sueing and Vanover. At the beginning of the season, we had 3, with Kelly, Sueing, and Gordon. Other 6-7 or taller scholarship players who have started games and been in the rotation for a few games are Gordon, Anticevich, and Davis.

The author also makes the statement that Cal has little depth, especially in the front court, but we have more depth in the frontcourt, even if it is not high quality. We have no real backup point guard. In the frontcourt, we have 6 scholarship players for 3 positions Vanover, Sueing, Kelly, Gordon, Anticevich, and Davis.

It is when the author tries to compare the Cal players' minutes of past experience with the Colorado players' minutes that he really goes off the rails. First of all, when looking at Siebert's and Austin's minutes of experience he included all three seasons' minutes (including this season) for each player. When looking at all the other players' minutes he compared only their minutes from past seasons, but did not include their minutes from the current season. He got Battey and Schwartz mixed up, as Battey, who was listed as having 418 minutes of past experience, actually had zero minutes. It was Schwartz the sophomore, who had the 418 minutes of past experience, and the author listed him as having zero. For Cal, he got the rotation wrong, as only 5 players played rotation minutes in that game. JHD played only 11 minutes, and Anticevich played only 5 minutes. Kelly, whom the author did not list, played 8 minutes, which was more than Anticevich. None of those players played enough minutes to be called rotation players.

Here is a revised list comparing all rotation players for that game, totaling all their minutes of experience for past seasons plus the current season:

Colorado
6-10 Jr C Siewert: 1,785 minutes
6-0 So G Wright IV: 2,069
6-7 So G Bey: 1,440
6-8 Fr F Battey: 709
6-2 Jr G Gatling: 1,264
6-7 So G Schwartz: 1,318
6-4 Fr G Koontz: _536__
Total 9,121 minutes

Cal
6-7 So F Sueing: 2,055 minutes
6-3 So G McNeill: 2,023
6-0 Jr G Austin: 2,282
6-4 Fr G Bradley: 880
7-3 Fr C Vanover: 490
Total 7,730 minutes

Colorado, even with their rotation depleted by the injuries to Brown and Namon Wright, had way more minutes of experience than Cal's roster for this game. If you go with Colorado's 8-man rotation at the start of the season the total minutes of experience for Colorado would have been 12,247 minutes. I would add this tidbit: Paris Austin had 1.281 minutes at Boise State. That is D1 but not P5/P6. If Austin had spent those two years at Cal, behind Wallace and Moore, he would have about 1,000 less minutes of experience.

The author also stated that "Colorado eliminated the Bears with a rotation of only 3 players taller than 6-4, and those were 6-7, 6-8, and 6-10." This was not true. Colorado's rotation has 4 players over 6-4: Bey and Schwartz, both at 6-7, Battey at 6-8, and Siewert at 6-10. The poor babies. Up against that mighty front line of Cal's rotation of only two players over 6-4, Sueing at 6-7, and Vanover at 7-3. 4 against 2, and the author credits Colorado's shorter than usual big men with eliminating Cal who had only two big men.

With their two stars, Namon Wright and Deleon Brown, and an 8 man rotation, Colorado would have been competing for the PAC12 Title. Without them they were still good enough to put together a 20 win season. Colorado's rotation had more upperclassmen, with 2 juniors to one for Cal, more minutes of experience for their rotation, more players in their rotation, 7 to 5. What else did we expect in this game? Cal should not have had a prayer in this game, but nearly won it, in a nip and tuck battle that went to the wire. Cal showed even in this close loss to a superior team, that they have improved. Add a few more pieces, and let's see what happens next season.

There are other errors like in one place the author says we have 10 players on scholarship and in another place he says we have 9. I am not going to go through the rest. Clearly this article was written in haste, not careful with his facts, or he has cherry-picked and distorted or misstated facts in an effort to do hatchet job on the current head coach. I don't know what is true, except to say this article is poorly done, and either way it ends up making Cal look even worse than it is. With all due respect to the Bear Insider, it you want to take sides on Wyking Jones, then just state your opinions. That is fine. When you use facts to support the opinion, then again with all due respect, be careful that they are correct.
SFCityBear
BearGreg
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Staff
Appreciate you pointing out the typos with regard to Batty, Schwartz and the scholarship roster #'s. In all other respects, we stand by our article and the data it represents.

Everyone is free to interpret the data as they see fit or present different data to make different points. And apparently, that includes defining rotations without counting actual players who played in a game, making aggregated math comparisons between 7 players and 5 players and not noticing that every team's roster in 2018-19 played the same number of minutes THIS SEASON assuming they played the same number of games.

ducky23
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BearGreg said:

Appreciate you pointing out the typos with regard to Batty, Schwartz and the scholarship roster #'s. In all other respects, we stand by our article and the data it represents.

Everyone is free to interpret the data as they see fit or present different data to make different points. And apparently, that includes defining rotations without counting actual players who played in a game, making aggregated math comparisons between 7 players and 5 players and not noticing that every team's roster in 2018-19 played the same number of minutes THIS SEASON assuming they played the same number of games.




That was like the nicest phrased burn ever
71Bear
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BearGreg said:

Appreciate you pointing out the typos with regard to Batty, Schwartz and the scholarship roster #'s. In all other respects, we stand by our article and the data it represents.

Everyone is free to interpret the data as they see fit or present different data to make different points. And apparently, that includes defining rotations without counting actual players who played in a game, making aggregated math comparisons between 7 players and 5 players and not noticing that every team's roster in 2018-19 played the same number of minutes THIS SEASON assuming they played the same number of games.


Greg,

And I'll stand by my point that the article was poorly written. Quite frankly, it is not a surprise that no one received a by-line. I certainly would not want my name associated with what was written.

The articles I have read here are generally well-written with considerable thought behind them. This was definitely not up to the standard you have established.

Note: I am not suggesting the opinions stated in the article are out of line. My focus is strictly on the structure and grammar. If you want to be taken seriously, make sure the articles presented are carefully edited.

Just a suggestion........
calbear80
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BearGreg said:

Appreciate you pointing out the typos with regard to Batty, Schwartz and the scholarship roster #'s. In all other respects, we stand by our article and the data it represents.

Everyone is free to interpret the data as they see fit or present different data to make different points. And apparently, that includes defining rotations without counting actual players who played in a game, making aggregated math comparisons between 7 players and 5 players and not noticing that every team's roster in 2018-19 played the same number of minutes THIS SEASON assuming they played the same number of games.
+1


calbear80
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Wow! SFCityBear wrote 15 paragraphs and over 2,000 words in a reply post trying to defend the 5-33 (13% winning percentage) coach. I guess it takes a lot of effort and lots of excuses to try to justify a really horrible losing record.

Go Bears!
SFCityBear
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BearGreg said:

Appreciate you pointing out the typos with regard to Batty, Schwartz and the scholarship roster #'s. In all other respects, we stand by our article and the data it represents.

Everyone is free to interpret the data as they see fit or present different data to make different points. And apparently, that includes defining rotations without counting actual players who played in a game, making aggregated math comparisons between 7 players and 5 players and not noticing that every team's roster in 2018-19 played the same number of minutes THIS SEASON assuming they played the same number of games.


Greg,

Thank you for reading my lengthy post, the lengthy article.. What you say about rotations being the players used in a game is mostly true, but most definitions of rotation state that it is planned minutes for each player before a game. I am used to looking at a lot of statistics all season long and watching for the players who get the most minutes, on average. Rotations can change game by game. If Orender or Serge gets into a game for a minute or two, is he part of the rotation?

The reason I defined rotations is because the author did not define them. For Colorado, he used all the players who played in the game. For Cal, he left out Andre Kelly, who played 8 minutes. However, he included Anticevich in his rotation, who played only 5 minutes, which was less than the minutes Kelly played. This confused me as to what his rotations were. So was leaving out Kelly another mistake by the author?

The biggest thing that was wrong with the comparison between the two teams' rotations was that the author mistakenly compared apples to oranges:

1. When comparing the two players with the most minutes of game experience, Austin for Cal and Siewert of Colorado, the author added their minutes from the past two years, Austin at Boise State and Siewert at Colorado, to the minutes they each played this season. This was the correct and best way to compare the two players' experience, in my opinion, and the author should have stuck with it.

2. Instead, the author compared the rest of the players from the two rotations by USING ONLY THEIR MINUTES IN PAST SEASONS, AND LEAVING OUT ALL THE MINUTES ALL THE PLAYERS HAD PLAYED THIS SEASON. Vanover and Bradley, Battey, and Koontz all obviously did not have zero minutes of experience after they played the Cal-Colorado game. They all had a whole season's worth of minutes. That would be OK if the author was comparing the experience of all the players before the first game of the season, but all these players had played a lot of minutes this season, which the author mistakenly overlooked. It was probably an honest mistake, but it compares apples to oranges, greatly distorts the data, and leads to a conclusion that Cal's rotation had more experience than Colorado's rotation did, 5,096 minutes to 4,232 minutes. This is simply not the case, as I pointed out If the author had used ALL the players' minutes of experience in previous years plus the players' minutes this season, as should have been done, then the Colorado rotation has more experience, 9,121 minutes to 7,730 minutes for Cal. And I will stick by that fact.

I'm not sure what you meant about my not realizing every team's rosters play the same number of games. Of course they do. I was writing a criticism of the rotation comparison. The author seldom spoke of the roster. He did say that Cal's roster was young with four sophs and two freshmen. He was wrong about that, too. It is 4 sophs and 3 freshmen. I think he is again leaving out Kelly.

As to the rotations for the Colorado game, I will again say that to expect that Cal win that game, just based on rosters is absurd. Colorado started 3 bigs 6-7 and above, against Cal's two, Sueing and Vanover. Colorado used 4 bigs, 6-7 and above, vs Cal's 4 bigs, Vanover, Sueing, Kelly, and Anticevich, which sounds even, except Kelly and Anticevich played a total of only 13 minutes between them. This game was Colorado's 3 bigs vs Cal's 2 bigs mostly all the time. Colorado's rotation had 2 upperclassmen to Cal's one. Their rotation had almost 1,400 more minutes of game experience than Cal. Colorado had a rotation advantage, playing 7 players against Cal's 5 most of the time, allowing more rest for their players during a game. That was Wyking's call. He played his best players, his best combination, and did not have enough faith in the bench to play them more. It is tough to not have a deep bench, and always has been. Wyking or no Wyking this will continue to get fixed over the next two years, hopefully. Cal played pretty well, had a chance to win, but lost. IMO, this game should not have been that close, based on the rotations, and the fact that Tad Boyle is a very good coach with many years spent in building his program. The young Bears did better than I expected in Vegas.
SFCityBear
calbear80
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venividivici said:

Anyone who thinks we don't need a new coach is delusional. D1 sports is a business. Butts in seats. How many will return with the satay us who. In the decades since Pete Newell retired Cal has had just one A level coach, Mike Montgomery. A laughable record. Hopefully the AD can see and count empty seats. What top player wants that scene. Time to get real....

+1
concordtom
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venividivici said:

Anyone who thinks we don't need a new coach is delusional. D1 sports is a business. Butts in seats. How many will return with the satay us who. In the decades since Pete Newell retired Cal has had just one A level coach, Mike Montgomery. A laughable record. Hopefully the AD can see and count empty seats. What top player wants that scene. Time to get real. Play the game or move to D3.
Oh, so then you are in favor of paying the stars who put the ball thru the hoop.
Great!
SFCityBear
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concordtom said:

venividivici said:

Anyone who thinks we don't need a new coach is delusional. D1 sports is a business. Butts in seats. How many will return with the satay us who. In the decades since Pete Newell retired Cal has had just one A level coach, Mike Montgomery. A laughable record. Hopefully the AD can see and count empty seats. What top player wants that scene. Time to get real. Play the game or move to D3.
Oh, so then you are in favor of paying the stars who put the ball thru the hoop.
Great!
That, my friend, will trigger Title IX, and require that we pay all our college athletes, not just the basketball players. Crew, gymnastics, golf, tennis, water polo, swimming, track and field, everybody. It would be completely unaffordable, and mean the death of college sports.

When Newell was king, he required all of his scholarship players to work 20 hours a week to keep their scholarships. Now some of the players want to be paid a salary, is it? How far we have sunk, not just in the quality of our teams, but in our values as a culture as well.
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concordtom
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So, we have to freeze things and go back to 1959?
Come on, man.
Things are just a bit different today.

How much did tickets cost then?
How much did Cal earn by airing their games on tv?

And why must income earning athletes subsidize non-income earning sports?
SFCityBear
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concordtom said:

So, we have to freeze things and go back to 1959?
Come on, man.
Things are just a bit different today.

How much did tickets cost then?
How much did Cal earn by airing their games on tv?

And why must income earning athletes subsidize non-income earning sports?
Here you go again. Who is talking about freezing anything? You just can't accept that the some of the ways that things were done in any year before you were born is somehow inferior, and must be left discarded. Not everything that happens today is better. I remember as a young grad student driving across country passing through Chicago, I somehow found myself driving through an all-black neighborhood on the South Side. I passed by a playground where some young kids were shooting hoops with a worn out old ball, and playing catch with an old baseball and no gloves. I went looking for a sporting goods store. I spent maybe 15 bucks, and bought a Wilson basketball, a couple of gloves, a bat and a ball. I came back and gave them to the kids. Today, with all the hundreds and thousands of shooting incidents in Chicago (mostly unreported in the mainstream media) , many of the victims being children, I doubt that many kids can venture to a Chicago playground to shoot hoops. Judging from MLB rosters, not as many are playing baseball either. If I was in Chicago today, I would not venture into that neighborhood as I did way back then, with no fear of anything. If the people who live there are afraid to go out of the house, I would be too. Some things today are a lot worse, and if you don't see that, well, then good luck.

Basketball is revenue sport now. So what? There are a lot of takers standing in line for that revenue. WBB, for one, I'd guess. Newell felt that kids should not be given a free ride. They should work for some of that ride. That would teach them responsibility. Why should a kid be given a free ride? He is already being given a chance at a degree at the finest public University in the land, which will mean a lot more to 99% of recruits later in life, than anything they can do or learn in basketball for Cal. My dad played frosh ball, no scholarship, and worked two jobs at 30 hours a week. Inconceivable to you, right? I'd say on average, the kids of my dad's generation were far more self-reliant than today's generation

I did not say that "income earning athletes subsidize non-income-earning sports." I said it would likely trigger Title IX. Do you know what that is? If schools want to have a men's lacrosse team, for example, that requires a budget for the program. A certain amount to be spent on uniforms, equipment, facilities, travel, lodging, coach and staff salaries, etc. Title IX will then require that you provide the same opportunity for women to have such a team, with similar expenses. Schools agree to provide a certain number of minor sports, and all those sports will have their budgets, and provide equal opportunities for men and women's teams. Now if you come along and say that part of the basketball budget will be to pay the men's team players a salary, then you must also agree to pay the members of the women't team similar salaries. I don't know if Tittle IX will require equal number of players getting salaries, or if the salaries will be equal, but you can bet the Civil Rights advocates and attorneys will be out in force to make sure you comply. And if you pay basketball players, they will also demand that you pay tennis players and lacrosse players. No matter how much revenue basketball and football generate, they won't be able to pay all these salaries for all the sports. The athletic department is struggling now, and a few years back, almost lost the entire baseball program.
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calumnus
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bearmanpg said:

JMHO.....Hire Travis DeCuire when his season is complete....Not too expensive to buy out a Big Sky coaches contract....If you allow him to go to Wazzu, you would be upping his buy-out considerably in the future....He is the right choice for this job...recruits kids to Montana who could play in the Pac-12....Has deep Seattle connections as well as California......If DeCuire is Knowlton's choice, everything that is happening now makes sense...If not, waiting to make a move or not making a move at all is the wrong action....


Lol I like DeCuire, but "deep Seattle connections" is not a winning argument. UW and Gonzaga wrap up the limited top talent pool, flooded by Oregon...

Bay Area and Los Angeles is where we need our "deep connections."
SFCityBear
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calumnus said:

bearmanpg said:

JMHO.....Hire Travis DeCuire when his season is complete....Not too expensive to buy out a Big Sky coaches contract....If you allow him to go to Wazzu, you would be upping his buy-out considerably in the future....He is the right choice for this job...recruits kids to Montana who could play in the Pac-12....Has deep Seattle connections as well as California......If DeCuire is Knowlton's choice, everything that is happening now makes sense...If not, waiting to make a move or not making a move at all is the wrong action....


Lol I like DeCuire, but "deep Seattle connections" is not a winning argument. UW and Gonzaga wrap up the limited top talent pool, flooded by Oregon...

Bay Area and Los Angeles is where we need our "deep connections."
Travis did bring us Emerson Murray, as I remember.
SFCityBear
parentswerebears
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And if I remember, probably would have brought Jaylen Nowell.
Civil Bear
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SFCityBear said:

Travis did bring us Emerson Murray, as I remember.


Murray is from Canada. You may be thinking of Ahmaad Rorie who ended up following Decure to Montana.
bearmanpg
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Well if I'm right, DeCuire will be able to act after tonight (Montana losing to Michigan).....I think it will take a few days to make it look good but I fully expect this to happen in the next week....Montgomery probably is still one of the people who gets consulted on decisions like this and we all know he loves Travis.....
socaltownie
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bearmanpg said:

Well if I'm right, DeCuire will be able to act after tonight (Montana losing to Michigan).....I think it will take a few days to make it look good but I fully expect this to happen in the next week....Montgomery probably is still one of the people who gets consulted on decisions like this and we all know he loves Travis.....
And I thought they looked well coached, giving up a ridiculous amount of size to Michigan - where in the HECK do they find such kids????
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