OaktownBear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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stu said:

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What is your criteria for sustainability? Where does the figure 3.25 players every year come from?

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To me sustainable means having 13 (decent) scholarship players on the roster every season. If we recruit 3 players each season we'll eventually reach and maintain a 12-player roster. We'll get to 13 by recruiting a 4th player once every 4 seasons, hence the 3.25 average.

Of course in the real world every team has fat and lean recruiting years, injuries, transfers, etc and may not be able to fill all 13 spots with quality players. So maybe an average of 3.0 recruits per year is more realistic. But Cuonzo didn't reach even half of that.

Right now it looks like we'll have 10 scholarship players this fall. With luck all will be healthy and good enough to contribute. The following season we'll lose Austin for sure, possibly also an unhappy or injured player or two. Then with a year on the job our coaches should be able to recruit 3 or 4 new players to get us up to a full complement.

After that the big question will be quality - will these recruits be good enough to win?

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The problem is that it is difficult to plan, and difficult to know how many scholarships a coach will have available in any given year. That is compounded by the fact that there are good recruiting classes with many good players available, and there are lean years when there are not as many good players available.

I can't blame the current mess entirely on Cuonzo. I do blame and criticize him for a lot of things, but this problem began way back in the Ben Braun era somewhere, maybe even earlier, with Bozeman. When Bozeman was fired, he left his replacement an outstanding roster. The trouble was they were all seniors. They had quite a run, but at the end of that first Braun season, they all graduated except Sean Marks and a guard, maybe McQueen. The next few years Braun filled the roster with good transfers.

The players which Mike Montgomery inherited from Braun, Randle, Christopher, Theo, and Boykin helped Montgomery win the PAC10 title in 2010, and then all graduated after that season on the same day. Monty had only Jorge and Kamp (returning to the team after recovering from an injury) to build a team around. He did not do a good enough job recruiting in the next few years, and was hit by Crabbe leaving early, plus the unforeseen Amoke situation. In 2013 he then recruited a large class, 5 players, Bird, Mathews, Singer, Rooks, and RMB. This was the nucleus for Cuonzo's first season at Cal. But all those players would be graduating at once, except for Mathews who left after 3 years in a dispute with Cuonzo.

Cuonzo's big mistake, knowing full well that the remaining 4 players would graduate after 3 seasons with him, was to sign one-and-done players Rabb and Brown, which would leave two big holes to fill in the next recruiting class after they had left. He lucked out a little bit, when Rabb decided to stay another year before leaving. What Cuonzo should have done was go full bore after good players, not top 10 or top 20 players, but good 4-star players who would stay 3 or 4 years, to build a base, with the talent evenly distributed between classes and positions as much as possible. Once he had that stable base in his roster, then he could think about bringing in a top 10 player like Rabb or Brown, to make the team even better. I don't know if Cuonzo had it in mind not to stay at Cal, but it sure looks like he went for all the publicity with signing Rabb and Brown, and parlayed that into a lucrative job at Missouri. He could care less about what he left for the next Cal coach and for the Cal fans. He left next to nothing. I think he left less for Jones than any Cal coach left for his replacement, but the problem began back farther than Cuonzo, IMO.

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Bozeman left Braun with Sean Marks, Circus King, Kenyon Jones, and Sean Jackson as returning players Braun's second year. He easily could have left him with Eddie House, but he chose not to offer which is mind boggling given he had empty scholarships.

Long ago, people would say something was wrong with Braun because he had so many departures. Back then, I demonstrated that his departure rate was essentially the same as Campanelli and Bozeman. I didn't go back further. To the extent it is a "problem", it has been a normal situation for us for decades.

You are absolutely right that Braun left Monty with a really good class that graduated all at once. Fully reasonable to acknowledge that was a challenge for 2011 or 2012 or even 2013. Not 2019. Cuonzo has to shoulder the bulk of the blame. I also think that part of it is just the whole circumstances around his departure. I think that you are 100% accurate that he left less for Jones than any Cal coach has left for his replacement.

I've been over this many times. Signing Brown and Rabb was not a mistake at all, let alone his biggest one. He literally left scholarships on the table that year. And he left at least one empty scholarship the next year. Brown and Rabb did not cost us a single player, let alone any player that contributed as much as they did over a career, even if that career was only one or two years. Maybe he made a mistake in not filling his empty scholarships because he didn't think the players he could use it on were good enough. That would certainly be a far bigger mistake than taking Rabb and Brown. If he didn't take Rabb and Brown, the only change that would have changed is we would have sucked the one year we were good and we would have sucked worse the next year than we already did. His mistakes were not filling all the scholarships he had with quality players and not following up the recruiting buzz from signing Brown and Rabb or the successful year we had with them with any higher quality recruiting. If you are going to claim that Brown and Rabb was a problem, you have to explain how Noah Body was going to lead Cal to higher success.

As I've said many times, Cal has very few one or two and dones. They have never cost us another recruit. Cal's problem isn't one and dones it is the bottom of the recruiting class that cycles between leaving the scholarships open and taking flyers on really lousy players.

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I'll disagree with some of this, with all due respect. Scholarships are left on tables because coaches don't or can't beat out many dozens of schools with good coaches, many of whom are excellent recruiters. There is intense competition, much of it unethical or illegal, out there. Look what Montgormery faced when he had all those scholarships available in 2013. He used 5 of them, but he only got two decent players, Bird and Mathews. The other three, Rooks, Singer, and RMB were not PAC12 caliber, in my opinion. Not as bad as Jones taking Winston and McCullogh, but still not very good. My point was to agree with Stu in that when you are starting at rock bottom, with the thinnest weakest rosters I've ever seen at Cal, as Wyking was and Fox is now, I feel it is better to build solid program and roster slowly with good decisions and long-term players, 3 and 4 year guys. Once the reputation and roster is established pretty well, you can take a flyer on a one-and-done, to maybe try and get your team to the next level. You bring in a one-and-done, and he suddenly becomes the center of your team, the focus of the offense, and the ball goes to him. And in a year he's gone. It is far worse when you are just starting out, like Cuonzo was, with a good roster, and then adding two one-and-dones, who would be gone, and then what are you left with? There just was no continuity from year to year.

I'm going to offend the feelings of a lot of fans when I say anything critical of a star player, but I've never liked them as much as most fans, except to watch and marvel at their individual talent. As team players, or as members of a successful team, they usually fall short. When the ball went in to Shareef or to Leon, it never came back out. At least they were outstanding rebounders and that contribution was vital to their teams. But offensively they slowed their teams down, made them less than they could be, IMO. Cal was better without Shareef than with him the following year after he left. Rabb was in that category for me, in that his rebounding was his strong suit, and without it, Cal would not have been nearly as good. I've seen Rabb pass a basketball, and he is good at it, but either KO or Rooks could not hold the ball and finish with it, or Cuonzo told Rabb not to pass much. Other than pick and rolls, he was mostly a one-on-one player. I liked him a lot more than I liked Brown, as a player. I think Rabb would have been a much better player under better coaches like Braun or Montgomery or Newell. Brown was a better defender, but on offense, he was mostly eye candy, a great looking athlete, but a one-man show. I am alone in that I didn't like that team much, mostly the style the coach had them play. I know everyone points to the injuries to Wallace and Bird as the reason Cal failed badly in the NCAA, but honestly, I'm not sure that even with Wallace and Bird, Cal could have beaten Hawaii, which was hungry and extremely well coached. They had no top 100 recruit, and no recruits ranked above 2 stars as I remember it. Maybe one. That season Cal was a lousy road team, which was why they did not win the PAC12 and why they failed in the conference tourney and in the NCAA (all road games) IMO.

I keep going back to Newell, but he started out at Cal with two All-Americans, and had a lousy team that season. Gradually, he rebuilt the roster around Larry Friend, and had a little success. When Friend graduated was when Newell began to have really good teams. He loaded up on good players, and each year of the next 4 his teams got better and better. He made one of his players into a star good enough to play in the NBA, but it took 4 years. It will never happen these days, but I can only dream of what Rabb could have become, playing all four years for Cal, even under a coach like Cuonzo. I'm sorry we only got to see him for two. I consider the signing of Rabb and Brown, with no plan for the rest of the roster, or for the years ahead to be a failed experiment, and I hope we don't do it again. I prefer Tony Bennett's approach. He stocked up on good 4 star players, and Virginia got better and better. When the team was successful, players began to leave early, taking advantage of the publicity of success. I don't mind that much, unlike taking a player just because he has a high ranking in someone's eyes, knowing he will only stay in the program for a year. Rabb and Brown were supposed to be a springboard for us, to attract more 5-star players, but it failed badly, and we got nothing much out of it.

Not exactly a dive into an empty swimming pool.

SFCityBear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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stu said:

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Quote:

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What is your criteria for sustainability? Where does the figure 3.25 players every year come from?

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To me sustainable means having 13 (decent) scholarship players on the roster every season. If we recruit 3 players each season we'll eventually reach and maintain a 12-player roster. We'll get to 13 by recruiting a 4th player once every 4 seasons, hence the 3.25 average.

Of course in the real world every team has fat and lean recruiting years, injuries, transfers, etc and may not be able to fill all 13 spots with quality players. So maybe an average of 3.0 recruits per year is more realistic. But Cuonzo didn't reach even half of that.

Right now it looks like we'll have 10 scholarship players this fall. With luck all will be healthy and good enough to contribute. The following season we'll lose Austin for sure, possibly also an unhappy or injured player or two. Then with a year on the job our coaches should be able to recruit 3 or 4 new players to get us up to a full complement.

After that the big question will be quality - will these recruits be good enough to win?

---

The problem is that it is difficult to plan, and difficult to know how many scholarships a coach will have available in any given year. That is compounded by the fact that there are good recruiting classes with many good players available, and there are lean years when there are not as many good players available.

I can't blame the current mess entirely on Cuonzo. I do blame and criticize him for a lot of things, but this problem began way back in the Ben Braun era somewhere, maybe even earlier, with Bozeman. When Bozeman was fired, he left his replacement an outstanding roster. The trouble was they were all seniors. They had quite a run, but at the end of that first Braun season, they all graduated except Sean Marks and a guard, maybe McQueen. The next few years Braun filled the roster with good transfers.

The players which Mike Montgomery inherited from Braun, Randle, Christopher, Theo, and Boykin helped Montgomery win the PAC10 title in 2010, and then all graduated after that season on the same day. Monty had only Jorge and Kamp (returning to the team after recovering from an injury) to build a team around. He did not do a good enough job recruiting in the next few years, and was hit by Crabbe leaving early, plus the unforeseen Amoke situation. In 2013 he then recruited a large class, 5 players, Bird, Mathews, Singer, Rooks, and RMB. This was the nucleus for Cuonzo's first season at Cal. But all those players would be graduating at once, except for Mathews who left after 3 years in a dispute with Cuonzo.

Cuonzo's big mistake, knowing full well that the remaining 4 players would graduate after 3 seasons with him, was to sign one-and-done players Rabb and Brown, which would leave two big holes to fill in the next recruiting class after they had left. He lucked out a little bit, when Rabb decided to stay another year before leaving. What Cuonzo should have done was go full bore after good players, not top 10 or top 20 players, but good 4-star players who would stay 3 or 4 years, to build a base, with the talent evenly distributed between classes and positions as much as possible. Once he had that stable base in his roster, then he could think about bringing in a top 10 player like Rabb or Brown, to make the team even better. I don't know if Cuonzo had it in mind not to stay at Cal, but it sure looks like he went for all the publicity with signing Rabb and Brown, and parlayed that into a lucrative job at Missouri. He could care less about what he left for the next Cal coach and for the Cal fans. He left next to nothing. I think he left less for Jones than any Cal coach left for his replacement, but the problem began back farther than Cuonzo, IMO.

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Bozeman left Braun with Sean Marks, Circus King, Kenyon Jones, and Sean Jackson as returning players Braun's second year. He easily could have left him with Eddie House, but he chose not to offer which is mind boggling given he had empty scholarships.

Long ago, people would say something was wrong with Braun because he had so many departures. Back then, I demonstrated that his departure rate was essentially the same as Campanelli and Bozeman. I didn't go back further. To the extent it is a "problem", it has been a normal situation for us for decades.

You are absolutely right that Braun left Monty with a really good class that graduated all at once. Fully reasonable to acknowledge that was a challenge for 2011 or 2012 or even 2013. Not 2019. Cuonzo has to shoulder the bulk of the blame. I also think that part of it is just the whole circumstances around his departure. I think that you are 100% accurate that he left less for Jones than any Cal coach has left for his replacement.

I've been over this many times. Signing Brown and Rabb was not a mistake at all, let alone his biggest one. He literally left scholarships on the table that year. And he left at least one empty scholarship the next year. Brown and Rabb did not cost us a single player, let alone any player that contributed as much as they did over a career, even if that career was only one or two years. Maybe he made a mistake in not filling his empty scholarships because he didn't think the players he could use it on were good enough. That would certainly be a far bigger mistake than taking Rabb and Brown. If he didn't take Rabb and Brown, the only change that would have changed is we would have sucked the one year we were good and we would have sucked worse the next year than we already did. His mistakes were not filling all the scholarships he had with quality players and not following up the recruiting buzz from signing Brown and Rabb or the successful year we had with them with any higher quality recruiting. If you are going to claim that Brown and Rabb was a problem, you have to explain how Noah Body was going to lead Cal to higher success.

As I've said many times, Cal has very few one or two and dones. They have never cost us another recruit. Cal's problem isn't one and dones it is the bottom of the recruiting class that cycles between leaving the scholarships open and taking flyers on really lousy players.

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I'll disagree with some of this, with all due respect. Scholarships are left on tables because coaches don't or can't beat out many dozens of schools with good coaches, many of whom are excellent recruiters. There is intense competition, much of it unethical or illegal, out there. Look what Montgormery faced when he had all those scholarships available in 2013. He used 5 of them, but he only got two decent players, Bird and Mathews. The other three, Rooks, Singer, and RMB were not PAC12 caliber, in my opinion. Not as bad as Jones taking Winston and McCullogh, but still not very good. My point was to agree with Stu in that when you are starting at rock bottom, with the thinnest weakest rosters I've ever seen at Cal, as Wyking was and Fox is now, I feel it is better to build solid program and roster slowly with good decisions and long-term players, 3 and 4 year guys. Once the reputation and roster is established pretty well, you can take a flyer on a one-and-done, to maybe try and get your team to the next level. You bring in a one-and-done, and he suddenly becomes the center of your team, the focus of the offense, and the ball goes to him. And in a year he's gone. It is far worse when you are just starting out, like Cuonzo was, with a good roster, and then adding two one-and-dones, who would be gone, and then what are you left with? There just was no continuity from year to year.

I'm going to offend the feelings of a lot of fans when I say anything critical of a star player, but I've never liked them as much as most fans, except to watch and marvel at their individual talent. As team players, or as members of a successful team, they usually fall short. When the ball went in to Shareef or to Leon, it never came back out. At least they were outstanding rebounders and that contribution was vital to their teams. But offensively they slowed their teams down, made them less than they could be, IMO. Cal was better without Shareef than with him the following year after he left. Rabb was in that category for me, in that his rebounding was his strong suit, and without it, Cal would not have been nearly as good. I've seen Rabb pass a basketball, and he is good at it, but either KO or Rooks could not hold the ball and finish with it, or Cuonzo told Rabb not to pass much. Other than pick and rolls, he was mostly a one-on-one player. I liked him a lot more than I liked Brown, as a player. I think Rabb would have been a much better player under better coaches like Braun or Montgomery or Newell. Brown was a better defender, but on offense, he was mostly eye candy, a great looking athlete, but a one-man show. I am alone in that I didn't like that team much, mostly the style the coach had them play. I know everyone points to the injuries to Wallace and Bird as the reason Cal failed badly in the NCAA, but honestly, I'm not sure that even with Wallace and Bird, Cal could have beaten Hawaii, which was hungry and extremely well coached. They had no top 100 recruit, and no recruits ranked above 2 stars as I remember it. Maybe one. That season Cal was a lousy road team, which was why they did not win the PAC12 and why they failed in the conference tourney and in the NCAA (all road games) IMO.

I keep going back to Newell, but he started out at Cal with two All-Americans, and had a lousy team that season. Gradually, he rebuilt the roster around Larry Friend, and had a little success. When Friend graduated was when Newell began to have really good teams. He loaded up on good players, and each year of the next 4 his teams got better and better. He made one of his players into a star good enough to play in the NBA, but it took 4 years. It will never happen these days, but I can only dream of what Rabb could have become, playing all four years for Cal, even under a coach like Cuonzo. I'm sorry we only got to see him for two. I consider the signing of Rabb and Brown, with no plan for the rest of the roster, or for the years ahead to be a failed experiment, and I hope we don't do it again. I prefer Tony Bennett's approach. He stocked up on good 4 star players, and Virginia got better and better. When the team was successful, players began to leave early, taking advantage of the publicity of success. I don't mind that much, unlike taking a player just because he has a high ranking in someone's eyes, knowing he will only stay in the program for a year. Rabb and Brown were supposed to be a springboard for us, to attract more 5-star players, but it failed badly, and we got nothing much out of it.

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Not fair blaming Shareef. Far bigger factors were Bozeman being the coach and Bozeman's refusal to bench Jelani Gardner who was a horrible point guard. Losing Bozeman, Gardner and Fowlkes was huge addition by subtraction. Shareef was not the problem.

You don't get to pick between Tony Bennett bringing in several 4 stars and Cal bringing in one and dones. I would prefer Bennett's approach at Cal also. But we don't get a class full of 4 stars. In my lifetime you are talking about the Leon Powe class (which, by the way, massively flamed out with the exception of the "one and done" type player in Powe and the second highest rated recruit that some thought might go early also, Ubaka who had a solid career but didn't live up to hype.) and the Lamond Murray class.

I get that you don't like Brown. I can see why. With hindsight, I'd pick Theo over Brown. That wasn't the choice. It was Brown or nobody. It was Rabb or nobody. The team was not better leaving those scholarships empty. I get that you would rather seem team offense - I would too. But Shareef and Powe scored because they were the best options. I'll throw another one in there who was not a one and done. Lampley could really pass the ball out of the post. But there were plenty of games where he would do that against some opponent that sucked and be losing at half time because the team around him was young and inconsistent. Then Braun would tell him to just score and we'd win. You can't blame the star player for dominating the offense if the rest of the team isn't up to the challenge or the coach didn't know how to integrate them.

I get that many hoped that Rabb and Brown would get us to the promised land and did not fulfill that promise. But they don't doc your team wins for expectations. Okay, they didn't turn the program around. Have any of the teams since Rabb left turned the program around? Did better? Why is that not a failed experiment in NOT landing one and dones?

If Cal ever has 4 scholarships to give, lands 3 Theo Robertson type players, and then has a choice between a Theo type player or a Shareef type player, let's have the conversation. As long as Cal is giving out scholarships to Winston, or Kuzminskas or I could go down the list and name the worst player in every class for 30 years in a row, this is a moot point.

"If Cal ever has 4 scholarships to give, lands 3 Theo Robertson type players, and then has a choice between a Theo type player or a Shareef type player, let's have the conversation. As long as Cal is giving out scholarships to Winston, or Kuzminskas or I could go down the list and name the worst player in every class for 30 years in a row, this is a moot point."

Agree. Good post. It will be interesting to see if the international recruiting will help elevate the program, since it is an area we have not pursued much.

With the new 4 year scholarship requirement, it will Cal might not offer scholarships to marginal players. Maybe a few more preferred walk ons would be considered as a stop gap measure. Talent evaluation is critical. Lets see if the new coaches improve that. Since one has some contacts in Australia, I am hoping we might get a few players that might choose Cal over St Marys.

OaktownBear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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stu said:

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Quote:

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What is your criteria for sustainability? Where does the figure 3.25 players every year come from?

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To me sustainable means having 13 (decent) scholarship players on the roster every season. If we recruit 3 players each season we'll eventually reach and maintain a 12-player roster. We'll get to 13 by recruiting a 4th player once every 4 seasons, hence the 3.25 average.

Of course in the real world every team has fat and lean recruiting years, injuries, transfers, etc and may not be able to fill all 13 spots with quality players. So maybe an average of 3.0 recruits per year is more realistic. But Cuonzo didn't reach even half of that.

Right now it looks like we'll have 10 scholarship players this fall. With luck all will be healthy and good enough to contribute. The following season we'll lose Austin for sure, possibly also an unhappy or injured player or two. Then with a year on the job our coaches should be able to recruit 3 or 4 new players to get us up to a full complement.

After that the big question will be quality - will these recruits be good enough to win?

---

The problem is that it is difficult to plan, and difficult to know how many scholarships a coach will have available in any given year. That is compounded by the fact that there are good recruiting classes with many good players available, and there are lean years when there are not as many good players available.

I can't blame the current mess entirely on Cuonzo. I do blame and criticize him for a lot of things, but this problem began way back in the Ben Braun era somewhere, maybe even earlier, with Bozeman. When Bozeman was fired, he left his replacement an outstanding roster. The trouble was they were all seniors. They had quite a run, but at the end of that first Braun season, they all graduated except Sean Marks and a guard, maybe McQueen. The next few years Braun filled the roster with good transfers.

The players which Mike Montgomery inherited from Braun, Randle, Christopher, Theo, and Boykin helped Montgomery win the PAC10 title in 2010, and then all graduated after that season on the same day. Monty had only Jorge and Kamp (returning to the team after recovering from an injury) to build a team around. He did not do a good enough job recruiting in the next few years, and was hit by Crabbe leaving early, plus the unforeseen Amoke situation. In 2013 he then recruited a large class, 5 players, Bird, Mathews, Singer, Rooks, and RMB. This was the nucleus for Cuonzo's first season at Cal. But all those players would be graduating at once, except for Mathews who left after 3 years in a dispute with Cuonzo.

Cuonzo's big mistake, knowing full well that the remaining 4 players would graduate after 3 seasons with him, was to sign one-and-done players Rabb and Brown, which would leave two big holes to fill in the next recruiting class after they had left. He lucked out a little bit, when Rabb decided to stay another year before leaving. What Cuonzo should have done was go full bore after good players, not top 10 or top 20 players, but good 4-star players who would stay 3 or 4 years, to build a base, with the talent evenly distributed between classes and positions as much as possible. Once he had that stable base in his roster, then he could think about bringing in a top 10 player like Rabb or Brown, to make the team even better. I don't know if Cuonzo had it in mind not to stay at Cal, but it sure looks like he went for all the publicity with signing Rabb and Brown, and parlayed that into a lucrative job at Missouri. He could care less about what he left for the next Cal coach and for the Cal fans. He left next to nothing. I think he left less for Jones than any Cal coach left for his replacement, but the problem began back farther than Cuonzo, IMO.

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Bozeman left Braun with Sean Marks, Circus King, Kenyon Jones, and Sean Jackson as returning players Braun's second year. He easily could have left him with Eddie House, but he chose not to offer which is mind boggling given he had empty scholarships.

Long ago, people would say something was wrong with Braun because he had so many departures. Back then, I demonstrated that his departure rate was essentially the same as Campanelli and Bozeman. I didn't go back further. To the extent it is a "problem", it has been a normal situation for us for decades.

You are absolutely right that Braun left Monty with a really good class that graduated all at once. Fully reasonable to acknowledge that was a challenge for 2011 or 2012 or even 2013. Not 2019. Cuonzo has to shoulder the bulk of the blame. I also think that part of it is just the whole circumstances around his departure. I think that you are 100% accurate that he left less for Jones than any Cal coach has left for his replacement.

I've been over this many times. Signing Brown and Rabb was not a mistake at all, let alone his biggest one. He literally left scholarships on the table that year. And he left at least one empty scholarship the next year. Brown and Rabb did not cost us a single player, let alone any player that contributed as much as they did over a career, even if that career was only one or two years. Maybe he made a mistake in not filling his empty scholarships because he didn't think the players he could use it on were good enough. That would certainly be a far bigger mistake than taking Rabb and Brown. If he didn't take Rabb and Brown, the only change that would have changed is we would have sucked the one year we were good and we would have sucked worse the next year than we already did. His mistakes were not filling all the scholarships he had with quality players and not following up the recruiting buzz from signing Brown and Rabb or the successful year we had with them with any higher quality recruiting. If you are going to claim that Brown and Rabb was a problem, you have to explain how Noah Body was going to lead Cal to higher success.

As I've said many times, Cal has very few one or two and dones. They have never cost us another recruit. Cal's problem isn't one and dones it is the bottom of the recruiting class that cycles between leaving the scholarships open and taking flyers on really lousy players.

---

I'll disagree with some of this, with all due respect. Scholarships are left on tables because coaches don't or can't beat out many dozens of schools with good coaches, many of whom are excellent recruiters. There is intense competition, much of it unethical or illegal, out there. Look what Montgormery faced when he had all those scholarships available in 2013. He used 5 of them, but he only got two decent players, Bird and Mathews. The other three, Rooks, Singer, and RMB were not PAC12 caliber, in my opinion. Not as bad as Jones taking Winston and McCullogh, but still not very good. My point was to agree with Stu in that when you are starting at rock bottom, with the thinnest weakest rosters I've ever seen at Cal, as Wyking was and Fox is now, I feel it is better to build solid program and roster slowly with good decisions and long-term players, 3 and 4 year guys. Once the reputation and roster is established pretty well, you can take a flyer on a one-and-done, to maybe try and get your team to the next level. You bring in a one-and-done, and he suddenly becomes the center of your team, the focus of the offense, and the ball goes to him. And in a year he's gone. It is far worse when you are just starting out, like Cuonzo was, with a good roster, and then adding two one-and-dones, who would be gone, and then what are you left with? There just was no continuity from year to year.

I'm going to offend the feelings of a lot of fans when I say anything critical of a star player, but I've never liked them as much as most fans, except to watch and marvel at their individual talent. As team players, or as members of a successful team, they usually fall short. When the ball went in to Shareef or to Leon, it never came back out. At least they were outstanding rebounders and that contribution was vital to their teams. But offensively they slowed their teams down, made them less than they could be, IMO. Cal was better without Shareef than with him the following year after he left. Rabb was in that category for me, in that his rebounding was his strong suit, and without it, Cal would not have been nearly as good. I've seen Rabb pass a basketball, and he is good at it, but either KO or Rooks could not hold the ball and finish with it, or Cuonzo told Rabb not to pass much. Other than pick and rolls, he was mostly a one-on-one player. I liked him a lot more than I liked Brown, as a player. I think Rabb would have been a much better player under better coaches like Braun or Montgomery or Newell. Brown was a better defender, but on offense, he was mostly eye candy, a great looking athlete, but a one-man show. I am alone in that I didn't like that team much, mostly the style the coach had them play. I know everyone points to the injuries to Wallace and Bird as the reason Cal failed badly in the NCAA, but honestly, I'm not sure that even with Wallace and Bird, Cal could have beaten Hawaii, which was hungry and extremely well coached. They had no top 100 recruit, and no recruits ranked above 2 stars as I remember it. Maybe one. That season Cal was a lousy road team, which was why they did not win the PAC12 and why they failed in the conference tourney and in the NCAA (all road games) IMO.

I keep going back to Newell, but he started out at Cal with two All-Americans, and had a lousy team that season. Gradually, he rebuilt the roster around Larry Friend, and had a little success. When Friend graduated was when Newell began to have really good teams. He loaded up on good players, and each year of the next 4 his teams got better and better. He made one of his players into a star good enough to play in the NBA, but it took 4 years. It will never happen these days, but I can only dream of what Rabb could have become, playing all four years for Cal, even under a coach like Cuonzo. I'm sorry we only got to see him for two. I consider the signing of Rabb and Brown, with no plan for the rest of the roster, or for the years ahead to be a failed experiment, and I hope we don't do it again. I prefer Tony Bennett's approach. He stocked up on good 4 star players, and Virginia got better and better. When the team was successful, players began to leave early, taking advantage of the publicity of success. I don't mind that much, unlike taking a player just because he has a high ranking in someone's eyes, knowing he will only stay in the program for a year. Rabb and Brown were supposed to be a springboard for us, to attract more 5-star players, but it failed badly, and we got nothing much out of it.

---

Not fair blaming Shareef. Far bigger factors were Bozeman being the coach and Bozeman's refusal to bench Jelani Gardner who was a horrible point guard. Losing Bozeman, Gardner and Fowlkes was huge addition by subtraction. Shareef was not the problem.

You don't get to pick between Tony Bennett bringing in several 4 stars and Cal bringing in one and dones. I would prefer Bennett's approach at Cal also. But we don't get a class full of 4 stars. In my lifetime you are talking about the Leon Powe class (which, by the way, massively flamed out with the exception of the "one and done" type player in Powe and the second highest rated recruit that some thought might go early also, Ubaka who had a solid career but didn't live up to hype.) and the Lamond Murray class.

I get that you don't like Brown. I can see why. With hindsight, I'd pick Theo over Brown. That wasn't the choice. It was Brown or nobody. It was Rabb or nobody. The team was not better leaving those scholarships empty. I get that you would rather seem team offense - I would too. But Shareef and Powe scored because they were the best options. I'll throw another one in there who was not a one and done. Lampley could really pass the ball out of the post. But there were plenty of games where he would do that against some opponent that sucked and be losing at half time because the team around him was young and inconsistent. Then Braun would tell him to just score and we'd win. You can't blame the star player for dominating the offense if the rest of the team isn't up to the challenge or the coach didn't know how to integrate them.

I get that many hoped that Rabb and Brown would get us to the promised land and did not fulfill that promise. But they don't doc your team wins for expectations. Okay, they didn't turn the program around. Have any of the teams since Rabb left turned the program around? Did better? Why is that not a failed experiment in NOT landing one and dones?

If Cal ever has 4 scholarships to give, lands 3 Theo Robertson type players, and then has a choice between a Theo type player or a Shareef type player, let's have the conversation. As long as Cal is giving out scholarships to Winston, or Kuzminskas or I could go down the list and name the worst player in every class for 30 years in a row, this is a moot point.

---

Back to your other post, you were right about Bozeman leaving Kenyon Jones and Sean Jackson for Braun. I had forgotten about Jones, and the guard I thought he had left for Braun was not McQueen, but was Sean Jackson, as you said. Circus King, however, played Bozeman's last year at San Diego State, and Braun brought him in during his first season as a transfer, who had to sit out that year, and then begin playing for Cal in the next year. I remember Braun talking about him transferring, and Bozeman was long gone when Circus did transfer, so I think he likely was Braun's transfer, not Bozeman's. In any case, what Bozeman left Braun was Marks plus an average at best player in Jones, and a player who was not really PAC10 material in Jackson. Not much to work with and Braun did an outstanding job bringing in transfers to give Cal fans a competitive team.

I don't blame Shareef and I don't dislike Brown. I don't dislike any players except for dirty players like Laimbeer. Both Shareef and Brown were fabulous individual talents. Shareef was a well rounded player with all the skills to be a pro. He was a scoring machine, unstoppable. Brown was super athletic, but very raw and unskilled compared to Shareef. When a player looks for his own shot all the time, we don't always know whether that is by the coach's design, or by the player making his own decisions. In Shareef's case, Bozeman could not coach his way out of a paper bag, so he likely either told Shareef to shoot every chance he got, or was quite happy to leave Shareef to do whatever he wanted. In Brown's case, I think he would have become a great player at Cal if he had stayed. He needed coaching, and a lot of it. He was used to overcoming his mistakes and his opponents with his athleticism. He was the only player I ever saw who could lose his man on defense (maybe on purpose, I don't know) and than chase him down and block his shot from behind. 9 times out of 10 any player doing that will be whistled for a foul, but Brown did it over and over, and never got called for a foul. As for Powe, my problem with his play was not that he shot the ball every time he was passed the ball, but that he seemed to think he could shoot over anybody. A lot of his shots were blocked. He should have, IMO, passed the ball back out when he was up against a good taller defender, or when he was double-teamed. Again, I don't know whether Braun asked him to shoot every time he got the ball, or Powe was doing it on his own. He was another amazing basketball player we had who did not have enough talent around him to make for team success.

I can agree with much of what you say. Every coach has a problem, when due to circumstances or poor planning he is left with that year where he has to recruit 4 or 5 players, and they all have to be good ones. Most teams don't seem to do well with that challenge. You only have so many assistants, and so many visits have to be made to sell your school to each player. In Jones' case, he really needed to land more than 5 pretty good players, because he needed players to make a good team around Lee and KO, and the next season he needed to do it again, when the two big men graduated.

I guess it is my background that makes me want to get this done with players who are not so highly ranked, largely because I distrust the rankings. I don't understand what you mean when you say we had no choice other than Rabb and Brown. There was no one else. How can that be true when there are a couple hundred good recruits out there every year. I would perhaps have taken Rabb, because he plays like an old-time ballplayer, working hard on both ends, tough rebounder. I don't yet understand what athleticism means, so I would have taken a Harper Kamp or a Jorge over someone with great potential like Brown. It was potential we would only see years later in the NBA, and I only care about how players play at Cal.

OaktownBear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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stu said:

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Quote:

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What is your criteria for sustainability? Where does the figure 3.25 players every year come from?

---

To me sustainable means having 13 (decent) scholarship players on the roster every season. If we recruit 3 players each season we'll eventually reach and maintain a 12-player roster. We'll get to 13 by recruiting a 4th player once every 4 seasons, hence the 3.25 average.

Of course in the real world every team has fat and lean recruiting years, injuries, transfers, etc and may not be able to fill all 13 spots with quality players. So maybe an average of 3.0 recruits per year is more realistic. But Cuonzo didn't reach even half of that.

Right now it looks like we'll have 10 scholarship players this fall. With luck all will be healthy and good enough to contribute. The following season we'll lose Austin for sure, possibly also an unhappy or injured player or two. Then with a year on the job our coaches should be able to recruit 3 or 4 new players to get us up to a full complement.

After that the big question will be quality - will these recruits be good enough to win?

---

The problem is that it is difficult to plan, and difficult to know how many scholarships a coach will have available in any given year. That is compounded by the fact that there are good recruiting classes with many good players available, and there are lean years when there are not as many good players available.

I can't blame the current mess entirely on Cuonzo. I do blame and criticize him for a lot of things, but this problem began way back in the Ben Braun era somewhere, maybe even earlier, with Bozeman. When Bozeman was fired, he left his replacement an outstanding roster. The trouble was they were all seniors. They had quite a run, but at the end of that first Braun season, they all graduated except Sean Marks and a guard, maybe McQueen. The next few years Braun filled the roster with good transfers.

The players which Mike Montgomery inherited from Braun, Randle, Christopher, Theo, and Boykin helped Montgomery win the PAC10 title in 2010, and then all graduated after that season on the same day. Monty had only Jorge and Kamp (returning to the team after recovering from an injury) to build a team around. He did not do a good enough job recruiting in the next few years, and was hit by Crabbe leaving early, plus the unforeseen Amoke situation. In 2013 he then recruited a large class, 5 players, Bird, Mathews, Singer, Rooks, and RMB. This was the nucleus for Cuonzo's first season at Cal. But all those players would be graduating at once, except for Mathews who left after 3 years in a dispute with Cuonzo.

Cuonzo's big mistake, knowing full well that the remaining 4 players would graduate after 3 seasons with him, was to sign one-and-done players Rabb and Brown, which would leave two big holes to fill in the next recruiting class after they had left. He lucked out a little bit, when Rabb decided to stay another year before leaving. What Cuonzo should have done was go full bore after good players, not top 10 or top 20 players, but good 4-star players who would stay 3 or 4 years, to build a base, with the talent evenly distributed between classes and positions as much as possible. Once he had that stable base in his roster, then he could think about bringing in a top 10 player like Rabb or Brown, to make the team even better. I don't know if Cuonzo had it in mind not to stay at Cal, but it sure looks like he went for all the publicity with signing Rabb and Brown, and parlayed that into a lucrative job at Missouri. He could care less about what he left for the next Cal coach and for the Cal fans. He left next to nothing. I think he left less for Jones than any Cal coach left for his replacement, but the problem began back farther than Cuonzo, IMO.

---

Bozeman left Braun with Sean Marks, Circus King, Kenyon Jones, and Sean Jackson as returning players Braun's second year. He easily could have left him with Eddie House, but he chose not to offer which is mind boggling given he had empty scholarships.

Long ago, people would say something was wrong with Braun because he had so many departures. Back then, I demonstrated that his departure rate was essentially the same as Campanelli and Bozeman. I didn't go back further. To the extent it is a "problem", it has been a normal situation for us for decades.

You are absolutely right that Braun left Monty with a really good class that graduated all at once. Fully reasonable to acknowledge that was a challenge for 2011 or 2012 or even 2013. Not 2019. Cuonzo has to shoulder the bulk of the blame. I also think that part of it is just the whole circumstances around his departure. I think that you are 100% accurate that he left less for Jones than any Cal coach has left for his replacement.

I've been over this many times. Signing Brown and Rabb was not a mistake at all, let alone his biggest one. He literally left scholarships on the table that year. And he left at least one empty scholarship the next year. Brown and Rabb did not cost us a single player, let alone any player that contributed as much as they did over a career, even if that career was only one or two years. Maybe he made a mistake in not filling his empty scholarships because he didn't think the players he could use it on were good enough. That would certainly be a far bigger mistake than taking Rabb and Brown. If he didn't take Rabb and Brown, the only change that would have changed is we would have sucked the one year we were good and we would have sucked worse the next year than we already did. His mistakes were not filling all the scholarships he had with quality players and not following up the recruiting buzz from signing Brown and Rabb or the successful year we had with them with any higher quality recruiting. If you are going to claim that Brown and Rabb was a problem, you have to explain how Noah Body was going to lead Cal to higher success.

As I've said many times, Cal has very few one or two and dones. They have never cost us another recruit. Cal's problem isn't one and dones it is the bottom of the recruiting class that cycles between leaving the scholarships open and taking flyers on really lousy players.

---

I'll disagree with some of this, with all due respect. Scholarships are left on tables because coaches don't or can't beat out many dozens of schools with good coaches, many of whom are excellent recruiters. There is intense competition, much of it unethical or illegal, out there. Look what Montgormery faced when he had all those scholarships available in 2013. He used 5 of them, but he only got two decent players, Bird and Mathews. The other three, Rooks, Singer, and RMB were not PAC12 caliber, in my opinion. Not as bad as Jones taking Winston and McCullogh, but still not very good. My point was to agree with Stu in that when you are starting at rock bottom, with the thinnest weakest rosters I've ever seen at Cal, as Wyking was and Fox is now, I feel it is better to build solid program and roster slowly with good decisions and long-term players, 3 and 4 year guys. Once the reputation and roster is established pretty well, you can take a flyer on a one-and-done, to maybe try and get your team to the next level. You bring in a one-and-done, and he suddenly becomes the center of your team, the focus of the offense, and the ball goes to him. And in a year he's gone. It is far worse when you are just starting out, like Cuonzo was, with a good roster, and then adding two one-and-dones, who would be gone, and then what are you left with? There just was no continuity from year to year.

I'm going to offend the feelings of a lot of fans when I say anything critical of a star player, but I've never liked them as much as most fans, except to watch and marvel at their individual talent. As team players, or as members of a successful team, they usually fall short. When the ball went in to Shareef or to Leon, it never came back out. At least they were outstanding rebounders and that contribution was vital to their teams. But offensively they slowed their teams down, made them less than they could be, IMO. Cal was better without Shareef than with him the following year after he left. Rabb was in that category for me, in that his rebounding was his strong suit, and without it, Cal would not have been nearly as good. I've seen Rabb pass a basketball, and he is good at it, but either KO or Rooks could not hold the ball and finish with it, or Cuonzo told Rabb not to pass much. Other than pick and rolls, he was mostly a one-on-one player. I liked him a lot more than I liked Brown, as a player. I think Rabb would have been a much better player under better coaches like Braun or Montgomery or Newell. Brown was a better defender, but on offense, he was mostly eye candy, a great looking athlete, but a one-man show. I am alone in that I didn't like that team much, mostly the style the coach had them play. I know everyone points to the injuries to Wallace and Bird as the reason Cal failed badly in the NCAA, but honestly, I'm not sure that even with Wallace and Bird, Cal could have beaten Hawaii, which was hungry and extremely well coached. They had no top 100 recruit, and no recruits ranked above 2 stars as I remember it. Maybe one. That season Cal was a lousy road team, which was why they did not win the PAC12 and why they failed in the conference tourney and in the NCAA (all road games) IMO.

I keep going back to Newell, but he started out at Cal with two All-Americans, and had a lousy team that season. Gradually, he rebuilt the roster around Larry Friend, and had a little success. When Friend graduated was when Newell began to have really good teams. He loaded up on good players, and each year of the next 4 his teams got better and better. He made one of his players into a star good enough to play in the NBA, but it took 4 years. It will never happen these days, but I can only dream of what Rabb could have become, playing all four years for Cal, even under a coach like Cuonzo. I'm sorry we only got to see him for two. I consider the signing of Rabb and Brown, with no plan for the rest of the roster, or for the years ahead to be a failed experiment, and I hope we don't do it again. I prefer Tony Bennett's approach. He stocked up on good 4 star players, and Virginia got better and better. When the team was successful, players began to leave early, taking advantage of the publicity of success. I don't mind that much, unlike taking a player just because he has a high ranking in someone's eyes, knowing he will only stay in the program for a year. Rabb and Brown were supposed to be a springboard for us, to attract more 5-star players, but it failed badly, and we got nothing much out of it.

---

Not fair blaming Shareef. Far bigger factors were Bozeman being the coach and Bozeman's refusal to bench Jelani Gardner who was a horrible point guard. Losing Bozeman, Gardner and Fowlkes was huge addition by subtraction. Shareef was not the problem.

You don't get to pick between Tony Bennett bringing in several 4 stars and Cal bringing in one and dones. I would prefer Bennett's approach at Cal also. But we don't get a class full of 4 stars. In my lifetime you are talking about the Leon Powe class (which, by the way, massively flamed out with the exception of the "one and done" type player in Powe and the second highest rated recruit that some thought might go early also, Ubaka who had a solid career but didn't live up to hype.) and the Lamond Murray class.

I get that you don't like Brown. I can see why. With hindsight, I'd pick Theo over Brown. That wasn't the choice. It was Brown or nobody. It was Rabb or nobody. The team was not better leaving those scholarships empty. I get that you would rather seem team offense - I would too. But Shareef and Powe scored because they were the best options. I'll throw another one in there who was not a one and done. Lampley could really pass the ball out of the post. But there were plenty of games where he would do that against some opponent that sucked and be losing at half time because the team around him was young and inconsistent. Then Braun would tell him to just score and we'd win. You can't blame the star player for dominating the offense if the rest of the team isn't up to the challenge or the coach didn't know how to integrate them.

I get that many hoped that Rabb and Brown would get us to the promised land and did not fulfill that promise. But they don't doc your team wins for expectations. Okay, they didn't turn the program around. Have any of the teams since Rabb left turned the program around? Did better? Why is that not a failed experiment in NOT landing one and dones?

If Cal ever has 4 scholarships to give, lands 3 Theo Robertson type players, and then has a choice between a Theo type player or a Shareef type player, let's have the conversation. As long as Cal is giving out scholarships to Winston, or Kuzminskas or I could go down the list and name the worst player in every class for 30 years in a row, this is a moot point.

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I'll say these few words and be done with it. I don't just "rather see team play." I consider it the proven best way to win championships. When you don't play team ball the majority of the time, you will not win championships. It was why the old Celtics used to beat the teams with superior talent every year. It is why you see the Warriors as the best NBA team over the last 5 years - they play team ball better than any other team, and they play it better more often. I am more interested in Cal winning championships than anything, beginning with the conference championship, and then the NCAA championship. I never liked the conference tournament until recently, but with the conference now having more teams, it is really a grind, playing all those back to back games. It resembles the NCAA of my youth, where games were back to back, and now is a prize that defines the best team in the conference in a different way. I don't watch games or go to them to see admittedly thrilling plays by individuals. I go to see basketball played well, and as a team game, that means good teamwork. When I see Cal play that way, it gives me hope that one day we will be in that final game of the season, competing for the NCAA title.

BearGreg said:

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C - Vanover
PF - Kelly
SF - Sueing
SG - Bradley
PG - Austin

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Didn't two of those guys just leave, along with McNeill?

Good observation, Mr. CT. :/

concordtom said:

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BearGreg said:

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C - Vanover
PF - Kelly
SF - Sueing
SG - Bradley
PG - Austin

---

Didn't two of those guys just leave, along with McNeill?

---

Greg's post was made on April 15. Sueing left on May 10 or so, Vanover on May 15. Where have you been?

Updated:

C: Thiemann
PF: Thorpe
SF: Kuany
SG: Klonaras
PG: Brown

stu said:

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Updated:

C: Thiemann
PF: Thorpe
SF: Kuany
SG: Klonaras
PG: Brown

---

Stu,

I'm not sure if they could take my starting "five" of several weeks ago....when thngs were really dismal
C: Bradley
PF: Bradley
SF: Bradley
SG: Bradley
PG: Bradley

BEARUPINDC said:

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C: Bradley
PF: Bradley
SF: Bradley
SG: Bradley
PG: Bradley

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Love it! True 21st century positionless basketball!

stu said:

---

Updated:

C: Thiemann
PF: Thorpe
SF: Kuany
SG: Klonaras
PG: Brown

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LOL. International hoops at its finest.

KoreAmBear said:

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stu said:

---

Updated:

C: Thiemann
PF: Thorpe
SF: Kuany
SG: Klonaras
PG: Brown

---

LOL. International hoops at its finest.

---

With Anticevich and Zhao off the bench!

BEARUPINDC said:

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stu said:

---

Updated:

C: Thiemann
PF: Thorpe
SF: Kuany
SG: Klonaras
PG: Brown

---

Stu,

I'm not sure if they could take my starting "five" of several weeks ago....when thngs were really dismal
C: Bradley
PF: Bradley
SF: Bradley
SG: Bradley
PG: Bradley

---

Playing one man against five is usually not good odds.

stu said:

---

Updated:

C: Thiemann
PF: Thorpe
SF: Kuany
SG: Klonaras
PG: Brown

---

I like it. Out with the old, in with the new. Klonaras beating out Bradley is a little iffy though. Austin will not be too happy. How about South?

calumnus said:

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KoreAmBear said:

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stu said:

---

Updated:

C: Thiemann
PF: Thorpe
SF: Kuany
SG: Klonaras
PG: Brown

---

LOL. International hoops at its finest.

---

With Anticevich and Zhao off the bench!

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Bring back Niko Knezevich and Max Zhang as assistants.

Pg Austin
Sg Bradley
Center Kelly
Pf Antivich
Sf who knows

SFCityBear said:

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concordtom said:

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BearGreg said:

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C - Vanover
PF - Kelly
SF - Sueing
SG - Bradley
PG - Austin

---

Didn't two of those guys just leave, along with McNeill?

---

Greg's post was made on April 15. Sueing left on May 10 or so, Vanover on May 15. Where have you been?

---

Sorry. I have been trapped in the I Hate Trump OT Forum.
When he dies, or otherwise is silenced, I'll be a much better Bear Hoops fan again.
OT has cannibalized Men's Basketball.

Maybe that's the reason for our losing record the last couple years. Berkeley is a politically active city, and I think our student athletes have been devoting loads of time digesting, discussing the sad state of affairs rather than focusing on hoops.
Chaos President, as Jeb Bush predicted!

SFCityB said:

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Playing one man against five is usually not good odds.

---

True. There is a possible fatigue factor. Also, fouls could be a problem. etc.

The key word there is "usually". Matt Bradley isn't usual. He showed some of that last year.
By sticking when 4 other players entered the Portal and, except for JHD, were beamed off
into the promised land...he showed he was willing to carry a really bad team on his back.

This lineup just makes it a little bit more difficult..


I

BEARUPINDC said:

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SFCityB said:

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Playing one man against five is usually not good odds.

---

True. There is a possible fatigue factor. Also, fouls could be a problem. etc.

The key word there is "usually". Matt Bradley isn't usual. He showed some of that last year.
By sticking when 4 other players entered the Portal and, except for JHD, were beamed off
into the promised land...he showed he was willing to carry a really bad team on his back.

This lineup just makes it a little bit more difficult..


I

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I wanted to avoid being in any way critical of Bradley, and deftly leave myself some wiggle room.

S said:

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I wanted to avoid being in any way critical of Bradley, and deftly leave myself some wiggle room.

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SFCityBear,

You were quite deft.... IF you had left out the "usually", I would have encourged Matt
to indicate his disapproval in whatever he chose.

SFCityBear said:

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concordtom said:

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SFCityBear said:

---

concordtom said:

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BearGreg said:

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C - Vanover
PF - Kelly
SF - Sueing
SG - Bradley
PG - Austin

---

Didn't two of those guys just leave, along with McNeill?

---

Greg's post was made on April 15. Sueing left on May 10 or so, Vanover on May 15. Where have you been?

---

Sorry. I have been trapped in the I Hate Trump OT Forum.
When he dies, or otherwise is silenced, I'll be a much better Bear Hoops fan again.
OT has cannibalized Men's Basketball.

Maybe that's the reason for our losing record the last couple years. Berkeley is a politically active city, and I think our student athletes have been devoting loads of time digesting, discussing the sad state of affairs rather than focusing on hoops.
Chaos President, as Jeb Bush predicted!

---

I think maybe you should go back to the OT Forum. I've watched as the hystericals blame the President for almost everything bad that happens under the sun, but this one takes the cake. Cal basketball has been in bad shape for a long time, way before Trump got elected Big Meanie. I'd recommend a psychiatrist, but the only one I know is also a hysterical (polite, but still over the edge) living in Oaktown a few yards from the Berkeley city line. Even he could not avoid becoming a little hysterical. As long as you don't go all-Antifa on us, we can tolerate the hysteria, but please dish it out only on the OT forum.

---

Sometimes you need to laugh at what people write, rather than take it so seriously.

Just like I laughed at what you wrote. Hahahaha.

Now go back and, honestly, consider whether I'm really truly blaming Cal basketball on Trump.

1--AUSTIN, Brown, South
2--BRADLEY, Special K(Klonaras)
3--JHD , Ant, Klonaras
4--Kelly, Thorpe, Coney Dog(Kuany K)
5--Big German Kid. Kelly, Thorpe.

Ccajon2 said:

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1--AUSTIN, Smith, South
2--BRADLEY, Special K(Klonaras)
3--JHD , Ant, Klonaras
4--Kelly, Thorpe, Coney Dog(Kuany K)
5--Big German Kid. Kelly, Thorpe.

---

Dont' know who Smith is, but there is no way South gets relegated to mop up pg duties.

Also, there is no Big German Kid...at least not yet.

I thought South is a SG not a PG. I also think with his experience, he will see a lot of playing time.

Go Bears!

This team will have a bit more depth now that we have 11 scholarship athletes. We need another scorer at the wing position.
Roster:
PG: Austin/Brown
SG: South/JHD/Klonaras
SF: Bradley/Gordon
PF: Thorpe/Kelly/Antivech, Kuany
C:: Hopefully (Theiman)/ Thorpe

I'm sure Klonaras will Probably redshirt, unless he can show that he can play at this level. I'm hoping he can be a contributor early on. If we get Lars, he should get some serious playing time. He might get abused until he gets bigger and stronger. Big adjustment period for him. We need a wing player with some length, that can score, rebound and defend. Yes I know, they don't exist. For ****s and giggles if we could get our hands on a grad transfer that could be that. We could slide Bradley back to the SG slot and we would have a lot of depth at the PG/SG/SF spots.

Civil Bear said:

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Ccajon2 said:

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1--AUSTIN, Smith, South
2--BRADLEY, Special K(Klonaras)
3--JHD , Ant, Klonaras
4--Kelly, Thorpe, Coney Dog(Kuany K)
5--Big German Kid. Kelly, Thorpe.

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Dont' know who Smith is

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Possibly Charles IV, who will be at SMU not Cal? I'd put Brown there, if not starting.

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but there is no way South gets relegated to mop up pg duties.

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I agree, I expect he'll start.

Gkhoury2325 said:

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This team will have a bit more depth now that we have 11 scholarship athletes. We need another scorer at the wing position.
Roster:
PG: Austin/Brown
SG: South/JHD/Klonaras
SF: Bradley/Gordon
PF: Thorpe/Kelly/Antivech, Kuany
C:: Hopefully (Theiman)/ Thorpe

I'm sure Klonaras will Probably redshirt, unless he can show that he can play at this level. I'm hoping he can be a contributor early on. If we get Lars, he should get some serious playing time. He might get abused until he gets bigger and stronger. Big adjustment period for him. We need a wing player with some length, that can score, rebound and defend. Yes I know, they don't exist. For ****s and giggles if we could get our hands on a grad transfer that could be that. We could slide Bradley back to the SG slot and we would have a lot of depth at the PG/SG/SF spots.

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Why you are so negative on Klonaras, wondering whether he can play at this level? I've seen his videos. He's from Greece, likely has better fundamentals than many American kids. He doesn't have a right hand, but neither did Sueing, and he did pretty well in the PAC12. Klonaras can do a lot of things with a basketball. I'd be more concerned about whether South can play at this level, PAC12 level. He has been a good player in a very weak conference, the Southland. Last season, 8 out of 13 teams in that conference had losing records overall, including South's Texas A&M Corpus Christi at 14-18. I could be wrong, but in any case, I'd be surprised if Fox redshirts anyone. I think Fox needs all hands on deck to avoid finishing as bad or worse than last season.

I would add that most of the new players on this team will have to show they can play at this level, not just Klonaras and South. Brown, Thorpe, Kuany, Thiemann ( if we get him) will all have to prove they can play at this level. Some of our veteran players have yet to prove they can play at this level: Gordon, Harris-Dyson, and Anticevich.

I agree on Thiemann, that he would get minutes, but in the video I saw, he would help a lot in the area of one of Cal's huge deficiencies, rebounding. He has moves and can score. The one video I saw showed he could not guard anyone, and if that is true, he won't play for Fox unless he can get plenty better at that. BTW, don't count your chickens before they are hatched. Oregon State is also in the mix for Lars, and I think they have a record of being able to recruit good German players.

As to your wing who has some length, can rebound and defend, I would try Klonaras there. I don't like Bradley at SF. He is too short for some matchups. But since you don't have much faith in Klonaras. Don't overlook Kuany. He has length, and is very athletic, according to the one video I saw. He has a great motor, just like Klonaras, which a SF needs in transition. Fox may not have the luxury of playing Kuany at the SF, because he may be needed more as a big, if we don't get Lars, and Thorpe is not recovered from injury. We didn't have any of these questions the last two seasons, because we did not have as potentially deep a roster. This season is already interesting.

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I'd be surprised if Fox redshirts anyone.

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I agree. I think grad transfer South came here to play. Same for the freshies, especially those from overseas. I could see Gordon or Thorpe sitting out a year if they haven't recovered from their injuries. Also possibly JHD if everyone concerned agrees the extra year would enhance his development.

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This season is already interesting.

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For sure. Reminds me of the curse: "May you live in interesting times."

zero reason now to reshirt a player unless for injury

HoopDreams said:

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zero reason now to reshirt a player unless for injury

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Agree 100%

SFCityBear said:

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I'd be more concerned about whether South can play at this level, PAC12 level. He has been a good player in a very weak conference, the Southland. Last season, 8 out of 13 teams in that conference had losing records overall, including South's Texas A&M Corpus Christi at 14-18. I could be wrong, but in any case, I'd be surprised if Fox redshirts anyone. I think Fox needs all hands on deck to avoid finishing as bad or worse than last season.

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I doubt Klanaros will redshirt, but are you saying that playing U-16 and club ball for Greece would better prepare a person for playing in the Pac12 than playing three years of D-1 ball?

Have you seen Klanaros' highlight video were at 6-5 he is among the tallest players on the court?