The more I listen to monty, the more I realize he would have been Cal's greatest coach ever if only we had the desire/intelligence to snatch him up after his stint at Montana. He genuinely seems to like Fox. He says that he has seen many Cal practices, and he is amazed and gratified at the improvement under the current leadership. In other words, Cal could have done a lot worse under the circumstances. He is especially pleased with Brown, the freshman PG. He admits that Brown '"can't shoot, but who cares--he is strong, athletic, a tenacious defender and its always looking to pass the ball. " Monty and braun are my favorite broadcasters. If Cal loses some players to the transfer portal next year, I suspect that Fox will recruit well enough to offset the losses. Let's hope that any transfer will either be a rotation player or a player under scholarship who simply cannot playing time. The offense is a pleasure to watch--the defense is a work in progress because of youth, but, I am cautiously optimistic.

I like what I see in Brown a lot. He reminds me of a young Jorge, with his energy. His athleticism is off the charts. He looks like the kind of player who is more likely to end up improving his shot than not, because he is driven. The unselfishness he plays with at the point is exactly what you want. I've seen more plus one passing from this group than I can remember in a long time.

Each succeeding year Brown is going to become a larger headache for our opponents. Very active. Don MacLean is my favorite color guy. Brad Duggan without the heat on.

cal bball. yes.

Why would you assume players will transfer. For Gods sake the freshmen just got here.

oskidunker said:

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Why would you assume players will transfer. For Gods sake the freshmen just got here.

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Right.

Like who? Thorpe, Cobi??????? Nah, Matt B. would body-slam them first.

bearup said:

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oskidunker said:

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Why would you assume players will transfer. For Gods sake the freshmen just got here.

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Right.

Like who? Thorpe, Cobi??????? Nah, Matt B. would body-slam them first.

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I agree. I know it's an opinion board but sometimes the negativity on this site seems mandatory. The team just won their first 3 games, looked well coached doing it, and we have to hear about players transferring? Lets be reasonable here.

I think the OP was trying to make a positive comment

His player transfer addition was maybe just a comment about the state of college basketball in general

I agree with his opinion that Monty and Braun are two of the best for Cal games

RedlessWardrobe said:

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bearup said:

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oskidunker said:

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Why would you assume players will transfer. For Gods sake the freshmen just got here.

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Right.

Like who? Thorpe, Cobi??????? Nah, Matt B. would body-slam them first.

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I agree. I know it's an opinion board but sometimes the negativity on this site seems mandatory. The team just won their first 3 games, looked well coached doing it, and we have to hear about players transferring? Lets be reasonable here.

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I was actually trying to be very positive as in "who would want to transfer". Also, I was replying to oskidunker who brought it up in the first place. My bad (I guess).

Wrong. Read the post by Helltopay

RedlessWardrobe said:

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bearup said:

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oskidunker said:

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Why would you assume players will transfer. For Gods sake the freshmen just got here.

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Right.

Like who? Thorpe, Cobi??????? Nah, Matt B. would body-slam them first.

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I agree. I know it's an opinion board but sometimes the negativity on this site seems mandatory. The team just won their first 3 games, looked well coached doing it, and we have to hear about players transferring? Lets be reasonable here.

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The more I read this the more I'm afraid Big Bro is for real (sure hope not). I was replying to oskidunker who was responding to HTP who brought up the portal in the first place.

Man, this thread is weird. A candidate for OT?

The following has multiple layers (even a CAL reference)

oskidunker said:

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Wrong. Read the post by Helltopay

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Sorry, I corrected that later in the thread.

I forgive everybody for their negative comments! (That is if I'm in a position to do so).

RedlessWardrobe said:

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I forgive everybody for their negative comments! (That is if I'm in a position to do so).

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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I forgive everybody for their negative comments! (That is if I'm in a position to do so).

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In re-reading the thread in its sorry (JMHO) entirety, I see that's there's a better than 50% chance that
in saying

I agree. I know it's an opinion board but sometimes the negativity on this site seems mandatory.

you were actually agreeing with me and oskidunker that HTH was being just a bit premature in his negativity.

So, I'm apologizing for thinking you were unfairly hammering me when I was only agreeing with someone who was disagreeing the OP, even though someone else defended the OP, and.........

If I'm wrong well,

Just enjoy good basketball . They really do have a plan and attack on offense often getting fouls called or making the basket. Three enjoyable games. Four to come and then there is Duke. :.(.

bearup said:

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Man, this thread is weird. A candidate for OT?

The following has multiple layers (even a CAL reference)

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So that is the new Cal basketball song!

Thge transfer portal is here to stay. Just trying to be realistic. Kids just want to play..If they see a better chance to play elsewhere, regardless of academic standing, they will explore that chance. Please see the number of kids who transferred last year. This will happen every year. My point, which should have been obvious, was that if high school kids see Fox & Cal as a better option than lately, then hopefully Fox can recruit kids who are either as good if not better than the potential transfers. Nothing wrong with being realistic. Very few kids come to Cal ( or anywhere else) because of school loyalty. They go to the schools which afford them the best chance for either glory, or, playing time, or both. I hope thge NCAA re-evaluates the transfer portal. They need to make sure that "waivers" are granted only for the most valid of reasons. In other words, you won't be able to tell the players without a program . Not healthy. Hoop Dreams had the best comment regarding my post. Go Niners!!!!

helltopay1 said:

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Thge transfer portal is here to stay. Just trying to be realistic. Kids just want to play..If they see a better chance to play elsewhere, regardless of academic standing, they will explore that chance. Please see the number of kids who transferred last year. This will happen every year. My point, which should have been obvious, was that if high school kids see Fox & Cal as a better option than lately, then hopefully Fox can recruit kids who are either as good if not better than the potential transfers. Nothing wrong with being realistic. Very few kids come to Cal ( or anywhere else) because of school loyalty. They go to the schools which afford them the best chance for either glory, or, playing time, or both. I hope thge NCAA re-evaluates the transfer portal. They need to make sure that "waivers" are granted only for the most valid of reasons. In other words, you won't be able to tell the players without a program . Not healthy. Hoop Dreams had the best comment regarding my post. Go Niners!!!!

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nothing wrong with the transfer portal. It has a reasonable deterrent (one year waiting period). Players get over-recruited, over promised, the gamut. Either way, if coaches can leave so can players. Holding players prisoners to their LOI is silly

Since Thorp only has one dunk he might leave.

HoopDreams said:

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I think the OP was trying to make a positive comment

His player transfer addition was maybe just a comment about the state of college basketball in general

I agree with his opinion that Monty and Braun are two of the best for Cal games

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No question; Monty is by far the best color guy. I disagree about Braun, however, he is so averse to ever making a negative comment about anyone (especially a coach) that it drives me crazy. Listening to him praise Wyking's "fantastic job" with Cal last year was like fingernails on a blackboard. I prefer McLean.

UrsaMajor said:

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HoopDreams said:

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I think the OP was trying to make a positive comment

His player transfer addition was maybe just a comment about the state of college basketball in general

I agree with his opinion that Monty and Braun are two of the best for Cal games

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No question; Monty is by far the best color guy. I disagree about Braun, however, he is so averse to ever making a negative comment about anyone (especially a coach) that it drives me crazy. Listening to him praise Wyking's "fantastic job" with Cal last year was like fingernails on a blackboard. I prefer McLean.

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Monty and McLean are my top two. Different POVs and style, but both tell it like it is. I'm OK with Braun, but he's not as real as the first two. Dan Belluomoni was a former coach, who used to tell it like it is, but over time became more like Braun as he became more known as an announcer than a coach.

Regarding Braun, I actually haven't watched him announce many Cal games because he usually only does cal home games

I can imagine he could be a little too generous with his comments at times

BeachedBear said:

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Monty and McLean are my top two. Different POVs and style, but both tell it like it is. I'm OK with Braun, but he's not as real as the first two.

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He's a better color announcer than he was a coach. I'm sometimes amused at how some of his observations differ from what he coached. But I'd much rather listen to him than a guy like Marques Johnson do a game (who seems to have fallen off the map).

As for transfers, it is a reality, and has been for some time. 5 or 6 years ago, I read where 40% of players transfer at least once in their careers. I published a spreadsheet on the Bear Insider back then, looking at the top 100 players in one recruiting and I found that 40% were transferring, with some players transferring twice. Jemarl Baker switched schools before he even got here, and now he has transferred again.

I think that Cal is a little different. Some coaches here may have been able to recruit one or two good players in a recruiting class, but when faced with having to fill several spots, they have signed marginal players, not really capable of playing substantial minutes in D1. For Montgomery, it was Kaileb Rodriguez and Kahlil Johnson and Geoffrey Frid. For Cuonzo it was Chauca, maybe Coleman. Domingo was questionable. For Wyking it was Winston and McCullogh for sure. So we've lost players to transfer, but their loss really hasn't hurt the roster. I don't see much dropoff with us not having Sueing or Vanover. I know Sueing has plenty of fans, but I myself like the roster much better this year. I don't see yet where Fox has brought in any players who are not capable of playing D1 and raising Cal's level of success from last season. The jury is out on Thorpe and Kuany, but I feel that Fox is better at judging recruits, and is better at signing the ones he wants than the inexperienced Wyking Jones was.

I also think that Cal is a magnet for the smart player who realizes he may not make his living from basketball after college, and understands the prestige of having a Cal degree. So even if he may not be getting the minutes he wants on the court, he might just choose to stick around and get the Cal sheepskin. In any case, so far I think the players who left have not hurt us as much as they may have helped by opening slots in the roster which a better coach might be able to fill. Hopefully Fox will continue to recruit well, coach well, and the team will build on the early success we've had, and better recruits will start looking at Cal as a place to play their college ball.

Interesting post, SFCity. Boy, I had forgotten about Frid (perhaps because he was so forgettable). One minor correction: I wouldn't have called Domingo a marginal player (when he was signed). He was a top recruit out of hs and went to Duke. It seemed like a pretty good deal when we got him; the fact that he didn't work out was one of those things, although I always wondered what kind of player he might have been w/ a different coach...

UrsaMajor said:

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One minor correction: I wouldn't have called Domingo a marginal player (when he was signed). He was a top recruit out of hs and went to Duke.

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I remember reading that Domingo enrolled at Georgetown at age 17 after finishing high school in just 3 years. He was highly-rated in high school but didn't play well at Georgetown.

stu said:

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UrsaMajor said:

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One minor correction: I wouldn't have called Domingo a marginal player (when he was signed). He was a top recruit out of hs and went to Duke.

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I remember reading that Domingo enrolled at Georgetown at age 17 after finishing high school in just 3 years. He was highly-rated in high school but didn't play well at Georgetown.

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Yup. And I believe Frid was a walk-on.

UrsaMajor said:

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Interesting post, SFCity. Boy, I had forgotten about Frid (perhaps because he was so forgettable). One minor correction: I wouldn't have called Domingo a marginal player (when he was signed). He was a top recruit out of hs and went to Duke. It seemed like a pretty good deal when we got him; the fact that he didn't work out was one of those things, although I always wondered what kind of player he might have been w/ a different coach...

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Thanks. I've always been a little puzzled by Domingo's recruit ranking. He was ranked by a couple of ranking services, as high as 27th, but he was not ranked in the RSCI Composite rankings at all, as far as I could find out. I read newspaper articles which touted him as an outstanding shooter with great range (shot 39% on threes his final season), but I have a young cousin who covered basketball and football for the Daily Cal and graduated this year. He formerly went to Sacred Heart, and saw Domingo a play a lot of games for St Ignatius. He said Domingo played mostly in the post and dunked everything. I just don't have full faith in recruit rankings, as only about 40% of players live up to their rankings, based on one top 100 class that I studied.

Domingo left high school early, and actually went to Georgetown, not Duke. Were you thinking of Jamal Boykin, who was California Player of the Year and went to Duke, and later transferred to Cal? Domingo's numbers were about the same at Cal as they were at Georgetown, except that he played about twice as many minutes, but the shooting percentages were mostly the same.He shot 20% on 3s, 30% on FGs, and 40% on FTs. That is abysmal. He had a good coach at Georgetown, John Thompson. At Cal he showed some defensive skills, nothing spectacular, and he rebounded OK for a wing on a per minute basis. But he had almost no offensive skills whatever. He had two coaches, and the results were the same. I was excited when we got him. I went to a SF Pro Am game were he got some rebounds and made 2 or 3 long shots, but D1 is a level above both high school and the SF Pro Am.

Thanks for the correction. Of course, Georgetown. Dementia setting in...

Domingo was a talent who never had much coaching. He was a "drills" monster who didn't convert his skills to the game much. Georgetown was a disaster for him: he was too young and too underdeveloped physically to compete there. My observation was that he was never allowed to play while at Cal. He was always fulfilling a limited role. His in the developmental league now.

bearchamp said:

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Domingo was a talent who never had much coaching. He was a "drills" monster who didn't convert his skills to the game much. Georgetown was a disaster for him: he was too young and too underdeveloped physically to compete there. My observation was that he was never allowed to play while at Cal. He was always fulfilling a limited role. His in the developmental league now.

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Well, I think we all wish him the best going forward.

UrsaMajor said:

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Interesting post, SFCity. Boy, I had forgotten about Frid (perhaps because he was so forgettable). One minor correction: I wouldn't have called Domingo a marginal player (when he was signed). He was a top recruit out of hs and went to Duke. It seemed like a pretty good deal when we got him; the fact that he didn't work out was one of those things, although I always wondered what kind of player he might have been w/ a different coach...

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https://www.casualhoya.com/2012/5/21/3034077/class-of-2013-small-forward-stephen-domingo-commits-to-georgetown

UrsaMajor said:

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Thanks for the correction. Of course, Georgetown. Dementia setting in...

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Not likely. Not compared to me anyway. I can set the BI record any time for errors of memory in a single post and probably have.

Regarding Domingo's recruit ranking, he did not play against top level competition in high school. San Francisco high school basketball has been in steady decline since 1968 at least, when a San Francisco team won the Tournament of Champions, and that was the year Wilson High won the TOC with Ansley Truitt.

San Francisco teams won a lot of the early TOC titles. Lowell won the first TOC title in 1947, followed by Lincoln in 1948. St Ignatius coached by Rene Herrerias and starring Fred LaCour won it in 1954 and 1955, and would have won it in 1956 if LaCour hadn't broken his thumb in an early TOC game. Poly High won it in 1957. A total of 5 championships for San Francisco teams in 11 years, plus Wilson's win in 1968. When the TOC was replaced by the CIF state championship, no San Francisco team has won the state title in either the open division or division 1. St Ignatius reached the state final in 1984, and Riordan reached it in 1990. Only Mission High school has been able to win a state championship, and that was for division 3.

In the same period, "Mr. Basketball", the California player of the year, was almost dominated by San Francisco players. Don Bragg won it in 1950, Fred LaCour twice in 1955 and 1956, Tom Meschery won it in 1957, Steve Gray won it in 1959, and Bob Portman won it in 1965. No San Francisco player has been named California player of the year since Portman in 1968.

In that same period, Cal recruited and landed some very good players from San Francisco: Cal All-American Bob Matheny, Ansley Truitt, Dick Tamberg, Frank Hess, Bill and Joe Hagler, Denny Lewis, and others. In 1954, a Cal team which went 17-7 and finished 3rd in the PCC Southern Division, three players on Cal's starting 5 were from San Francisco, Matheny, Tamberg, and Hess. Akili Jones was probably the last decent San Francisco player to play for Cal in 1991-94. And Brendan Glapion was San Francisco AAA Player of the Year a few years ago, and he was a walk-on at Cal.

So I think the recruiting gurus may have been mislead by watching Domingo in high school or looking at his statistics, and maybe didn't consider the level of competition he faced in high school. San Francisco high school ball is now where near what it once was, and that is tragic.