They were obviously looking ahead...

Crap games happen. As the saying goes, progress is not linear. Just be glad they played their worst game so far against the worst team so far. Just take the win and move on.

Btw officiating was awful (and probably even favored the bears) but it's just so hard to get a rhythm when the refs are just looking to make calls

I grew up watching Tompkins and Belluonini 30 years ago. Those dudes haven't aged. Tompkins looks good enough to be in rocky 8

ducky23 said:

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Crap games happen. As the saying goes, progress is not linear. Just be glad they played their worst game so far against the worst team so far. Just take the win and move on.

Btw officiating was awful (and probably even favored the bears) but it's just so hard to get a rhythm when the refs are just looking to make calls

I grew up watching Tompkins and Belluonini 30 years ago. Those dudes haven't aged. Tompkins looks good enough to be in rocky 8

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Had the same thought about Barry and The Coach. They really have been around forever, and together for most of it.

After the last few years, I won't turn my nose up at any win and it's good to be 4-0. Obviously, that game was a mess in a lot of different ways, but at least Fox is learning about his team and seeing where we need to focus going forward, not to mention getting some clarity around who should be getting more (and fewer) minutes.

As we almost lost, I though boy the Fox haters will be out tonight. The good news for them is Thursday night must certainly be a night to rejoice.

Smart decision: I passed on going to the game, but read the game thread on Bear Insider. Saved me two hours!

I predict that Duke will be overconfident when we play them. However, I can think of two different times that we have beaten them, both since I graduated from Cal, so ya never know...

bearister said:

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I'm EricBearing/Sybiling my rear end off here. Somebody throw me a frickin' bone.

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Sorry. Maybe someday my wife will be home when the game starts and I can keep you company.

All games watched on DVR this year.

ncbears said:

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I think a missed lob play is one of the saddest things to see.

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Especially when a simple bounce pass would have resulted in an easy score. Even for JHD.

ncbears said:

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I know several posters are big JHD fans, but since that missed lobs, he just is not on top of his game.

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Some folks cannot separate dunks from skill.

Big C said:

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Smart decision: I passed on going to the game, but read the game thread on Bear Insider. Saved me two hours!

I predict that Duke will be overconfident when we play them. However, I can think of two different times that we have beaten them, both since I graduated from Cal, so ya never know...

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+ commentary on BI is MUCH more entertaining than TV/radio.

Not so fun factoid: Bears' A/TO just went from a "just barely OK" 1.03 to, ouch, .78.........but it's early.

bearup said:

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Big C said:

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Smart decision: I passed on going to the game, but read the game thread on Bear Insider. Saved me two hours!

I predict that Duke will be overconfident when we play them. However, I can think of two different times that we have beaten them, both since I graduated from Cal, so ya never know...

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+ commentary on BI is MUCH more entertaining than TV/radio.

Not so fun factoid: Bears' A/TO just went from a "just barely OK" 1.03 to, ouch, .78.........but it's early.

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Keep in mind though that college statisticians tend to be a bit more stingy about giving out assists than more generous NBA statisticians are. To pick out a year at random from one of my favorite (even if people like to slag it) years of 2009-10, your California Golden Bears, champions of the Pac 10 Conference, coached by the always perfect Mike Montgomery, had 500 assists vs. 421 turnovers for an A/TO ratio of 1.1876.

Turnovers aren't something you love and we had more than a few ugly ones tonight, but turnovers can often be the consequence of trying to make a play. The NCAA leader in turnovers last year was #2 NBA Draft Pick Ja Morant.

Tonight was not a pretty game, but I wouldn't recommend on making too much out of turnovers in general. In the three other games, how we passed the ball and took care of it is not something that would make my top 10 concerns about the team. Tonight was just a bad game that we still managed to win anyway.

Pigskin Pete said:

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bearup said:

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Big C said:

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Smart decision: I passed on going to the game, but read the game thread on Bear Insider. Saved me two hours!

I predict that Duke will be overconfident when we play them. However, I can think of two different times that we have beaten them, both since I graduated from Cal, so ya never know...

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+ commentary on BI is MUCH more entertaining than TV/radio.

Not so fun factoid: Bears' A/TO just went from a "just barely OK" 1.03 to, ouch, .78.........but it's early.

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Keep in mind though that college statisticians tend to be a bit more stingy about giving out assists than more generous NBA statisticians are. To pick out a year at random from one of my favorite (even if people like to slag it) years of 2009-10, your California Golden Bears, champions of the Pac 10 Conference, coached by the always perfect Mike Montgomery, had 500 assists vs. 421 turnovers for an A/TO ratio of 1.1876.

Turnovers aren't something you love and we had more than a few ugly ones tonight, but turnovers can often be the consequence of trying to make a play. The NCAA leader in turnovers last year was #2 NBA Draft Pick Ja Morant.

Tonight was not a pretty game, but I wouldn't recommend on making too much out of turnovers in general. In the three other games, how we passed the ball and took care of it is not something that would make my top 10 concerns about the team. Tonight was just a bad game that we still managed to win anyway.

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Thanks.

It, of course, goes beyond what are considered assists into whether or not the As and TOs are recorded and transferred correctly into other databases. Data entry errors, etc............

I wasn't being flippant by saying "It's early". We agree on that.

IIRC, CAL's A/TO ratio last year was in the bottom 10 at around .67 or so=>it could get worse, but is waaaaay more likely to get better.

oskidunker said:

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As we almost lost, I though boy the Fox haters will be out tonight. The good news for them is Thursday night must certainly be a night to rejoice.

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Heh, as someone I'm certain you would label a Fox Hater, even I was dreading coming to this board had the Bears lost.

To look on the bright side, we can take solace in result being a W, because this surely would have been an L if the previous coaching staff was in place.

Still don't really have a feel whether this team is any better than a basement dweller (especially with the PAC-12 being improved across the board), but it's definitely better than the historically horrid teams of the last 2 seasons.

At this point, I'll take progress. IMO, a 7th-9th place finish would be an incredible accomplishment for this team. Just not enough offense to be much better than that unless scorers other than Bradley step up. Paris Austin (proven double figure scorer) has been relegated to backup duties to elevate the FR Brown (probably the right move when looking long-term). Anticevich has been rock solid, as I thought he was capable of. Fox and staff need to polish a few more players (we need 8 really solid guys to do something). I'm hoping we'll see some guys emerge as the season goes along.

tsubamoto2001 said:

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At this point, I'll take progress. IMO, a 7th-9th place finish would be an incredible accomplishment for this team. Just not enough offense to be much better than that unless scorers other than Bradley step up. Paris Austin (proven double figure scorer) has been relegated to backup duties to elevate the FR Brown (probably the right move when looking long-term). Anticevich has been rock solid, as I thought he was capable of.

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I think our deficiencies aren't limited to offense. I'd say that by (normal year) conference standards Bradley is a good player and Anticevich & South are OK players. I'd call Austin, JHD, and Kelly incomplete or role players as all three have significant limitations. Then we have 5 freshies in varying degrees of readiness plus Gordon, who played so little last season I put him in the same category.

Quote:

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Fox and staff need to polish a few more players (we need 8 really solid guys to do something). I'm hoping we'll see some guys emerge as the season goes along.

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I agree.

Big C said:

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Smart decision: I passed on going to the game, but read the game thread on Bear Insider. Saved me two hours!

I predict that Duke will be overconfident when we play them. However, I can think of two different times that we have beaten them, both since I graduated from Cal, so ya never know...

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We OWN the Blue Devils!

Go Bears!

MoragaBear said:

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Wow, what a fugly game. Austin, Thiemann, Gordon, JHD, Kelly...brutal games. At least Brown and Bradley shot pretty well but they also combined for 8 turnovers. Anticevich is pretty much the only guy who played a clean game but he had a couple TO's, too.

They defended poorly much of the game, too. Didn't stay for the presser since I wasn't handling the game report but Fox had to be pretty sour about the performance.

Really poor officiating, too. Made the game even more unwatchable than the poor play did..

Hopefully they got it out of their system and can manage to put a competitive game together vs. Duke instead of a Monty-led 50 point non-conference loss to Missouri-type performance.

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Or a Ben Braun-led 50 point conference loss to arch rival Stanford-type performance. That one really hurt.

Yours Truly,

Still Not Over It

Yes, I commented during Monty's last color game where he talked about not running up the score in garbage time that when he was Furding he used to spank people until it hurt real bad.

bearister said:

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Yes, I commented during Monty's last color game where he talked about not running up the score in garbage time that when he was Furding he used to spank people until it hurt real bad.

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Good that someone held him accountable.

KenBurnski said:

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Post of the day

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