Seems fair. Anything above 11 seems like a good coaching job by Fox. Wouldn't be surprised if that happens though. We do need a major influx of talent please...

Lol at that projected Arizona starting lineup, it's a "what could have been" lineup for Cal...

BearGreg said:

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Not overly optimistic

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Interesting that he doesn't have Lars or Brown starting when they both started a majority of the games last year. That said, I like his lineup. Kelly needs to play more and we need Betley and Foreman to good players at this level. If they are and even surprise I could see this team being FAR better offensively than last year. That is potentially 4 good outside shooters with Kelly scoring and rebounding down low. Could be fun (which alone would be an upgrade).

I see trajectory like football under Justin Wilcox. Upgrade to decent levels of play, but tough sledding for recruiting until we start turning the corner.

KoreAmBear said:

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I see trajectory like football under Justin Wilcox. Upgrade to decent levels of play, but tough sledding for recruiting until we start turning the corner.

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I wish I was as optimistic about basketball as I am about football. Fox was not known as a good recruiter in his nine years at Georgia despite being a short distance from talent-filled Atlanta.

calumnus said:

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BearGreg said:

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Not overly optimistic

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Interesting that he doesn't have Lars or Brown starting when they both started a majority of the games last year. That said, I like his lineup. Kelly needs to play more and we need Betley and Foreman to good players at this level. If they are and even surprise I could see this team being FAR better offensively than last year. That is potentially 4 good outside shooters with Kelly scoring and rebounding down low. Could be fun (which alone would be an upgrade).

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I get leaving out Lars. a 3 guard lineup with no center is not uncommon these days and Grant and Andre seem more effective.

As for Brown, I'm guessing that Rothstein didn't actually watch many Cal games last year, if any and is looking at stat sheets and minutes played. Then putting two grad transfers with a single year as immediate starters - leaving Brown out by default.

Again, not unreasonable. However, if Brown is not starting at PG by conference play - then he and Cal either have bigger issues or both transfers are kicking butt!

BearGreg said:

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Not overly optimistic

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What I'm not overly optimistic about is actually having a season.

That said, this Pac 12 prediction is a joke: Stanfurd 2nd and Cal 11th?!? Haven't people figured out yet that the Furd coach is lame and unkempt (thanks to EricBear for that last part)? They can't even beat us half the time! Heck, they couldn't beat us too often under the previous coach!

If the two grad transfers end up starting for us, maybe he's right, but they both look like serviceable back ups, to me. Joel Brown will start. I don't see why we shouldn't be slightly improved over last season. Not eleventh, no way.

BeachedBear said:

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calumnus said:

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BearGreg said:

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Not overly optimistic

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Interesting that he doesn't have Lars or Brown starting when they both started a majority of the games last year. That said, I like his lineup. Kelly needs to play more and we need Betley and Foreman to good players at this level. If they are and even surprise I could see this team being FAR better offensively than last year. That is potentially 4 good outside shooters with Kelly scoring and rebounding down low. Could be fun (which alone would be an upgrade).

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I get leaving out Lars. a 3 guard lineup with no center is not uncommon these days and Grant and Andre seem more effective.

As for Brown, I'm guessing that Rothstein didn't actually watch many Cal games last year, if any and is looking at stat sheets and minutes played. Then putting two grad transfers with a single year as immediate starters - leaving Brown out by default.

Again, not unreasonable. However, if Brown is not starting at PG by conference play - then he and Cal either have bigger issues or both transfers are kicking butt!

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Well my hope is it is because both grad transfers are kicking butt.

mdbear said:

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KoreAmBear said:

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I see trajectory like football under Justin Wilcox. Upgrade to decent levels of play, but tough sledding for recruiting until we start turning the corner.

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I wish I was as optimistic about basketball as I am about football. Fox was not known as a good recruiter in his nine years at Georgia despite being a short distance from talent-filled Atlanta.

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Wilcox was a first time head coach so I was more hopeful and "show me" but realized Baldwin was not good once we had some evidence of games played. Baldwin has been replace with a proven OC and recruiting has picked up. I like our trajectory. Wilcox never had my blind faith, instead he has earned my confidence in him and my optimism.

I was not a fan of Fox's coaching style or results at Georgia. I have seen nothing since then that has me thinking he will ever get Cal into the NCAA tournament. I am a skeptic, but would love to be proven wrong and always, always root for the players that wear the blue and gold.

calumnus said:

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mdbear said:

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KoreAmBear said:

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I see trajectory like football under Justin Wilcox. Upgrade to decent levels of play, but tough sledding for recruiting until we start turning the corner.

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I wish I was as optimistic about basketball as I am about football. Fox was not known as a good recruiter in his nine years at Georgia despite being a short distance from talent-filled Atlanta.

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Wilcox was a first time head coach so I was more hopeful and "show me" but realized Baldwin was not good once we had some evidence of games played. Baldwin has been replace with a proven OC and recruiting has picked up. I like our trajectory. Wilcox never had my blind faith, instead he has earned my confidence in him and my optimism.

I was not a fan of Fox's coaching style or results at Georgia. I have seen nothing since then that has me thinking he will ever get Cal into the NCAA tournament. I am a skeptic, but would love to be proven wrong and always, always root for the players that wear the blue and gold.

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So far Fox has raised the floor, especially with Xs and Os. His recruiting has not been high level, but hard to blame him for where we have been. What I notice is that it finally took until 2019 for Wilcox (and unsexy guy to begin with) to make Cal football sexy again. I think Fox did hire some good recruiting assistants so it's not just on him to make Cal basketball have swag again. But since the roster is way smaller than football, it would only take 2-3 big recruits to raise the ceiling a bit. Hopefully this new class will overachieve like the Crabbe, Solomon and Mathews class. I think people were happy but not overly excited with that class. I remember comments like "this is the best Monty can do" as if to say he gets good players but he wont work to get elite players. But Crabbe became P12 POY and got drafted doing better than many other "elite" recruits. We need stuff like that to happen for some sustained momentum.

KoreAmBear said:

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calumnus said:

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mdbear said:

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KoreAmBear said:

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I see trajectory like football under Justin Wilcox. Upgrade to decent levels of play, but tough sledding for recruiting until we start turning the corner.

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I wish I was as optimistic about basketball as I am about football. Fox was not known as a good recruiter in his nine years at Georgia despite being a short distance from talent-filled Atlanta.

---

Wilcox was a first time head coach so I was more hopeful and "show me" but realized Baldwin was not good once we had some evidence of games played. Baldwin has been replace with a proven OC and recruiting has picked up. I like our trajectory. Wilcox never had my blind faith, instead he has earned my confidence in him and my optimism.

I was not a fan of Fox's coaching style or results at Georgia. I have seen nothing since then that has me thinking he will ever get Cal into the NCAA tournament. I am a skeptic, but would love to be proven wrong and always, always root for the players that wear the blue and gold.

---

So far Fox has raised the floor, especially with Xs and Os. His recruiting has not been high level, but hard to blame him for where we have been. What I notice is that it finally took until 2019 for Wilcox (and unsexy guy to begin with) to make Cal football sexy again. I think Fox did hire some good recruiting assistants so it's not just on him to make Cal basketball have swag again. But since the roster is way smaller than football, it would only take 2-3 big recruits to raise the ceiling a bit. Hopefully this new class will overachieve like the Crabbe, Solomon and Mathews class. I think people were happy but not overly excited with that class. I remember comments like "this is the best Monty can do" as if to say he gets good players but he wont work to get elite players. But Crabbe became P12 POY and got drafted doing better than many other "elite" recruits. We need stuff like that to happen for some sustained momentum.

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Fox is a somewhat better recruiter (all things being equal) than Monty, but he is not even in Monty's zip code when it comes to X's and O's. You cannot separate the two entirely because there are players who want to play for a good coach (and/or winning program) regardless of the coach's recruiting skills.
Cal was 332nd of 353 in points scored and 170th of 353 in points allowed. We took the air out of the ball playing for a last second shot. However that wasn't just last year at Cal, that was Fox at Georgia too. It is just not my preference for style.

The Crabbe, Solomon, Mathews class was a great under the radar class. All were a bit under appreciated when they were here but Solomon in particular, he was abused on this board considering the numbers he put up.

BearGreg said:

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Not overly optimistic

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Terry is not returning to the Farm. Does that bump LSJU from second?

71Bear said:

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BearGreg said:

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Not overly optimistic

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Terry is not returning to the Farm. Does that bump LSJU from second?

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Rothstein seemed to account for the possibility, and they have a good incoming class, but I think he had them too high to begin with. Haase is just not that good of a coach (again, not a fan of the take the air out of the ball guys). They were 20-12 (9-9) with surprise freshman Terry bailing him out to hit threes at the buzzer. Maybe they improve incrementally from last year, but I don't see them jumping to 2nd place. They do have the roster for it though.