thisiscalbasketball.com

always an amazing job ...


Coach G’s thoughts on why she created ThisisCalBasketball.com.

Women’s basketball is about connection. It’s a beautiful game with remarkable athletes who artfully combine grace, power and skill. But people care about our game most when they care about the people involved.

That’s the philosophy behind thisiscalbasketball.com.

When I was hired at Cal, my goal was to elevate this program into one of the elite in women’s college basketball. Obviously that involves recruiting great players, and coaching them to be tough and disciplined on both ends of the floor. But I also thought about another aspect of greatness: to be truly relevant in women’s hoops — to be at the forefront of our game — we need to engage people. People want to know who our players are and what drives us; they care about the process.

In college basketball, you play approximately 35 games if you make it deep into the postseason. But we are a team for 365 days of the year. We are a part of Cal Basketball even when the lights aren’t on and the fans aren’t around. To me, the full story includes the “other” 330 days. Thisiscalbasketball is our attempt to open the digital doors to our program and let you in.

... the rest is on the site...

This is something I always look forward to. Have to imagine this being a phenomenal recruiting tool- you really get a feel for all of the ins and outs of the coaches and players.

One thing that bothered me in this video- where is the Boyd and Gray confidence? I cringed hearing some of these answers. One of the goals for the year is to "make it to the tournament" and "have a good season"? Cal will never be a truly great program unless the players truly believe they can win championships and settle for nothing less. I want to hear and see the players believe they can be GREAT. Making the tournament should not be a goal, it should be a bare minimum and should be expected... even with the 15-17 record last year.

GO BEARS

The difference is Gray and Boyd had just been to a final four and this team didn't make a tournament last year.

Sara, the Aussie transfer, must sit out this season, correct? Cal could utilize her three-point shooting...It appears to me that the team lacks team speed as compared to other Pac 12 teams. Micole Cayton will be a key player for the Bears if the guards will be able to compete against other team's respective backcourts. ASU is bringing in 8 guards. Why does Cal struggle to much to recruit? GO BEARS!

HoopDreams;842749836 said:

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thisiscalbasketball.com

always an amazing job ...


Coach G’s thoughts on why she created ThisisCalBasketball.com.

Women’s basketball is about connection. It’s a beautiful game with remarkable athletes who artfully combine grace, power and skill. But people care about our game most when they care about the people involved.

That’s the philosophy behind thisiscalbasketball.com.

When I was hired at Cal, my goal was to elevate this program into one of the elite in women’s college basketball. Obviously that involves recruiting great players, and coaching them to be tough and disciplined on both ends of the floor. But I also thought about another aspect of greatness: to be truly relevant in women’s hoops — to be at the forefront of our game — we need to engage people. People want to know who our players are and what drives us; they care about the process.

In college basketball, you play approximately 35 games if you make it deep into the postseason. But we are a team for 365 days of the year. We are a part of Cal Basketball even when the lights aren’t on and the fans aren’t around. To me, the full story includes the “other” 330 days. Thisiscalbasketball is our attempt to open the digital doors to our program and let you in.

... the rest is on the site...

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I'm not much into the social media thing but what you say is all true but for me it comes down to how well they perform on the court.

CalFanatic;842750642 said:

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This is something I always look forward to. Have to imagine this being a phenomenal recruiting tool- you really get a feel for all of the ins and outs of the coaches and players.

One thing that bothered me in this video- where is the Boyd and Gray confidence? I cringed hearing some of these answers. One of the goals for the year is to "make it to the tournament" and "have a good season"? Cal will never be a truly great program unless the players truly believe they can win championships and settle for nothing less. I want to hear and see the players believe they can be GREAT. Making the tournament should not be a goal, it should be a bare minimum and should be expected... even with the 15-17 record last year.

GO BEARS

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I didn't hear this quote on the website, but based on the way you have described it, I don't see anything wrong with them saying "one" of the goals this year is to "make the tournament" and 'have a good season". From they way you've presented it, they didn't see that was THE goal but ONE of the goals. I sure would hope the goal is to make it to the tournament and have a good season, because you can't "win championships" if you're not hitting that goal first. It's a logical first step goal for a team that 67% (8 out of 12 players!) have never been to an NCAA Tournament. 67% of them haven't experienced a winning collegiate season. I think making the tournament and having a good season are good first goals en route to hopefully unspoken goals of a Pac-12 title. Because you won't get the Pac-12 title if you don't do those things first.

Schroeder71;842751060 said:

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Sara, the Aussie transfer, must sit out this season, correct? Cal could utilize her three-point shooting...It appears to me that the team lacks team speed as compared to other Pac 12 teams. Micole Cayton will be a key player for the Bears if the guards will be able to compete against other team's respective backcourts. ASU is bringing in 8 guards. Why does Cal struggle to much to recruit? GO BEARS!

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8 guards? What team needs 8 guards? Cal has very talented guards, wings and post players. Yes, Sara is a transfer and must sit out but she's still practicing with the team. Cal's recruiting classes are generally in the top 25. The two players committed for 2017 are 5-star athletes and put us at #9 in the country according to espn.com Not a struggle to me.

Your constant negativity and sarcasm are becoming quite annoying. Get up to Cal for a women's game once in awhile and see this team in person. Easy to critique in front of a computer.

Season ticket-holder here. Go Bears!!

I reviewed all of the rosters of the other Pac 12 teams and they are loaded. The Sun Devils graduated all of their guards except Haines & Hawkins. Below is their roster:
http://www.thesundevils.com/roster.aspx?path=wbball

ASU has five freshmen and two transfers (from UConn & Texas) joining their roster of 14 players. Five of them are new guards to give Arizona State a total of seven backcourt players.

Schroeder71;842751231 said:

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I reviewed all of the rosters of the other Pac 12 teams and they are loaded. The Sun Devils graduated all of their guards except Haines & Hawkins. Below is their roster:
http://www.thesundevils.com/roster.aspx?path=wbball

ASU has five freshmen and two transfers (from UConn & Texas) joining their roster of 14 players. Five of them are new guards to give Arizona State a total of seven backcourt players.

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You reviewed all of the rosters in the Pac-12? Do you have the info handy to present here? When you say they are loaded are you talking about quantity or quality, younger players or something else?

Schroeder71;842751231 said:

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I reviewed all of the rosters of the other Pac 12 teams and they are loaded. The Sun Devils graduated all of their guards except Haines & Hawkins. Below is their roster:
http://www.thesundevils.com/roster.aspx?path=wbball

ASU has five freshmen and two transfers (from UConn & Texas) joining their roster of 14 players. Five of them are new guards to give Arizona State a total of seven backcourt players.

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You may be the first person to say that Colorado and Utah have loaded teams. No matter how you try and spin it, Utah's roster is the same 12 players as Cal's and ON PAPER aren't "loaded" more than Cal's. And that's just me reviewing one of the other Pac-12 team rosters. Kudos to you for reviewing all 11, but I have to take those kudos away for your evaluation skills of said rosters.

Schroeder71;842751231 said:

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I reviewed all of the rosters of the other Pac 12 teams and they are loaded.

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We certainly have our share of talent. Another thing which stands out to me is last season our starting five averaged an amazingly low 0.8 year of college experience. This season it will be a more reasonable 1.8 years. At the open practice Coach G mentioned that last season some players were a year away from being able to do what we needed. I'm not going to try to predict our record, but I'm expecting us to do much better in conference play this season.

stu;842752364 said:

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We certainly have our share of talent. Another thing which stands out to me is last season our starting five averaged an amazingly low 0.8 year of college experience. This season it will be a more reasonable 1.8 years. At the open practice Coach G mentioned that last season some players were a year away from being able to do what we needed. I'm not going to try to predict our record, but I'm expecting us to do much better in conference play this season.

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I've been watching this with interest since the 2009-2010 season where we had 7 Fr, 1 Jr, 4 Sr and had a 24-13 record. The next year it was 4 Fr, 6 So, 2 Sr and a 18-16 record. The year after it was 4 Fr, 4 So 4 Jr and a 25-10 record. The following year it was 2 So, 4 Jr 4 Sr and a 32-4 record (17-1 in conference) and a final 4. We've never had an ideal sustainable class balance since the 2009-2019 season when we only had 5 returning players. LG had the advantage of coming in as the players recruited by Boyle were getting experienced. She did a good job with the team but it was the experienced skilled players that created the great results.

With 5 Fr, 3 So and 2 Jr, last year's bad year was predictable. We should do better this coming year but the following year should be even better.

I will be watching for improvement in all of the returning players. I hope that Nina getting stronger and having more confidence would translate into more production. I also think that Tonto, without the Lone Ranger, will really shine this year. You could see it happening at the end of last year.

GATC;842752452 said:

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We should do better this coming year but the following year should be even better.

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I agree (as I should, I feel that way every year).

It would help either to keep our players until they graduate or to recruit enough players to fill the losses. At the highest levels of WBB the latter seems more likely.

Last year was also a perfect Storm in that we played the best Pac 12 group we have ever played. Best team in the NCAA's. No cream puffs. What made us a better team at the end was that we were playing much better defense. We beat several ranked teams last year but it was a tough league. It will be a tough league again this year but will not be quite as tough.

stu;842752496 said:

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I agree (as I should, I feel that way every year).

It would help either to keep our players until they graduate or to recruit enough players to fill the losses. At the highest levels of WBB the latter seems more likely.

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Good point on recruiting enough players to fill the losses. I always believed that we should have recruited at least one player for the 2012-2013 season. It was a great season but not having any Fr meant that we are not planning for the future. Losing Ben Abdelkader and Dunn for the 2014-15 season hurt not because they are great players but because it left them with 10 players, 9 when Range was hurt a large part of the season. We were left with 9 players last year when Jefflo and Cavanaugh left and 7 of the 9 players played 98% of the minutes. So we were short handed AND inexperienced. This year we have 11 players and the balance is better. When you add the "team problems" last year, it is no surprise that we had a 4-14 conference record.

Actually I am cautiously optimistic about this year.