I see we are rated 6th Nationally, lost to Stanford 15-10. I know we lost a ton of star power from our back to back to back National Championship Rosters. *What's a realistic projection for this season? *Do we have any elite recuits in the pipeline for next Season...? I spoke w/the Rio Americano High School Coach. His AA player is going to UCLA. *Thank you in advance Gents...

I am a novice MWP fan. IMO-the one thing that I have noticed this season is Cal's defense is much weaker than in the past three championship years. The goalkeeper and the overall team defense is lacking bigtime. Bears are losing games to Pepperdine, 21-20, for example. Cal can still score but appears unable to stop their opposition.

GO BEARS!

Unfortunately, NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) money is starting to influence non-revenue sports as well. This is where schools like USC, Stanford, and UCLA will have an edge over Cal. I've heard that wealthy UCLA alumni contributed funds to persuade a recruit to switch from USC to UCLA. I'm not sure about how non-revenue sports, such as water polo/swimming/soccer etc, will manage, especially since our new chancellor announced cuts to operating expenses and emphasized that all non-revenue sports must seek endowments. Top recruits will inevitably follow the money…

I think the Bears final ranking will be somewhere between 4th and 6th. Both UCLA and Stanford hung 5 goal losses on us this weekend in our pool. That's a romp in water polo. As S71 notes the team defense is really suspect to date.

I think the Bears will improve a lot during the season and end up a part of the top 4. Going forward, Stanford is now recruiting internationally with UCLA getting the top domestics. I'm worried we're not breaking through in getting at least our share of difference makers.

coachdeke said:

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I think the Bears will improve a lot during the season and end up a part of the top 4. Going forward, Stanford is now recruiting internationally with UCLA getting the top domestics. I'm worried we're not breaking through in getting at least our share of difference makers.

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UCLA is very much the "hot" program in both men's and women's down here in Laguna/Newport Coast, and also up at Mira Costa and Union. Money is part of the equation. BTW, you live where we do, you hear more about polo recruiting than football often.

Injuries have been a major issue this year. In the loss to UCI the top two center, (George & Jordi) did not make the trip. Roberto, Max & Pyongyang were held out most of the 2nd half. At ucla last weekend, Roberto did not make the trip, ponfy did not play the Iceland game and max and George were on limited minutes. Need to get healthy again the talent is there.

Kirk is facing a rebuild situation. This team will not make the NCAA tourney so no 4 peat. That has a way of focusing recruiting effort. The Spaniards and Avakian will be gone. I am not aware of any elite internationals heading to Berkeley. Time to recruit the top domestics.

The top teams are outscoring Cal by 5 goals per contest. Long Beach State comes to Berkeley and triumphs by 3
goals. This team is weak on defense and lacks the offense to keep up. The team needs to get healthier and must drastically improve to be more competitive.

They do have an elite international player coming next year. I'm not at liberty to say who it is but have have seen video of him. He is a huge offensive threat. Scored 5 goals against a top European team at the world championships earlier this year. There are others in the fold but will not know for a while if it happens.

Thanks. Good news. Kirk still needs pick up his domestic recruiting.

He's got 7 freshman on this years team. 6 are USA kids. A couple who are really good and playing this year. The others are RS and he is really high on. He already has several commits for USA kids for next year. Next year is a bit tricky because there is a new 24 player roster mandate. So a kid has to be pretty elite for him to have to cut somebody that is already proven.

But here is the rub. The last Junior National US roster(2023) included one team member from Cal, six from Stanford (including both goalies) and six from UCLA. these are the elite players from the last 3 high school classes. These guys are the difference makers. We are getting really elite players from Europe, that probably includes Kolak (sp?) from Croatia in the current freshman class, but not nearly enough from the US.

The current freshman class also includes two USA Youth Team 19U members (Arlett & Bousfield) for the PanAm Games. There wasn't a Jr. World Championships this year so this is effectively the same.