The 2018-19 Men's Basketball Season in Review

The Cal Men’s Basketball program finds itself at arguably the nadir of its 112-year history.

Back to back 12th (and last) place finishes in the Pac 12 along with a 25% win percentage set the mark for futility since the program’s inception in 1907.   Dick Kuchen’s 1979-80 and 1980-81 seasons also saw the Bears finish last in the then Pac-10 but were able to post a slightly more robust overall win percentage.  

And, while the Bears have only been conference champions once since the Pete Newell days, it’s not as if Cal has been a league doormat in recent years. In fact, in the previous nine seasons prior to former AD Mike Williams hired Wyking Jones, the Bears finished in the top half of the conference and played in the postseason eight times.  In fact, between 2008 and 2017, Cal had the 3rd best overall record in conference play behind only Arizona and UCLA. When you factor in all of the players who turned professional from those years (Anderson, Wallace, Brown, Rabb, Bird, Powe…name any/all), the Cal Men’s basketball program may not have been a college basketball powerhouse, yet it was certainly viewed as more than just respectful.

To put the above in further context, according to Jeff Sagarin’s USA Today College Basketball Ratings, the Pac 12 was the weakest Power 6 conference in the nation in 2017-18 and this current season had the ignominy of finishing ranked 8^th in KenPom’s conference tally, the Pac-12 was rated behind all six of the power conferences as well as the American Athletic Conference, known for such powerhouse hoops programs such as East Carolina, Tulane and SMU.   On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “The Worst Pac-12 Season Ever”.  This is the state of the conference in which the Bears have twice in a row been cellar dwellers. 

Nationally, Cal is currently ranked as the 260^th team by KenPom (out of 353 Division I teams).  The four teams ranked just ahead of the Bears are in order:  Holy Cross, Air Force, Army, and Middle Tennessee.   Only two other Power 6 conference teams fell below 131^st nationally - Wake Forest at 163^rd and Washington State at 211th, one of the three teams Cal beat this year in Pac 12 play.

So what’s happened?  On the court, look no further than the Bears defensive performance to understand why they’ve struggled to win games.   KenPom’s Defensive Efficiency Ratings have Cal as the 297th team in stopping opponents nationally.  This offsets a below average offense which ranked 197^th in scoring efficiency.  The defense has been hard to watch at times, with lapses in both effort and decision making.

While we cannot rewrite history, it’s important to remember the circumstances that led Mike Williams to hire Wyking Jones.   The former had no athletics administration experience when led the search for Cuonzo Martin’s successor.  Perhaps not surprisingly, he hired someone who had never even been a number one assistant coach nor interviewed for a head coaching role at any level. 

Still, there was a scintilla of hope when Jones was hired.  Cal was coming off relatively successful back to back seasons under Coach Cuonzo Martin and there was momentum on the recruiting front with the Bears.  Martin had inked a 2017 class that included a top 75 player in JeMarl Baker and two top 150 players in Justice Sueing and Juhwan Harris-Dyson.  Charlie Moore was coming off a strong freshman season at PG and former 5 star PF, Marcus Lee was eligible to play as a transfer.   Cal’s entire athletic department was on fiscal alert in trying to manage Memorial Stadium debt leading Williams to hope that in hiring Jones he would both create continuity and demonstrate fiscal prudence.

Williams put Jones in a difficult situation.  Wyking had a limited chance to re-recruit the incoming class or the roster as Baker de-committed three days after Wyking was named the head coach and Moore announced his transfer two weeks later.  Kameron Rooks later choose to become a grad transfer and left for SDSU.  More importantly, Williams ran the search in a haphazard fashion with little communication to or with the involvement of Cal’s major donors.   Many donors commented that it was the first time that this typically fractious group of big donors had ever agreed on something. They universally loathed Williams and felt the hiring of Jones was a total disaster. A too late and ill-advised attempt to appease this group, Williams mandated that Jones hire former Cal basketball favorite, Theo Robertson, as one of his assistants. 

Within six weeks of taking the job, Williams had left Jones with no donor support, a depleted roster that had to be rebuilt with all five starters leaving from the previous years' team and an assistant coach he didn’t want.   The first-time head coach was forced to scramble and reached to fill scholarships with lightly recruited Deschon Winston and Austin McCullough.  These were decisions Jones would come to regret as both refused to relinquish their scholarships a year later when the staff let them know they were unlikely to ever see the court at Cal.  

This year's roster is young with the top seven rotation players consisting of four sophomores and two freshmen.  It’s also small with only three scholarship roster players 6’7 or taller.   Finally, with the departure of Winston and McCullough, there are only 10 scholarship players period.   Being shy on overall depth, especially in the frontcourt made practices and player development more difficult.  

Important to note that while Cal is young (nationally KenPom ranks the roster 342^nd out of 353 Division 1 Teams), it’s actually older than Stanford and UCLA's and the conference as a whole is far younger than any of the other Power 6 conferences.  It’s also important to look beyond years out of high school when judging relative experience.  For example, take a look at the top 7 rotation players for both Colorado and Cal after Wednesday’s Pac 12 Tournament Matchup against career minutes played.

With that level of experience, the Buffaloes have gone 20-11 and play tonight in the Pac-12 Tournament Semifinal.

Similarly, this is not a great year for Pac 12 frontcourts.  Only four teams can boast of a regular rotation with more than two players 6’9 or taller.   Again, that includes Colorado who eliminated the Bears with a rotation of only 4 players taller than 6’4 and those three were 6’7, 6’7, 6’8 and 6’10.  Nationally, Cal’s roster ranked 95^th in terms of average height according to KenPom, well above average.   So while this is a young and smaller roster relative to recent ones in Cal’s past, it was not abnormal nationally nor in this years Pac-12.

Is there a talent deficit?  As Nathan Allen’s article here shows, Power 6 teams with relatively worse talent (based on recruiting rankings) are performing at a high level, albeit with a lot more experience and depth.   Still, this is clearly a challenge for the Bears.  A roster of only ten scholarship players and only five of those with top 150 credentials coming out of HS.   The roster and talent challenges when Jones took over were objectively significant.   Yet, the decision to offer scholarships to Winston and McCullough along with the failure to bring in another big man in 2018 sealed the fate for this years team.  And that’s squarely on Jones.

Let's take a look at player development, focused on the three players who returned after playing significant minutes the season prior.   Historically, college basketball players take their biggest leaps forward after their freshman season.  Did the Bears?

Justice Sueing

Darius McNeil

Juhwan Harris-Dyson

As is clear from the above both Sueing and McNeil had substantially similar seasons in their 2^nd year while Harris-Dyson took a clear step back.  On a more positive note, give the Staff credit for the in-season development of Connor Vanover.  Vanover’s improved fitness and strength led him to be Cal’s most effective two way player by season’s end.

There’s a solid but not spectacular incoming recruiting class on its way in 2019.   Canadian PG Joel Brown is a nice combination of elite quickness and athleticism with a pure point guard mentality (a clear missing ingredient from this years team).  Charles Smith IV is a good athlete with a great jump shooting stroke.  And DJ Thorpe brings great length and the pedigree of having an NBA star for a father.

That said, the class is not a panacea.  Thorpe missed almost all of his senior season with an injury and is not nearly physical enough to contribute right away.  Smith is on his fourth high school in four years and saw his national rankings plunge this past Summer because of what we believe are entirely unfounded character concerns, centered primarily on the fact that he transferred high schools several times.  And Joel Brown is still working on finding a jump shot.

The high points this year start and end with the fight and spirit with which this team has played.  It could have given up at countless points and instead has improved as the season has progressed culminating in a three-game win streak which included a victory over Pac 12 regular season champion UW at home.