Madsen, Dort and Ross Featured at ACC Basketball Tipoff

As the 2026-27 basketball season gets ready to kick off later this season, the ACC Men’s Basketball Tipoff kicked off in Charlotte this week. The Cal contingent included senior center Lee Dort, senior portal transfer guard Jordan Ross and Cal head coach Mark Madsen, who had to appear remotely on video after recently undergoing knee surgery.

Madsen was interviewed at the top and fielded questions from media present at the event.

“Thank you so much for having us here at the media day,” Madsen said. “We could not be more excited to be in the best basketball conference in the country, in the ACC.

“I'm joined here today by Lee Dort and Jordan Ross, two outstanding players, two players that are going to help us win a lot of games this year.

“You know, we lost some players. We lost some production, but we were able to really rebuild the roster with some great people.

“This was our best year of retention in terms of players we retained. We were able to retain nine players. Could not be more excited about the upcoming season.”

Madsen was asked what he’s seen in the development of his program heading into his fourth season as head man at Cal.

“Well, it's developing extremely well,” Madsen said. “When you look at the community as a whole here at Cal, when you look at the players that we were able to bring in, we are building this program.

“We came into a program that had struggled a little bit in terms of wins, and we've been able to improve the wins every single year that we've been here, from 13 in year one to 14 the next year; 22 last year.

“We hope to be able to surpass the 22 wins that we had last year and have an even better season this year.”

The Bears 22-12 season last year showed the Bears in competitive battles in many of their losses, as well, with six of their losses being by single digit margins.

“Basketball is a game where the margins are very important,” Madsen noted. “We won some games at the margins; we lost some games at the margins. We look at everything in our postseason analysis, so what we can do better as a staff, how we can teach better, how we can put our players in better positions to succeed. There was a lot of learning that came out of each one of those games that you're mentioning.

“The Syracuse game, for example, it was double overtime on the road. You know, a snowy night in Syracuse. It was a tough loss, but we learned so much from that game even that we implemented last season.

“That's sports. You have successes, and when you hit the pothole, you learn from it.”

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Madsen was asked about the program’s year-over-year improvement and how the team changed its style of play each season to best suit the personnel.

“It's a great question,” Madsen said. “It's a really good question because you've identified a key trend year-over-year. What we really try to do is look at the strengths of our players and really play to our players' strengths.

“Last year we had some guys that could really shoot the ball. High volume, high percentage. You name it, we could run guys off screens, various pin-downs. We've got great shooters on this year's team. We also have other facets of the game that you'll see.

“We really try to play to our players' strengths. Is three-point shooting an emphasis for us? Absolutely, it is. You'll see other emphasis points crop up as our style of play starts to become known.”

Madsen wrapped up by highlighting Cal’s reps at the Tipoff.

“The message I would share is just a message of excitement, and I'll point to Lee Dort, who is a returning player, and then I'll talk about Jordan Ross a little bit,” Madsen said.

“Lee Dort is a guy who came in here three years ago as a great player, and every year Lee has gotten better. He's worked on his body. You look at his free-throw shooting, which is fantastic now. You look at his footwork in the post.

“Lee is someone who exemplifies college basketball. The opportunity to stay in a place, have continuity, and his game has absolutely taken off. Lee is a great leader, and he's a guy that is such a key piece of what we're doing.

“Jordan Ross has won everywhere he's been, going all the way back to high school. Jordan is a guy who sees the court as a point guard. He's someone who has the ear of everyone in the locker room. He shoots it well. He gets into the paint pretty much at will, and he's a guy who is going to help Cal immensely.

“So you look at the type of players we're bringing in, and that's the type of growth that we're really trying to show forth and showcase here at Cal.”

6-10 forward/center Lee Dort enters his third season at Cal following two at Vanderbilt. Dort started 26 of 27 games played last season as a Bear and ranked #61 in the nation in defensive rebounds per game (5.7) as well as top-100 nationally with his 7.8 rebounds per game. This past summer, he represented Haiti at the FIBA Americas Caribbean Pre-Qualifiers and averaged a double-double while standing out as the top rebounder at the event. 

Dort was asked about what messages Madsen imparts to him after playing a similar position in the NBA.

“I think Coach always transfers what he learned from the NBA, trying to show the same things to the big men because we play the same position. Coach always wants me to do the everyday little things, like be the biggest guy on the team. Be like the one that does all the hard work and everything else. That's what I would say.”

Dort was also asked about Madsen’s comments on the importance of player retention after having almost wholesale roster changes in his first two seasons between graduation and the portal.

“Just being in college and staying at Cal for two years - everything we're doing at Cal, my first year we had 13 wins; second year we had 22 wins last year,” Dort said. “So going into the third year it's important to just stay there and just keep improving and be a better player and better person in general - in the environment and the city and everything else.”

“We're trying to get better every year. We're working on little things. We learned stuff from other games from last year. We're trying to do stuff, learn from mistakes we made last year - coaching, everybody else and me.

“We're just trying to improve every little thing so that when we get in that situation, we don't make the same mistakes again.”

Dort was also asked about working with new forward Jake Wilkins after his transfer from Georgia through the portal.

“Jake is a good player,” Dort said. “Very long, athletic, and he’s shooting the ball really well, too. But working with him, he’s started setting my rebounds up, but he's just actually a great rebounder and a great defender, with deflections, steals, all this stuff, blocked shots. He's actually a great player, so we're going to see that this year.”

Dort was able to play for his family’s country of origin, playing for the Haitian National Team for the FIBI Pre-Qualifiers, seeing great success in the competition, leading the competitors in rebounding with 13.8 along with 10.3 points per game.

“It was very powerful for me to play for my national country and just able to lead from one thing I do best: rebounding the ball,” Dort said. “So it was very nice to just learn from that, and being out there, it was just, like, outside where I'm comfortable with just learning from everybody else.

“So I’ll take this and bring it to Berkeley, to Cal, where I'm more comfortable playing and where I learned and know all this stuff for two, three years now. It's just, like, bringing the pop that I have. Because playing over there was just faster. It's a 24 shot clock like for game time, so it was just a little bit different. Just bring that to Berkeley and then just play high level.”

6-3 guard Jordan Ross‍ transferred to Cal from Georgia from the portal. He began his collegiate career at nearby Saint Mary’s College, where he helped the Gaels in back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances. He was a full-time starter as a sophomore at Saint Mary’s and started 25 games with the Bulldogs. Ross averaged 6.7 points and 2.3 assists per game last season.

Ross was also teammates with Wilkins and the former Bulldog played a big role in his transfer to Cal not long after the son of NBA Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins paved the way with his transfer earlier in the portal.

“Funny thing is Jake was my roommate at Georgia,” Ross said. “He's actually my roommate now at Cal. He committed to Cal first and went on his visit and everything. Then when he got back, he was recruiting me pretty heavily to join him, which I ultimately ended up doing.

Ross started in the back court at Georgia with Cal portal transfer Jeremiah Wilkinson and this season will be playing alongside fellow portal transfer guards Michael Cooper‍ from Wright State and Pitt transfer Nojus Indrusaitis‍ along with soph guard TT Carr.

“I think we’ve got a pretty deep back court this year between Nojus and Coop, who are also two other transfers, and TT. who was here last year,” Ross said. “So kind of just gelling with them, building the chemistry, because we are new to each other and new to the team. So just gelling together on the court, off the court, and building that chemistry.”

Ross enters Cal with the highest volume of startsa nd was asked what he hopes to bring to Cal with that in mind.

“I would say this being my fourth year, my first three I did make the tournament, and I think the best teacher is experience,” Ross noted. “So just taking those experiences and the things I learned from being able to make the tournament three years and win some games in there and ultimately just bringing that to Cal and to my teammates and letting them be a sponge and soak up everything that I can teach and then learn, as well.”

The Bears will kick off their season with an exhibition game next Friday night on Oct. 16 against Loyola Marymount, played in Westchester. The regular season opener is slated for Nov. 2 when the Bears will host Adams State at Haas Pavilion.