23 Comments

Cal also has a women's team. They defeated Ca Poly at Haas yesterday , 89-73, to raise their season record to 8-2. The Bears were led by frosh guard Jayda Curry's 27 points. Jazzy Green contributed 20 points. Curry and Green each hit four three pointers. The Bears close out their non conference schedule Tuesday at home vs. St Marys. Tip off is at 1:00. Come check them out.

Expand full comment

The woman's team gets good coverage in this blog/thread imho.

Expand full comment
author

The challenge for covering Cal WBB (at least for me, specifically) is that the non-conference games are largely untelevised. I can technically watch the streams, but the video quality is awful and it's hard to learn a ton from watching them. The return of conference play will be a godsend.

Expand full comment

Most of the non conference games have been in Berkeley. Don't WFC writers make it to men's home games in person?

Expand full comment
author

I personally can generally only make weekend games due to the drive time from Sacramento. I've attended one game each of the men and the women (Dartmouth and USF, respectively)

Expand full comment
author

Makale Foreman down in a heap grabbing his leg. Not sure what happened, was visibly limping up the floor bringing the ball up and called for a sub immediately.

Expand full comment

They said on the broadcast that he re-injured an injury that he has been trying to overcome. Severity not known, but it did not look very good.

Expand full comment
author

Cal has played pretty bad yet are ahead which is something. I’m at this game and you could put this crowd in a cemetery and not tell the difference.

Expand full comment
author

This is a pretty ugly defensive game.

Expand full comment

I for one am pleased to see this team close out these games that they used to choke away. PAC 12 play will be tough but seeing these young men battle and fight for Cal is admirable.

In regards to the comments about it being quieter than a cemetery what were you expecting? No students, no mike men, no band and the announcer/DJ trying to compensate for all the lost or forgotten traditions that made Harmon (haas on rare occasions early on) electrifying.

Flashing “make some noise “ on the big screen isn’t a recipe for motivating a crowd. I was at the Oregon State game and it was a sterile affair. The vibe created by the Music was good up to a point.

I don’t know maybe it’s best to not have a crowd screaming their heads off spreading the virus. Maybe it’s time to create new traditions that isn’t dependent on everyone watching the big screen.

Expand full comment

This is what happens when Cal hires an AD who did not go the Cal. I don't understand why we can't get an AD who truly knows what Cal is all about.

Expand full comment

Winning cures everything. When we can get back on a winning trajectory in BB and FB, Haas and Memorial will fill up FAST.

Expand full comment

It is true that winning will bring back the fans that follow the bandwagon. For those it is more a matter of being entertained. But a few of us are poking around something deeper. Harmon Gym was a collective group Primal screaming session when a game was close towards the end. I guess I’m saying we are looking for that connection.

I feel we are on an upward trajectory with this Coach. It isn’t as steep as say ucla’s hiring a highly competent coach to go with the talent they can pull., but if we can be competitive in most of the Pac-12 games I will start coming to more games.

Expand full comment

Jordan Shepard is going to be our Don Coleman/Geno Carsile - our best one-on-one player by default. We're just going to have to live with the inefficacy because sometimes we can't get Andre the ball and Grant needs off action to score.

Expand full comment

You’re absolutely right, T....I fear that inefficiency is gonna lead to some L’s in winnable games, like UNLV, but there is really no other option. Having your go-to guy shooting around a 35% clip is hardly a recipe for consistent success and it’s tough to see this squad beating a UCLA, SC, U of A, Oregon etc.

Expand full comment

This is really where the recruiting misses hurt. In an ideal world, we'd have Sueing and Bradley .. . and all of a sudden, this is a fringe top 25 team, even with an average coach. If Theo or Dennis Gates gets this job in 2016 does this happen - they're awfully young, but so are a ton of successful CBB coaches. Theo would've been 26 or 27? Gates would've been 35.

Expand full comment

The Wyking hire was devastating in so many ways, one of which being it led directly to the hiring of a retread like Fox just to try to stabilize the program.

Gates would’ve been a better hire pre-2019, but after borderline incompetent Mike Williams elevated an unproven, equally incompetent coach, then Knowlton really could not have gone with another unproven guy, even if he was a former Bear. Sigh.

Expand full comment

Gates could easily have missed too . . . but I think if we're going to miss, we should miss young and unproven rather than re-tread.

Expand full comment
Dec 20, 2021·edited Dec 20, 2021

Well, sure, but after Wyking they couldn’t even take the chance on Gates, tho I think a former Cal player with P5 assistant experience that’s also a good recruiter would be fantastic for Cal. Plus, Gates is doing pretty well at Cleveland St.

In this vein, we should keep our eye on Shantay Legans....smh.

Expand full comment

We definitely looked better vs Santa Clara (which I felt played better than Dartmouth) but I'm just glad we got out with the W.

Expand full comment

Exactly...we’re still not far enough removed from the f-ing Wyking disaster to be overly critical of a win, especially when they hold a team to 55 points on 34% shooting to get to 7-5 in mid-December

Expand full comment

I never would've figured this team to have a winning record, even if they haven't played anyone. Good going!

Expand full comment

61-55 win over Dartmouth in a good performance considering finals impacted practice last week and were a bit of a distraction. Not good enough to beat most Pac-12 teams but overall performing better than expected.

Expand full comment