A New Basketball Practice Facility for Cal?!?!?

Mark Madsen indicates that the long rumored project is close to fruition

Yesterday Mark Madsen appears on the College Hoops Today podcast with Jon Rothstein, and while there he was asked about Cal’s basketball facilities. In response, he said:

The plans are drawn, and we are close to breaking ground on an 80-100 million dollar state of the art facility . . . the way it was described to me is there’s probably 25-30 checkpoints, and 24-29 of the checkpoints are done.

You can fast forward to the 16:15 mark of the podcast to get directly to the section regarding facilities. The rest of the interview is probably stuff you’re already familiar with in terms of Madsen’s transition to Cal, but there are a couple interesting tidbits about continued transfer portal activity and 2023-24 expectations (would you believe that Madsen is optimistic about a turnaround?)

This is major news, though obviously we don’t have a date, and Madsen stopped short of saying that ALL hurdles have been cleared. Cal’s lack of a dedicated practice facility for its basketball programs has been a major issue since at least the Cuonzo Martin days, and has been a source of frustration (and negative recruiting fodder) for the better part of a decade. Completion would mean that men’s and women’s basketball wouldn’t have to schedule their practice times around rec sports, other NCAA sports at Haas, or an Anthro 1 final.

Cal was rumored to be near the finish line of funding for a practice facility during the Cuonzo Martin era, but those plans collapsed with Martin left for Missouri. And as the MBB program struggled over the last six years, securing donor funding seemed very far away indeed.

If Madsen’s description is accurate, then either Cal got further along the road than we had previously assumed, or Madsen has really activated Cal’s donor base in his month on the job. Regardless, it would be a major step forward for Cal athletics generally and Cal men’s and women’s basketball specifically.