Cal Basketball's In-Season Evolution

The ASU loss as an inflection point for the team

Saturday’s 69-64 victory over Oregon was the Golden Bears’ third win in a row. It is the first time this season Cal has won three consecutive games. The mood after the game was obviously positive and optimistic.

Getting to this point in the season may not have been as straightforward as just a natural progression of the team getting better as the season went on. In the player’s postgame press conference, Jalen Celestine and Jaylon Tyson were asked several questions about the team’s growth and overall season. Jaylon Tyson answered one question with, “You know, we had a divided locker room. And that’s the truth.”

Tyson was asked to expand on that a bit more. He answered, ”We had a meeting and we asked ourselves, are we trying to be mediocre or trying to be a great team?…….We started to understand that we were truth tellers. We told everybody the truth. And I didn’t like hearing the truth.” Tyson then continued with how he has challenged himself to be a better leader and more team oriented since then.

Jalen Celestine followed that up with softening Tyson’s self assessment, saying, “He wasn’t as bad as a leader as he’s trying to make it seem. It’s a team game, it was on all of us to really come together. And I like we’re doing that, really building a Cal brotherhood right now.”

Coach Madsen took the podium, and started off his comments directly addressing Tyson’s comments. “Jaylon Tyson holds himself to an incredibly high standard. He’s an outstanding teammate….he has been a fantastic leader. I’ve been incredibly impressed with him on and off the court. Taking teammates to dinner, being a glue guy in the locker room, helping younger players, pushing guys. He’s been outstanding.”

Later on, Madsen commented that the meeting was after the Arizona State loss. “Guys got things off their chest. I was able to get things off my chest. You know, players were able to get things off their chest, directed towards me, directed towards each other…..just alot of honest communication took place in that meeting. I would point to that meeting as a time that helped us…..”

A quick recap of the ASU loss. Cal held a 15-point lead with 10 minutes left in the game. ASU tied it up with under 4 minutes left. Cal has a 1-point lead with 90 second left. Most people point out Jalen Cone’s 3-point shot attempt with plenty of time on the shot clock. But there were multiple mistakes in the last minute that all played a role in the loss.

“This one hurts.” Coach Madsen said after the game.

The players were different, as well. In their other losses, the player comments postgame were mostly reflective and contained ‘credit to the other team, we’ll learn and build on this’ type of energy. Keonte Kennedy’s and Jalen Cone’s ASU postgame comments lasted just under two-and-a-half minutes. Both players were very dejected and sullen.

Cal’s record through ASU the game: 4-9
Cal’s record post ASU: 9-6

It’s an impressive turnaround, made moreso by the fact that PAC-12 conference play is tougher than Cal’s non-conference schedule.

Some team statistics;

These numbers are quite telling. As a team, the Bears have become much more efficient on the offensive side. While the assists and field goal defense may not seem like much, keep in mind the average Pac-12 opponent compared to the average non-conference opponent the Bears faced.

Individual statistics are fairly consistent across the board. Fardaws Aimaq is grabbing almost a rebound more/game since the ASU loss. Jalen Cone is shooting the same percentages, though we have commented how he is improved defensively and has added a dribble-kick aspect to his offensive game.

Jaylon Tyson’s individual statistics;

The turnover number is huge. Consider the context. As the nominal leader and with the ball in his hands more than anyone else(and as a focus of the defense), he has become more efficient with the ball, plus upped his scoring by a tiny bit.

At the quarterseason check-in in early December, I first talked about the Tyson Takeover. It was those streaks of the game where Tyson imposes his will on the game at both ends. The Tyson Takeover was key in some games like the Santa Clara win, and kept us very competitive in games like Butler and UTEP.

There are still those stretches of game where Tyson is clearly the best player on the floor, and he exerts his will across the entire court. During this streak, we’ve seen other storylines emerge. Jalen Celestine has crucial scoring streaks of his own. We’ve witnessed Cone’s diversified game on both ends of the court. Fardaws Aimaq has turned into a ridiculously consistent double-double machine while improving his defensive acumen.

Maybe the Tyson Takeover is not what the team needed for the long haul.

There are several obvious asterisks to go along with all of this analysis. Devin Askew’s injury certainly forced the team to change the ballhandling distribution. Keonte Kennedy missing most of November and December warped some of the early season defensive numbers.

The biggest asterisk is we don’t know what the team said to each other in that post-ASU meeting - and what relationship or strategic changes were made following that meeting. We have no inherent right to know. The players and coaches have no obligation to share.

What we do know is the team is playing much better since then. Though the individual statistics are mostly stable across the entire season (except for the big improvement in Tyson’s turnover rate), the team statistics have improved markedly. Maybe it was the roster stability that emerged in January. Maybe it was all of the players getting enough playing and practice repetitions that it finally started coming together.

Certainly, the players and coaches believe that the meeting was the turning point. And that’s all that matters.