Cal men's basketball lands Syracuse wing Chris Bell in the transfer portal
The California Golden Bears gain an additional presence on the outside.
Cal men’s basketball is scrambling after the transfer of Andrej Stojakovic. They have added another wing in Syracuse transfer Chris Bell, who will provide much needed outside shooting.
The 6-foot-7 forward, who originally starred at De La Salle and later at Wasatch Academy, brings a strong shooting pedigree to the Golden Bears with one year of eligibility remaining.
Bell started 30 games as a freshman and appeared in 33 contests this past season, averaging 9.3 points and 2 rebounds per game, while shooting an impressive 42% from three-point range in ACC play. Though he began the season in the starting lineup, he transitioned to a bench role after 13 games.
Throughout his Syracuse career, Bell made 170 three-pointers, placing him among the top 15 in school history in that category.
Mark Madsen is probably still looking for additional talent, so there is still work to be done in the spring period to complete the 2025-26 Cal men’s basketball team.
A solid enough player, the kind of depth piece on the wing you love to see added to support your primary scorer, who is almost a lock to move to Champaign, IL for a year. Bell is basically a JOJ replacement that shoots a little better overall, especially from 3, but plays equally disappointing defense despite having the length and frame to be so much better on that side of the ball.
Unfortunately, we no longer have a ball-dominant primary scorer, and one is almost assuredly not joining the program this season after this. Which makes this roster on paper incredibly light on difference-makers at the ACC level and the weakest one in Madsen’s tenure, which in year 3 is simply not good. The lunacy of the transfer portal/NIL era is certainly not his fault, but absent a complete turnaround by the coaching staff from a teaching perspective, this roster is gonna continue to be more competitive against mid-majors and decidedly less so against Power 5 competition. Just an incredibly difficult position to be in.
I'm in the minority on this forum, I guess, but why do so many commentors say Stoyakovic had such a great leap forward last yr.
I see him driving into a group of defenders and losing the ball or getting off and missing a wild shot, failing on big time shots and generally rarely taking a game over.
Good luck to him in the future but he's IMO right there with a lot of these incoming players who didn't quite make the transition from highly touted high school player to high level college players in good conferences. Aiden Maheney is another.