A ho-hum victory over the visitors from the Big South Conference probably doesn’t tell us much about how good this edition of Mark Madsen’s Bears are - but it’s nice to highlight a couple of keys for the team, and some things to look out for as the schedule turns much more difficult in the next week, first going out to Lake Tahoe to take on the number 10 Houston Cougars in the Caesar’s Lake Tahoe Classic on Sunday, then coming home to face former Pac-8/10/12 foe number 21 ranked USC at Haas on Wednesday.
While Radford, annoyingly never really went away until the last five minutes, Cal always felt in control, except for a stretch around 14 minutes left to go in the game, when Radford went on a run and pulled to within two points, they never really threatened. Some quick shooting from Njus Indrusaitis and Cooper and the lead quickly stretched back to 8 - 12 points and there it remained until the Bears pulled away down the stretch.
From the two games played so far, some bigger picture observations:
Three point shooting: Nojus Indrusaitis with his second successive career high, with an efficient 20 points against Adams State on Monday, he proceeded to score 30 on 10-15 shooting, including 6 three-pointers. More importantly, it looks like that 2-22 three point shooting vs Loyola Marymount in the exhibition game is not an accurate picture of how this team will shoot going forward, as the team sank 17-35 for a sparkling 49% from deep. Obviously, we’re not going to be hitting at such an efficient rate in every game, but we haven’t had so many shooters on the team since either the Jerome Randle/Patick Christopher/Theo Robertson teams, or the 2014 team with Jordan Mathews, Jabari Bird, Justin Cobbs. It is way way way early to declare that this team will be able to shoot with them, but aside from Indrusaitis, Michael Cooper, Samie Yeanay, Jake Wilkins, TT Carr, Jordan Ross, Jovani Ruff, and even Mantas Kocanas all looked very comfortable shooting from distance.
Pace of Play: Since Madsen has started, we’ve been a slightly above average team (68 possessions per game in some back of envelope calculations, per Nick Kranz) in terms of pace of play, but style of play, we’ve always been very deliberate. His first year, we rode a Jaylon Tyson and Fardaws Aimaq centered pick-and-pop game and hunted 1 on 1 opportunities for Tyson to get to his spots for shots. The next year was Jermiah Wilkinson and Andrej Stojakovic and then last season was Justin Pippen and Dai Dai Ames. But, to my eye at least, we played a very deliberate style - so much so that I thought it was part of Madsen’s coaching style.
This season, while we have really only one “point guard” in TT Carr, we have a full roster full of guys who can dribble, pass and shoot. Indrusaitis, Carr, Cooper, Ross, Ruff are all guys who can, and will push the pace. If you watch the team over the past two games, the rebounder is always looking up and out for the first outlet pass, and we are attacking from the wings and trying to get downhill as soon as possible, whether off the break, the secondary break or an initial dribble hand-off or pick-and-roll - this team plays much faster than past edition of Madsen teams.
Defense - this team is playing a very aggressive man-to-man as its base defense, and, I think until Dort comes back we should be prepared to see us give up a lot of incredibly easy buckets. The way we’re running it now, calls for a strong hedge from the center - for now Mantas Kocanas - and then he will scramble back to find his man in the chaos. He’s not the fastest of foot, nor the most agile, so we’ve been giving up a lot easy baskets, even as Kocanas is working really hard - but it’s not his strength at all. Some fun twists, however, we have been running some lineups with four guards and Sammie Yeanay at center, who looks to be completely healthy after spending a season recovering from a full ACL tear. It’s fun when your center can make the steal at the point of attack, lead the break and either get a windmill dunk or a corner 3. When Lee Dort returns from his injury, he should be able to shore up the defense as well.
Athletes - we’ve had good players under Madsen, and even Mark Fox and Wyking Jones had some quality players. But we haven’t had an out-and-out athlete since Jaylen Brown played for Cuonzo Martin - and I think we may have two this season with Sammie and Jake Wilkins. Yenay is all power and speed, but Wilkins is agile and like his famous dad, has fight in his legs. We’re going to see some real fun dunks this season.
Final note: Coach Madsen missed the game with what was announced as a family emergency - we wish the best for Coach, and hope everything is ok.
*flight in his legs
Thanks Terence!! Much appreciated buddy.