Cal Men's Basketball Season 2024 Preview: Mark Madsen's Uncertainty Principle

There is a limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties, such as Cal's men's basketball roster and pre-season expectations, can be simultaneously known.

photo via @calmbball twitter

One year ago, after a roster overhaul that was, at the time, unprecedented in Berkeley, I wrote the following:

Cal is returning exactly four scholarship players who contributed last year, two of whom missed most of the season due to injury and two of whom were true freshmen.

Cal has added EIGHT new scholarship players, many of whom were already contributors at the power conference level, or featured players on successful mid-majors.

That combination of circumstances is not normal, and there are few historical parallels to point to if you want to try to project on court performance.

Right now, I have no clue who Madsen’s preferred starting 5 will be, no clue what his likely rotation will be, and no clue what to expect in terms of team strengths and weaknesses. It’s as close to a blank canvas as you will ever get in college basketball.

Oh how naïve we all were just a year ago. Four returning contributors and eight new scholarship players? That was easy mode! Mark Madsen is on the ultimate grindset hustle regimen, staying hungry by forcing himself to recruit more players every year.

The 2024-25 Bears are returning zero major contributors* from last year’s rotation. Cal adds ELEVEN new scholarship players. Considering that you are allowed 13 total scholarship players on a MBB roster, Cal functionally turned over 85% of the roster. It is almost impossible to turn over a higher percentage of a team.

(Mark, I am honestly in awe of your roster building skills but the previous sentence is NOT a challenge!)

My job here, such as it is, is to try to give you insight into what is going to happen on the court. Last year the grand sum of my pre-season analysis was “¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe they’ll play .500 basketball?” And then Cal went out and did an even DEEPER roster overhaul this year, to make the job of trying to offer any prediction even sillier.

If you haven’t already, you should check out Bent Pawn’s roster preview that does an excellent job scouting out what you can expect from Cal’s new additions.

But with the season set to start tonight, let’s talk big picture. OK, so specific predictions feel very silly. BUT! I can at least offer up a couple of defining questions that will help guide how you watch this team, particularly early in the year.

Question #1: Will this team suffer early from a lack of on court chemistry?

To illustrate the three part season that Cal enjoyed last year, take a look at Cal’s game scores, which measures game-by-game quality of performance, adjusted for opponent:

Cal had some UGLY early season performances, figured things out in mid-season, then completely ran out of steam late in the year as a shallow rotation hit the wall. Cal is much deeper this year, so I don’t think that running out of gas in late February/March will be a problem, but the early season chemistry concerns are valid. Cal will probably roll out a rotation of 8-9 guys who have never played before previously, and we’ve seen teams other than the 2023-24 Bears struggle out of the gate without any returning continuity.

Cal’s first two games should in theory be easy enough to win even if the performances are disjointed, but we said something similar last year before games against UOP and Montana State. And the difficulty level ramps up quickly in games 3 and 4 when Cal hits the road to play Vanderbilt and USC.

Question 2: How much higher is the talent level?

Again, I am confident in saying that Cal has improved the DEPTH of their talent - Madsen will not struggle to find players who can contribute in an 8/9 player rotation and if everybody is healthy there will probably be players with power conference level talent who spend a lot of time on the bench.

But how much better is Cal’s best 5 players this year vs. last year? Remember, Cal’s best player last year was a 1st round draft pick and is currently getting token minutes with the undefeated Cavaliers, and Cal’s second best player last year is currently seeing lots of success in Hungary.

I do ultimately think that Cal’s best 5 this year will be better than Cal’s best 5 last year, in part because when you have more/younger talent, SOMEBODY is going to develop in a positive way. But it’s not a guarantee that Cal can easily replicate the kind of scoring efficiency that you got from a Jaylon Tyson, or the rebounding presence of a Fardaws Aimaq.

I think it would be reasonable to say, for example, that Andrej Stojakovic may have a higher talent ceiling than anybody on last year’s roster, but having a higher talent ceiling is a different thing than actual on-court production. It’s time to find out who can start delivering.

Question 3: Can this year serve as a stepping stone to something greater?

On one hand, with so much player movement embedded into the structure of modern college basketball, it feels idiotic to think about next year. Who knows who’s going to be on next year’s roster, so all you can do is focus on what you can achieve NOW.

On the other hand, Mark Madsen brought in eight players with eligibility left, which means that for the first time in quite a while, Cal fans can reasonably dream about watching multi-year players develop both individually and as a unit, and dream about what that core of talent can do across multiple seasons.

While I don’t know what will happen on the court this year, I know that certain goals are long shots. Cal probably isn’t going to contend in the ACC, and Cal probably isn’t an NCAA tournament team. But I also think that there’s a core of talent here that absolutely can make the NCAA tournament at some point.

And boy would I be happy just sitting back and enjoying a season where you can relax and watch players develop and imagine what they might be as juniors and seniors (and super seniors), without living and dying with every game.

Doing so means that you have to put your faith in Mark Madsen for keeping the core of the roster committed to Cal, and the players for committing themselves to this particular program. That might be a simpleminded thing to do, but it’s pretty appealing to me after six years of no hope for the present OR the future.

*With apologies to Devin Curtis, Gus Larson, and Vladimir Pavlovic, who were fringe rotation options when healthy last year and who will have tough battles for rotational minutes this year.