When Cal scheduled Idaho St., I’d guess the idea was to play an unremarkably bad team. The Bengals were a roughly average Big Sky team last year and returned most everybody involved in 2020. As it turned out, Cal ended up facing a remarkably bad team, as Idaho State has now started the season 0-8 against D1 competition including blowout losses to Seattle and UMKC. Their offense was never great shakes, but a solid defense in 2020 has collapsed into a unit that can’t bother shots, doesn’t secure the glass, and doesn’t disrupt at all. In short, they bad.
To me, the game turned for good when just after Shepard dropped in a 5ft bank shot from the block making it 38-30 Cal, Joel Brown make a legitimate steal & lay-in that was improperly disallowed by the ref, who failed to recognize that ISU had done a quick tap-in inbounds. After that, Brown was on a mission, causing turnovers, hounding players, he was relentless. ISU had no chance of a comeback with the omnipresent Joel Brown. Plus it was good to see several times when the bench erupted on Thiemann plays. These guys really appear to love & support each other. Some of that is attributable to Fox.
I love the energy, tenacity and 'X' factor Alijiki brings to the team. Pint of Guinness to him! Reminds me of a young Jorge Gutierrez. I DON'T like the childish tongue-wagging and chest-thumping routine he goes into just because he makes a play. I'm glad the ref warned him on that. Act like you've been there Sam.
One of the revelations for me this year is that I went into this season not knowing much about our young players and being quite negative about losing Bradley and the future of the program. And while we don't have any super stars in the young ranks, I am encouraged to see the play of Celestine, and the freshman. What we probably need most, among many needs, is young point guards and some solid shooting guards. I'm more hopeful about our future than I was going into the season, even though we will do well to end up a middling team in conference.
Bears played with much more intensity in the 2nd half and it was good to see some new faces in there. If we can get quality bench play this will help us keep the starters fresh when crunch time begins with approximately 5 minutes left in the 2nd half.
To me, the game turned for good when just after Shepard dropped in a 5ft bank shot from the block making it 38-30 Cal, Joel Brown make a legitimate steal & lay-in that was improperly disallowed by the ref, who failed to recognize that ISU had done a quick tap-in inbounds. After that, Brown was on a mission, causing turnovers, hounding players, he was relentless. ISU had no chance of a comeback with the omnipresent Joel Brown. Plus it was good to see several times when the bench erupted on Thiemann plays. These guys really appear to love & support each other. Some of that is attributable to Fox.
I love the energy, tenacity and 'X' factor Alijiki brings to the team. Pint of Guinness to him! Reminds me of a young Jorge Gutierrez. I DON'T like the childish tongue-wagging and chest-thumping routine he goes into just because he makes a play. I'm glad the ref warned him on that. Act like you've been there Sam.
Sure, Idaho St. isn't very good, but that doesn't obscure the fact that if you squint, we actually look like a team, not just a collection of players.
One of the revelations for me this year is that I went into this season not knowing much about our young players and being quite negative about losing Bradley and the future of the program. And while we don't have any super stars in the young ranks, I am encouraged to see the play of Celestine, and the freshman. What we probably need most, among many needs, is young point guards and some solid shooting guards. I'm more hopeful about our future than I was going into the season, even though we will do well to end up a middling team in conference.
Bears played with much more intensity in the 2nd half and it was good to see some new faces in there. If we can get quality bench play this will help us keep the starters fresh when crunch time begins with approximately 5 minutes left in the 2nd half.