I had the good fortune to listen to the final few minutes on the radio. While I like the guys who do the Cal basketball broadcasts, I was really curious to hear how the Stanfurd broadcasters would treat the Cal win. Wow, was I not disappointed! Scott Reiss is the play-by-play guy. I actually like him when he does his TV gigs. I usually find him to be smart and entertaining. I don't know who the analyst is, but both broadcasters sounded like the stereotype of every horrible and entitled Stanfurd fan there could be. It was as though they knew that they were going to win before tipoff and took that as a foregone conclusion. The most sickening part of it was that they could not let any words out of their mouths that even came close to giving Cal any credit for actually winning the game. The level of disbelief of "How could we actually lose to CAL?" was dripping through my radio...it was actually kind of fun to listen to.
I have to wonder if our guys are like this, too. I listen to our radio broadcasts when I can, and I've always found our broadcasters to be mostly pretty even-keeled and always willing to give credit to the other team for doing what they needed to in order to win the game. I was wondering how Joe Starkey, Mike Pawlawski and co. reacted post game after the 2018 fUCLA debacle. I was at that horrible game, so I wasn't able to listen to the broadcast, but having listened to them for a number of years, I assume that there was at least a "Give UCLA credit, they came out to play" or something like that.
Anyway, you really like to hear that our football and now our basketball teams are learning how to finish games in important situations. Love the progress.
I’m glad you’re a statistically inclined bball fan! I’m not a “basketball guy” and so appreciate different ways to look at a game besides “Wow, Cal really seemed to dominate today!” Great recap! Go Bears! Play strong against the Baby Bears!
Thanks for the analysis and what a great game, mostly we breezed by Furd. I have a sense of optimism for tonight's game. The game against the UCLAns in tinseltown was one of our most inept offensive performances of the year where our shooters couldn't hit the side a barn. Meanwhile UCLA struggled until the Cal ineptitude handed them the game. I expect a different result this time. But I hope the guys can stay fresh. It's a four game gauntlet we have to get through in just a few days.
Thanks to being in a different Asian country with good internet I got to watch this game - and the thing that stuck out to me is just how effective Fox's defensive changes have been. When reef and I attended the Wyking open practice 3 years ago - he talked a lot about active hand and jumping passing lanes. Fox's defense is a lot more old school fundamental, but effective in a much different way (and more sustainable?)
Everyone was moving their feet and challenging every shot with verticality - maybe it works well against Stanford because their team isn't particularly big - but we rarely got beat on a dribble drive and we challenged all their shots around the rim, and a good number of their perimeter shots.
I did see us try to post entry to Lars and Andre a couple of times - but it felt like that was deemphasized in favor of using Bradley/South/Austin to initiate via dribble penetration or off dribble hand-offs. We're not going to be an offensive machine with these player - but it is nice to see that we're not trying to force feed Kelly/Lars in the low or high post anymore - I specifically remember two direct turnovers off of attempted post entries - so maybe we just eliminate that option at all and keep Lars/Kelly in the dunker's spot ready to catch lobs or bounce passes to the baseline.
Nailed that headline!
This wasn't the best season, but that was a good note to end on.
I had the good fortune to listen to the final few minutes on the radio. While I like the guys who do the Cal basketball broadcasts, I was really curious to hear how the Stanfurd broadcasters would treat the Cal win. Wow, was I not disappointed! Scott Reiss is the play-by-play guy. I actually like him when he does his TV gigs. I usually find him to be smart and entertaining. I don't know who the analyst is, but both broadcasters sounded like the stereotype of every horrible and entitled Stanfurd fan there could be. It was as though they knew that they were going to win before tipoff and took that as a foregone conclusion. The most sickening part of it was that they could not let any words out of their mouths that even came close to giving Cal any credit for actually winning the game. The level of disbelief of "How could we actually lose to CAL?" was dripping through my radio...it was actually kind of fun to listen to.
I have to wonder if our guys are like this, too. I listen to our radio broadcasts when I can, and I've always found our broadcasters to be mostly pretty even-keeled and always willing to give credit to the other team for doing what they needed to in order to win the game. I was wondering how Joe Starkey, Mike Pawlawski and co. reacted post game after the 2018 fUCLA debacle. I was at that horrible game, so I wasn't able to listen to the broadcast, but having listened to them for a number of years, I assume that there was at least a "Give UCLA credit, they came out to play" or something like that.
Anyway, you really like to hear that our football and now our basketball teams are learning how to finish games in important situations. Love the progress.
Looks like the tournament has been cancelled due to the virus
Proud of the Bears' performance last night and hoping they can kick another rival to the NIT tonight!
I’m glad you’re a statistically inclined bball fan! I’m not a “basketball guy” and so appreciate different ways to look at a game besides “Wow, Cal really seemed to dominate today!” Great recap! Go Bears! Play strong against the Baby Bears!
Thanks for the analysis and what a great game, mostly we breezed by Furd. I have a sense of optimism for tonight's game. The game against the UCLAns in tinseltown was one of our most inept offensive performances of the year where our shooters couldn't hit the side a barn. Meanwhile UCLA struggled until the Cal ineptitude handed them the game. I expect a different result this time. But I hope the guys can stay fresh. It's a four game gauntlet we have to get through in just a few days.
Thanks to being in a different Asian country with good internet I got to watch this game - and the thing that stuck out to me is just how effective Fox's defensive changes have been. When reef and I attended the Wyking open practice 3 years ago - he talked a lot about active hand and jumping passing lanes. Fox's defense is a lot more old school fundamental, but effective in a much different way (and more sustainable?)
Everyone was moving their feet and challenging every shot with verticality - maybe it works well against Stanford because their team isn't particularly big - but we rarely got beat on a dribble drive and we challenged all their shots around the rim, and a good number of their perimeter shots.
I did see us try to post entry to Lars and Andre a couple of times - but it felt like that was deemphasized in favor of using Bradley/South/Austin to initiate via dribble penetration or off dribble hand-offs. We're not going to be an offensive machine with these player - but it is nice to see that we're not trying to force feed Kelly/Lars in the low or high post anymore - I specifically remember two direct turnovers off of attempted post entries - so maybe we just eliminate that option at all and keep Lars/Kelly in the dunker's spot ready to catch lobs or bounce passes to the baseline.
"Would love to read an article in the future as to how Cal's basketball recruiting is doing. "
It's mediocre.
Considering how terrible we were the past 2 years, mediocre is good.
2 years ago, we got Bradley, Sueing, Gordon, McNeil and Antieceivich in the same class. We're not currently at that level. (2 3 stars, 1 4 star)