114 Comments

Pi Day!

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I was downtown at one of the museums. When walking back to Metro I went by a pizza place that has the pi symbol as part of its name. Place was packed. Not sure if coincidence or not.

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I came here to post that...was about to, but then saw this at the bottom of the thread!

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It's too bad there wasn't a DBDPIDAYHH this year. I'm in Phoenix otherwise I would've suggested it last week.

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where's TBB to champion this?

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out hunting for the catalytic convertor thief?

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agreed

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DBD Street Journal

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BuzzFeed had almost all of its cash in Silicon Valley Bank. You won't believe what happened next.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buzzfeed-says-most-cash-cash-211840069.html

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Used car values are down 7% YoY. They're still high, but it's taken a bit of the froth off the market.

https://publish.manheim.com/en/services/consulting/used-vehicle-value-index.html

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Your headline: "...car values are down...", actual article headline: "Wholesale Used-Vehicle Prices See Large Increase in February". Yes, they're down 7% from Feb '22 to Feb '23, but up 4.3% from Jan '23, and still up 33% (using their own index) from Feb of 2020. i.e. my takeaway is that used car prices are still crazy high.

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we keep getting offers from the Volvo dealer to buy/take back our leased Volvo early for a "good deal". i am sure it is a good deal relative to what we paid. then the problem would be that we would need a new one, which would not be cheap.

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One of my friends bought her 4 year old Mazda CX-5 through like double discount (friends and family and some other discount) - the dealer last year was offering her 6k MORE than she paid for it but she ultimately didn't want to have to get back into the buyers market again.

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it's like selling your SF home. Great money, but then you need to buy a new expensive SF home (or move to Montana)

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even MT not cheap anymore, at least not near Bozeman.

but, probably still cheaper than SF.

i have a couple HS friends who have moved their in the last couple years. but their politics is more MT aligned than not, so there is that too ...

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Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023

I looked at property up there last May...not cheap at all. Livingston (Yellowstone NP) and Kalispell (Glacier NP) areas, and in between.

Not California elite expensive, but definitely real estate boomie...if you're making the empty nest move and leaving CA, totally doable...but if you're looking for a 2nd home, it's costly.

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Iowa?

Not sure why I typed MT...I usually say Des Moines.

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Just broke down and bought a new car on Friday. To replace 19-yo Matrix, which was still going strong! Was looking at used versions of the car I wanted, but they were the same price as new ones.

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Used car prices were ridiculous. They're a bit better now, but if you're looking for a lightly used car, as you found, it's almost better to just buy a brand new car.

What did you end up getting?

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But even new PHEV, Hybrids and EVs are still ridiculous. I ended up paying $5k over MSRP for my hybrid and I see that it's still up there as a normal price around here.

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the Niro PHEV was listed at like $36k. (3 years ago, the "less fancy" version was upper-20s?)

Then there was the $6,995 Market Value Adjustment off on the right of the sticker. (It was $9,995 on a VW Golf!) Apparently that's the "manufacturer can jack up the price, but not increase the MSRP" fee.

I feel that I got the price down a fair bit. I think that there's wiggle room with the MVA

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From my journey around car buying last year - I got the feeling that it was a lot of Bay Area dealers (and California) putting the price increases on. I was willing to fly somewhere to save like $5k on the car but the hassle and sometimes they weren't selling to people out of state and financing through a different out of state dealer just seemed like all needless complications.

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Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023

Kia Niro PHEV.

Matrix was a stick. Loved it! Perfect city/ski car (minus no AWD).

We have solar and don't drive often/generally not more than 15 miles at a time, so with PHEV, can use EV-only (~30-mile range) and then plug in at home.

They fancy-fied it for 2023. So more than I wanted from the car, but still the closest thing to a Matrix I could find.

Also looked at Subaru Crosstrek PHEV (AWD), but they discontinued it in 2024. (They had no 2023s available, so I went across the street to Kia, who had one PHEV Niro at the trim that I wanted.)

Got $2.5k for the Matrix on trade-in. Maybe coulda got more, but they handled all the paperwork, I didn't have to deal with people test driving it, etc.

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I think when my TSX dies (hopefully not in the near future). I want to hit 300K but am only around 208K, and with the number of miles I put on it it will take 15+ years.

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my 19-yo Matrix had just over 80k miles.

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Subaru is going full electric or full gas. I had the Crosstrek as one of my top 5 last year and the dealer told me "they won't even let us order them anymore"

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yup...that's what I heard at Serramonte, so glad it wasn't BS

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Camacho

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Wrong

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Mar 14, 2023Liked by Piotr Le, SGBear

In the comments for Nick's post on who people want to see as Cal's next basketball coach, someone named MS called me a "fucked individual" and in a separate comment said "fuck you and your family." I reported both comments. Previously when I reported a comment I could no longer see the offensive post. Is there any chance more will happen this time? I worked in public schools for over 20 years and so am pretty thick-skinned but directing the f word at a person -- and his family -- seems beyond the pale. Should MS, be warned/banned/suspended?

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Yeah that's offsides - you shouldn't have to deal with that. A few weeks back, I had a testy exchange with a certain Cal grad from SoCal who only weighs in on the Cal v. UC Berkeley branding debate and by their own admission is hardly a sports fan. The basis of the poster's claim is that NOBODY in the WORLD outside of Cal grads, Pac 12 fans or Bay Area people know that Cal and California IS actually UC Berkeley, which is a silly generalization - plenty of people do...I pushed back, and after our back-n-forth, they told me to go "fuck myself." Oh well.

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I think I remember that

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I see that he has been banned on that thread.

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Did you recommend rehiring Mark Fox? Other than that, I can’t imagine what you could have posted that would cause such a response.

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Apparently lives in Austin, TX and represents either the Al Davis "Just Win Baby" in Berkeley at any cost lobby, or isn't really a Cal fan at all and is just trolling.

If it's the former, a small part of me respects the desire to win, unrealistic as it may be (i.e. Cal would never even THINK to hire Chris Beard, etc.)...if it's the latter, hasta la vista.

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It all started when he said that he didn't want wokeness to affect the hiring of a basketball coach. Nick and I and later Alpha crossed swords with him over that and he got nasty.

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Wokeness! Hahahhhh. Oh man, there is a certain type that really gets their panties in a bunch over any perceived effort at that kind of political correctness, is so funny. If I was younger I’d say these guys (let’s be honest it is all dudes) just need to get some satisfaction as Mick Jagger would say…

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Wokeness is the current “get off my lawn” for boomers.

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Definitely not only a boomer thing

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Prob are a lot on incels out there.

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Fuckin’ incels. I am sure a large portion of them are incels.

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what is with "woke"? the people who use it as a pejorative don't really seem to know what it means. It's just a catch-all for "things being done that I don't like."

I was reading a thread about Biden and SVB yesterday. There are valid reasons to not like the bailout/not bailout, but blaming it on SVB being "woke" because they had LGBT support month or something is just asinine.

Maybe it's because the laws put into place after 2008 were weakened under Trump (albeit with bipartisan support...apparently including Barney Frank, the namesake of Dodd-Frank), and the CEO of SVB lobbied hard for the change, and SVB had no risk manager for a year. [Note: the preceding is just from reading various articles...apologies if I have anything wrong.]

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Just was going thru my WaPo daily email. Here's a gift article related to this:

"Why the GOP is blaming Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse on ‘woke’ capitalism"

https://wapo.st/3Tenxxi

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" but blaming it on SVB being "woke" because they had LGBT support month"

The [stupid] claim is that because it has a DEI board.

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I know...like that took up 99% of their processor cycles.

Anti-woke is like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer: Your modern ways frighten and confuse me.

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I am glad I wasn’t in that thread or I would have been crossing swords with him as well. I would argue that hiring Mark Fox is the product of not being “woke” during your search and hiring process.

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Mark Fox - as bland and reactive of hire as you will find, made by a guy who was completely unprepared for that aspect of his job.

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"I possess a device in my pocket that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man. I use it to look at pictures of cats and get into arguments with strangers."

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Sorry you had to deal with such a nuisance. I gave them a week ban and erased their comments on that thread.

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Mar 14, 2023Liked by Piotr Le

Good job. I don't mind for myself, just hate that kind of crap to be on WFC.

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What movie is really dated but is still really good

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Your enjoyment of movies (& music) are largely a product of your circumstances when you saw them. During your prime movie-going years (say ages 10-30?), movies you saw with your family or friends as a kid, ones you snuck into as a teen, went on dates to in your 20's all have a real-life associations for you. I can still love a movie made today, but not in the same way movies affected me in my formative years, they won't become a part of me.

For me, an example of a movie that has aged poorly but was loved at the time is A Fish Called Wanda. I only saw it for the first time a few years ago (released in 1988), all while my friends over the years couldn't believe I hadn't ever seen it & it was the funniest thing ever. Totally did not work for me in 2020.

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I watched On the Waterfront for the first time last year - having only seen the "I coulda been a contendah!" Brando scene - and it's so very good. I had previously never really understood what had made Brando such a big star - but he's a force of nature in the movie. Just physically and emotionally dominant - but Eva Marie Saint, in her movie debut holds her own against him. It's really really good.

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The Beastmaster

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Tanya Roberts in a loincloth is eternal.

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Lots of Cassavetes and Altman. A Woman Under the Influence; 3 Women; Death of a Chinese Bookie

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There's so many different kinds of films that fit into this category. Everything from Animal House of more recent vintage and older films like Philadelphia Story which many feminists (not unjustifiably) bristle at.

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There was like a heyday of screwball comedy from like mid 70s to late 80s/early 90s. Kind of died out after Naked Gun, with a few exceptions (dumb and dumber among them)

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So many comedies from the seventies through the nineties (even into the early oughts) have not aged as well as movies from sixty and more years ago due to their sexist raunchiness.

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Airplane! is still and will always be the undisputed champion of this genre.

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So many people have not seen (or heard of) Top Secret!, by the Airplane! guys. Was just as funny, didn't get a lot of pub I guess.

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An all time classic. Brilliant film.

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"Bet, babe, slide a piece of the porter, drink-side run the java."

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For me it's Animal House, Stripes and Trading Places (all films with SNL alums).

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I'm not sure any of these are technically "screwball," which was historically a term to describe a wacky kind of romantic comedy (It Happened One Night, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, etc.).

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Honestly, there are a lot. One that really shocked me when I watched it a few years back: Modern Times, by Charlie Chaplin. It's a "silent" movie, but you can hardly tell; it feels super modern.

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Off topic, I know, but many of Chaplin's films were made in Fremont, California (or, to be more precise, Niles, California).

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Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Gene Wilder makes that movie.

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He was pretty wild in that one for sure.

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Was just about to list this. But not sure what "really dated" means here.

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Reporter: "Augustus, how do you feel now that you've found a golden ticket?"

Augustus Gloop: "HUNGRY"

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He was an actual German kid. They filmed in Münich and the Gloops were locals.

Just finished the book. All the kids had both parents with them, except Charlie Moore (err, Bucket). Not sure why dad didn't get to join. Other grandparents were too decrepit, I guess. And mom "couldn't leave...had to stay and take care of old people".

And at the end, the Wonkavator crashes thru the roof of Charlie's house, spraying framing, plaster, etc. all over the grands. "A" for letting the fam live in the factory, but "F" for almost killing them.

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Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023

Wizard of Oz. I saw it re-mastered and in HD a month or two ago. Just as weird as I remembered as a child (flying monkeys, etc.) and from 1938.

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Casablanca, now it feels like a sequence of cliches but one has to remember that it was the movie that established those cliches.

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Yes! If you watch that movie, it is amazing. Almost every line seemingly has become a cliche

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DBD AV CLUB

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Shrinking on AppleTV remains a complete gem. Brett Goldstein created it with Jason Segal and another...fantastic show.

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Finished Poker Face last night. Excellent show. Hoping they maintain the same level of excellence in season two.

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Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023

Really? I gave is a not-good review a few days ago. I liked E1, but she did stuff that was so dumb (telling Adrien Brody about her progress in figuring things out). Was the same for me with S2 of Russian doll. Don't leave the bag of cash on the subway seat while you argue with someone. Couldn't get past that.

(Plus I don't pay for Peacock, so only E1 was available to view...so it worked out!)

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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Texas settles lawsuit from Ken Paxton firing four whistleblowers for $3.3m. Once again, nothing happens to Paxton but Texas tax payers left holding the bill.

https://www.rawstory.com/texas-legislature-has-little-appetite-to-fund-ken-paxtons-settlement-with-whistleblowers/

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I am amazed at how much that guy just skates on everything

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Maybe democracy ain't so great afterall...

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PRO

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Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023Author

Raiders add Jakobi Meyers for 3 years worth $33m. Last time the Raiders saw Meyers, he did this (bonus: Big Game reference):

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1604634494245314561

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Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023

Anyone else puzzled by how many Raider fans think Jimmy Garoppolo is an upgrade over Derek Carr?

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Is that really a thing? As a Raider fan, I think he's both a clear downgrade, but also Derek and the Raiders had to leave each other. I am on the "it wasn't Derek's fault" bandwagon, but the it just was never going to work going forward.

Jimmy G is here to hold the fort down while we roll the dice on like trying to turn Anthony Richardson into Josh Allen. Or some similar moonshot

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Totally get wanting to move on from Derek Carr...his time with the Raiders had run it's course. But there's plenty of people that are looking at Jimmy G's winning % with the Niners, combined with his time in New England, and thinking it's just going to easily translate to LV and I'm just not seeing it...Davante Adams' numbers take a huge hit, at least in the YPC area...Jimmy is not a downfield passer and makes the Raiders a helluva lot easier to defend.

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when you're right, you're right

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It’s admittedly a rare occurrence….

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RIP Dick Fosbury, the pioneer of modern high jump technique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_7T76GcJOQ

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Not a good time for old time jumpers. I saw a couple weeks ago that Bob Richards, who won a couple golds in pole vault way back in the day, passed away.

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The Fosbury Flop.

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Pat Bev channels a bit of Tipper Gore, blames Ja Morant's behavior on bad parenting & that darn music

https://www.mediaite.com/sports/patrick-beverley-insists-that-ja-morants-gun-flashing-behavior-is-a-result-of-parenting-and-music/

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NFL rule proposals: Onside kick alternative, possible wild-card seeding adjustment and more for 2023 season

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-rule-proposals-onside-kick-alternative-possible-wild-card-seeding-adjustment-and-more-for-2023-season/

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solid Warrior's win last night. Klay goes bonkers in 1st half for 33 pts. was fun to watch.

however, 8 of last 13 games are on the road, so we all know how this movie ends . maybe they will at least play the Lakers in the play-in games and that will be the most exciting outcome we can realistically hope for ..

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No way, have to stay above the line!

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i would like that as well.

not sure how well W's match up w/ Kings, but 3 vs 6 matchup seems the most favorable for us. i doubt we can beat Phx esp if they get KD back.

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From what I gleaned last night, PHX has very very little depth and if any of their stars miss a game or two they could be an early round exit. Full strength they probably outscore most teams, but it will be a delicate tightrope walk for them.

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ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE

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Transfer portal is open in college hoops.

Cal MBB fans should keep an eye on what Bears join Joel Brown in the portal. Hopefully Knowlton is working deliberately on the coaching search, but also rapidly. Last year, a majority of the quality jobs were filled by the end of the first weekend of the Tournament, because of the portal.

Time is of the essence.

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I mean, no knock on anyone, but this was the worst Cal bball team ever. I am not too concerned about who is leaving, more interested in who is coming

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Well, record wise, sure…that’s beyond debate. It’s the old adage - we can go 3-29 with or without you.

But some of these players WILL be back, and I’m betting green money they’re gonna look a whole lot better in a different scheme because Mark Fox actually IS that bad.

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Other than JB who's already gone, Newell, Okafor, and Celestine (only if he can get back to 100%) can stay, wouldn't miss anyone else.

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Agreed….tho I’d maybe put Alajiki on the list too, given his combination of size and athleticism. There’s still a little upside, in the right system.

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CAL

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Go Bears!!!

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[WGYM] ICYMI: Bear continue to be absolutely amazing, beating Arizona 198.275-196.525 - the highest score in Cal history. Mya Lauzon earned the first perfect 10 on the beam in school history, which helped the Bears earn a 49.825 - the second highest beam score in NCAA history. LFG BEARS!

https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/pac12-champ-cal-women-gymnastics-mya-lauzon-beam

https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1635114901525123073

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[WTEN] Match vs. Hawai'i cancelled due to rain. It will not be rescheduled.

https://calbears.com/news/2023/3/12/womens-tennis-cal-hawaii-match-canceled.aspx

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