Maybe not fair of me to assess the program after a game against maybe the premier team in the conference, but I still fail to see a path for success for us under Fox. I appreciate that he's taken us from appalling to somewhere closer to mediocre, but I don't get the sense there's another gear to get us to good. He just doesn't have the profile or system to attract players, nor does he coach a system that can mask that talent gap. He will no doubt get a year 4, but do we expect next year to be any different than this one--or the year after that? I feel like we're at point in his tenure where it is fair to ask.
Agreed, P...absolutely not. And the fact that they’re playing nearly competent basketball for the 1st time since Cuonzo probably will be enough for Knowlton to keep him around a few more years. But he’s not recruiting elite players that can change a program, and tho I love Alajiki (& Okafor next year could be a player), this team doesn’t figure to sniff a .500 conference record under Fox. Plus, he’s giving average at best seniors HUGE minutes at the expense of getting younger guys meaningful PT, so next year figures to be a lot more of the same, if we’re lucky.
This is Year 5 of a 10 year rebuild...thanks to Williams & Wyking...
And thanks to Knowlton for the Fox hire. The ceiling for Fox is too low to justify the pace. What's the reward? I don't see an NCAA birth in even our distant future at this rate, no matter how long he gets. This would be the season where we begin to see progress not only with the on-the-court product (and we have), but also with the types of players we are in the conversation for (we are not). I've never agreed with the logic that this rebuild needs to take a decade. There are too few spots on any basketball roster and the program has experienced success and been home to supreme talent still not too long ago, no matter how deep Williams and Wyking dragged it under water.
Not even being in the conversation is a huge indictment, IMHO, as is Harriman's inability to recruit impact players from overseas, which was apparently one of his strengths...he landed Lars and Klonaras, and maybe Joel if you count Canada...but the first two aren't even in the rotation for an NCAA bubble team, and Brown is your backup PG at best on a competitive squad.
In hoops, you can turn your program around with one good season, and you can turn one elite player into that one good season...Mark Fox is not equipped to do this, and while it didn't have to be a 10 year rebuild, it definitely became one once Knowlton hired this average retread.
Recruiting a handful of talents can definitely turn things around and quickly in contrast to football. While fox has Okofor coming in next year and did OK with Alajiki, we are not in the running for the elite preps in California or the nation, hence the time horizon will be pushed out until Fox is in his mid-60's but I doubt he will last that long.
the issue with next year is we lose our 3 top players who are also our most experienced players. We also lose a 4th experienced player who is a shooter.
This was suppose to be the proof that Cal can win with a team of 3 star recruits (with one franchise 4 star such as Bradley, or a very good player like Shepherd) when they are a veteran team. With 3 seniors and 2 juniors starters, this was the year to prove that theory.
Next year we will be young and have fewer shooters
And we have no schollie spots left to sign some vets and/or shooters
We should still have 2 scholarships to offer...Grant, Kelly, Shepherd & Foreman all graduate, plus whatever transfers inevitably enter the portal...hopefully not Alajiki. We only have the 2 bigs coming in...we need a better PG.
I think we don’t have 2 open scholarships for next year despite 4 players leaving, because 2 of them were Covid exceptions (all teams need to get down to regular scholarship limit next year)
Even one guy could make all the difference if he’s the right guy, and considering Fox isn’t even in the mix for elite HS players, it’ll have to be the portal.
Jordan Shepherd and his 7-19 shooting days with 5 turnovers unfortunately isn’t it...would be great if the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce ;-) ponied up on an NIL package for a talented PG that could score 19 a night with 5 assists...like a Damion Lillard starter-kit...
Fox got 2 T's cuz he's a clown and an embarrassment to the University. I mean really? He gets into a staring contest? Yup, he's right, he's a third grader. Counting the days until he's gone.
Unfortunately you're gonna be counting for awhile, cause Knowlton has no stones. I've never liked the irate coach schtick. Gives me PTSD from when Campinelli used to do that at Harmon and everyone applauded him for it: "Lou, Lou, Lou". He started to do it every game just to hear his own name and stroke his ergo. I don't think Fox is that. Nor do I think he's a bad coach. He seems like a respectable human, and I really don't like rooting against him. But he's the wrong guy for this job and the faster we turn the page, the sooner we can start to imagine something better than not embarrassing.
I'm a bit more bullish on Wilcox. Low ceiling, but higher floor. He's always gonna be able to put together good defenses that will keep us respectable.
I think that's fair...I'll take the 1st time HC that's shown an identity and whose players love him over a vanilla retread that flamed out after 10 thoroughly average seasons at a P5 school.
I assume Fox thinks one particular ref consistently calls fouls against Cal based on that quote, and you got that right that Fox used this ‘opportunity’ to make a statement since we weren’t going to win this game at that point anyway
I do think their bigs were jumping ’over the back’ or just flat out pushing the players from the back. There was a play after Fox got ejected where their Center obviously pushed Celestine from the back with no call.
Some positives:
Shepherd continues to back down to no one. His fast break slam was the second highlight dunk in two games. Shows his fight and athleticism
2K again flashed his potential. Needs to be more consistent and improve his shooting but looks more confident to take on the top competition
Foreman is developing a middle game with teardrop floaters and pull up jumpers. He’s a fifth year senior so adding these to his bag shows how much he’s worked on his game
Shepherd has, interestingly, been better in Pac-12 play than in non-conference play, but I think ultimately what's going on is that he's in the Paris Austin, late-shot-clock, gotta-make-something happen role that is murder on a player's offensive efficiency but it's not his fault, somebody has to take the bad shots at the end of the shot clock in a slow down offense. And so his performance ebbs and flows a bit based on whether he's hitting his jumpers or not. But I hope the uptick we've seen over the last few weeks is permanent!
agree. Shepherd is a very good player. He can make his own shots and all 3 levels on the court (at the rim, mid-range, and beyond the arc). He has superior ball handling skills, and is the best passer on the team. He also doesn't back down as his two fast break dunks showed
Respectfully, Shepherd is a good, solid player, whose contributions are magnified on this below average team because we have a defense first PG with a limited offensive repertoire, 2 upper classmen that lack athleticism and can't create their own shot, and an undersized two guard with a bad foot injury.
But he's a low efficiency, volume scorer at the P5 level that struggles on defense and turns the ball over way too much. While he's the best we have now, like all of our seniors, he's probably a rotational role player on an NCAA Tournament team...a team that Cal unfortunately still seems light years away from having.
Maybe not fair of me to assess the program after a game against maybe the premier team in the conference, but I still fail to see a path for success for us under Fox. I appreciate that he's taken us from appalling to somewhere closer to mediocre, but I don't get the sense there's another gear to get us to good. He just doesn't have the profile or system to attract players, nor does he coach a system that can mask that talent gap. He will no doubt get a year 4, but do we expect next year to be any different than this one--or the year after that? I feel like we're at point in his tenure where it is fair to ask.
Agreed, P...absolutely not. And the fact that they’re playing nearly competent basketball for the 1st time since Cuonzo probably will be enough for Knowlton to keep him around a few more years. But he’s not recruiting elite players that can change a program, and tho I love Alajiki (& Okafor next year could be a player), this team doesn’t figure to sniff a .500 conference record under Fox. Plus, he’s giving average at best seniors HUGE minutes at the expense of getting younger guys meaningful PT, so next year figures to be a lot more of the same, if we’re lucky.
This is Year 5 of a 10 year rebuild...thanks to Williams & Wyking...
And thanks to Knowlton for the Fox hire. The ceiling for Fox is too low to justify the pace. What's the reward? I don't see an NCAA birth in even our distant future at this rate, no matter how long he gets. This would be the season where we begin to see progress not only with the on-the-court product (and we have), but also with the types of players we are in the conversation for (we are not). I've never agreed with the logic that this rebuild needs to take a decade. There are too few spots on any basketball roster and the program has experienced success and been home to supreme talent still not too long ago, no matter how deep Williams and Wyking dragged it under water.
Not even being in the conversation is a huge indictment, IMHO, as is Harriman's inability to recruit impact players from overseas, which was apparently one of his strengths...he landed Lars and Klonaras, and maybe Joel if you count Canada...but the first two aren't even in the rotation for an NCAA bubble team, and Brown is your backup PG at best on a competitive squad.
In hoops, you can turn your program around with one good season, and you can turn one elite player into that one good season...Mark Fox is not equipped to do this, and while it didn't have to be a 10 year rebuild, it definitely became one once Knowlton hired this average retread.
Recruiting a handful of talents can definitely turn things around and quickly in contrast to football. While fox has Okofor coming in next year and did OK with Alajiki, we are not in the running for the elite preps in California or the nation, hence the time horizon will be pushed out until Fox is in his mid-60's but I doubt he will last that long.
the issue with next year is we lose our 3 top players who are also our most experienced players. We also lose a 4th experienced player who is a shooter.
This was suppose to be the proof that Cal can win with a team of 3 star recruits (with one franchise 4 star such as Bradley, or a very good player like Shepherd) when they are a veteran team. With 3 seniors and 2 juniors starters, this was the year to prove that theory.
Next year we will be young and have fewer shooters
And we have no schollie spots left to sign some vets and/or shooters
We should still have 2 scholarships to offer...Grant, Kelly, Shepherd & Foreman all graduate, plus whatever transfers inevitably enter the portal...hopefully not Alajiki. We only have the 2 bigs coming in...we need a better PG.
I think we don’t have 2 open scholarships for next year despite 4 players leaving, because 2 of them were Covid exceptions (all teams need to get down to regular scholarship limit next year)
So they have 15 now....and need to get down to 13. Yikes. bad, bad news.
If that's it, man, we're going to take a big step back...we'll be so light on talent...
We need better talent. We lost to UCSD this year! Lol
Even one guy could make all the difference if he’s the right guy, and considering Fox isn’t even in the mix for elite HS players, it’ll have to be the portal.
Jordan Shepherd and his 7-19 shooting days with 5 turnovers unfortunately isn’t it...would be great if the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce ;-) ponied up on an NIL package for a talented PG that could score 19 a night with 5 assists...like a Damion Lillard starter-kit...
Fox got 2 T's cuz he's a clown and an embarrassment to the University. I mean really? He gets into a staring contest? Yup, he's right, he's a third grader. Counting the days until he's gone.
Unfortunately you're gonna be counting for awhile, cause Knowlton has no stones. I've never liked the irate coach schtick. Gives me PTSD from when Campinelli used to do that at Harmon and everyone applauded him for it: "Lou, Lou, Lou". He started to do it every game just to hear his own name and stroke his ergo. I don't think Fox is that. Nor do I think he's a bad coach. He seems like a respectable human, and I really don't like rooting against him. But he's the wrong guy for this job and the faster we turn the page, the sooner we can start to imagine something better than not embarrassing.
They're likely going to finish 11th this year, and figure to actually take a step back next year...
Will Fox actually survive 11th or 12th place finishes 4 straight seasons?
Will Knowlton actually run it back with a coach who doesn't win? Considering he just extended Wilcox despite a losing record, probably.
Dark times for the Cal fan, my friends....
I'm a bit more bullish on Wilcox. Low ceiling, but higher floor. He's always gonna be able to put together good defenses that will keep us respectable.
I think that's fair...I'll take the 1st time HC that's shown an identity and whose players love him over a vanilla retread that flamed out after 10 thoroughly average seasons at a P5 school.
I assume Fox thinks one particular ref consistently calls fouls against Cal based on that quote, and you got that right that Fox used this ‘opportunity’ to make a statement since we weren’t going to win this game at that point anyway
I do think their bigs were jumping ’over the back’ or just flat out pushing the players from the back. There was a play after Fox got ejected where their Center obviously pushed Celestine from the back with no call.
Some positives:
Shepherd continues to back down to no one. His fast break slam was the second highlight dunk in two games. Shows his fight and athleticism
2K again flashed his potential. Needs to be more consistent and improve his shooting but looks more confident to take on the top competition
Foreman is developing a middle game with teardrop floaters and pull up jumpers. He’s a fifth year senior so adding these to his bag shows how much he’s worked on his game
Shepherd has, interestingly, been better in Pac-12 play than in non-conference play, but I think ultimately what's going on is that he's in the Paris Austin, late-shot-clock, gotta-make-something happen role that is murder on a player's offensive efficiency but it's not his fault, somebody has to take the bad shots at the end of the shot clock in a slow down offense. And so his performance ebbs and flows a bit based on whether he's hitting his jumpers or not. But I hope the uptick we've seen over the last few weeks is permanent!
agree. Shepherd is a very good player. He can make his own shots and all 3 levels on the court (at the rim, mid-range, and beyond the arc). He has superior ball handling skills, and is the best passer on the team. He also doesn't back down as his two fast break dunks showed
I shudder to think if we didn't sign him
Respectfully, Shepherd is a good, solid player, whose contributions are magnified on this below average team because we have a defense first PG with a limited offensive repertoire, 2 upper classmen that lack athleticism and can't create their own shot, and an undersized two guard with a bad foot injury.
But he's a low efficiency, volume scorer at the P5 level that struggles on defense and turns the ball over way too much. While he's the best we have now, like all of our seniors, he's probably a rotational role player on an NCAA Tournament team...a team that Cal unfortunately still seems light years away from having.