19 Comments
Feb 18·edited Feb 18Liked by BentPawn

Can not reiterate enough how fantastic it is to be able to watch my favorite Cal sports team play competent ball again.

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Feb 18·edited Feb 18

What a riveting game. Attended with some fellow bears and their little one (who had a wonderful time). Celestine looked like Lebron in the 2016 finals at the end, so dominant. Thank's for the replays, cool to relive!

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There’s been a great evolution in JT’s game - and while having him transition to lead guard has been a rough process - he’s really taken on the idea of running the team and finding the pockets to score and make a difference and leadership and expanded on that. I think early season JT forces that shot over the double team. But with most of the season in the bank and trust built between teammates - draw the double find the 48% three point shooter above the break. It’s beautiful basketball

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I wasn't able to go as my wife and I were attending the Jon Batiste concert in Seattle that night, and let me tell you Jon Batiste and company brought the roof down. It was not only the best concert I've seen, it felt important, the whole theater dancing and loving and grooving. Go see him on this tour if you can. He's a treasure in all ways.

So I watched the game on dvr and am so happy for the Bears. Revenge. Always like when the Fuskies lose, too. That Madsen has this team playing 7-8 in league, and winning on the road, just delights me. Go Bears!

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Given our limited bench, challenges on the road, and turnovers this victory was hard-earned and we'll deserved. Now, as mentioned previously, we need to sweep the Oregon schools at home, and try to steal a win at Stanford.

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I knew cal’s defense improved but are you saying it’s 5th in the conference for season, or 5th in conference games, or 5th recently?

If we are now 5th for the season we must be even better recently because we were horrible early

I did like Grant instead on of Larson when Fardaws fouled out, but was surprised UW didn’t play their big scoring center who Grant would have had a tough time defending

How can UW have such a high net rating?

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FWIW, UW is only barely a quad 1 win, as they're #71 and wins against top 75 teams on the road count as quad 1.

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5th in conference games only

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Thanks for clarifying but that’s still good and actually the better measure since it’s an even playing field to compare

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I also think it's useful to filter out some of the games before Kennedy got healthy

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"As has been the case in so many of Cal’s Pac-12 wins, this one did not appear likely for much of the game." How prosaically true.

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Newell is 6’8. How is that playing small? He is tons better than Larson both on defense and offense .

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A fair point, it's probably true that the defensive distinction between them is slight and the size difference is certainly slight. But I don't know the extent to which Newell has practiced defending at the 5, and it's telling that as far as I am aware, this is the first time all season long despite the fact that our only back-up options at center are a walk-on and a very raw true freshman.

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It’s a phrase, not a diss. Cause 6-8 is 2-3 inches shorter than a traditional center. In a perfect world Gus can drain 3s as a stretch 4, but no evidence that he can now. Otherwise he needs to put on weight.

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Feb 18·edited Feb 18

As a PWO, anything they get from Gus is a bonus. Really feel the Okafor injury here, and Curtis just isn’t ready. That said, Gus putting on a little weight could pay dividends next year. We need a couple of bigs tho.

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Thanks for those great replays from the bench, baseline, and Washington crowd.

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We have to be a very frustrating team for our opponents to play. We're clearly better now than we were at the start (and better than our record). We can now defend well enough to turn most games into a coin flip.

Great play design by Madsen for the last shot and game-saving time out call. And great execution by both Tyson and Celestine. Those are our two best options. Tyson made up for a deep 3 shortly before where UW also filled his driving lane.

I'm glad Nick mentioned Aimaq's double-doubles feeling a bit like a sugar high. I'm not remotely a stat head or astute observer, but wanted to find something to represent the gap between his box stats and my eyes. I'm not too familiar with https://evanmiya.com/ but his stats do seem to tell that story.

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It only takes five made shots for him to get a double double, being our only rebounding big.

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Thank you for your clear, educating analysis of what happened. I really appreciate your words after emotionally watching the scrambling teams where I have little idea of what is happening.

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