Your alternate universe 1999-2000 California Men's Basketball Starting 5:
G: Shantay Legans
G: Donte Smith
F: Sean Lampley
F: Joe Shipp
C: Mark Madsen
First off the bench:
C: Solomon Hughes
G: Dennis Gates
In the real world, with Nick Vander Laan at center, we went 16-14 in the regular season, 7-11 in conference, and made the Final Four of the NIT to finish 18-15.
Don't mean to diss Vander Laan, but I think the alternate universe team might have done better. Hard to say because 'Furd played a different style than we did, so you can't really directly take Madsen's stats that season and drop them into the Cal roster.
I did Bob. One of my best friends in high school was the son of a Cal department head and they lived in Berkeley. We were always visiting each other's homes and when in Berkeley, the Cal campus was our haunt. We went to all Cal athletic events, especially football, baseball and basketball games. I was a point guard in high school and marveled at Pete Newell's offensive schemes. My favorite was one where Cal would come down court, set up, make 4 or 5 crisp passes, and suddenly from out of the visual mess of all the motion a three-man screen would emerge about 10 feet from the basket and a Cal player would catch a pass just behind the wall and pop a short jump shot. The opposing defenses had no idea what was happening. It was sheer poetry in motion, the choreography was impressive, and I can't recall a Cal player ever missing one of those staged jumpers. The Straw Hat Band would play a peppy accompanying tune and the student section would go nuts. Harmon was in perpetual motion back then. The noise was deafening, you could hear the din even up on Telegraph. It was magic; I hope Madsen can conjure up the same scene.
Your alternate universe 1999-2000 California Men's Basketball Starting 5:
G: Shantay Legans
G: Donte Smith
F: Sean Lampley
F: Joe Shipp
C: Mark Madsen
First off the bench:
C: Solomon Hughes
G: Dennis Gates
In the real world, with Nick Vander Laan at center, we went 16-14 in the regular season, 7-11 in conference, and made the Final Four of the NIT to finish 18-15.
Don't mean to diss Vander Laan, but I think the alternate universe team might have done better. Hard to say because 'Furd played a different style than we did, so you can't really directly take Madsen's stats that season and drop them into the Cal roster.
Tandy Gillis
Earl Schultz
Mike McClintlock
Darrell Imhoff
Bobby Windell
Joe Kapp
Al Buch
Denny fitzpatrick
Bob Dalton
Jim lamprey
Stan Morrison
et al
I did Bob. One of my best friends in high school was the son of a Cal department head and they lived in Berkeley. We were always visiting each other's homes and when in Berkeley, the Cal campus was our haunt. We went to all Cal athletic events, especially football, baseball and basketball games. I was a point guard in high school and marveled at Pete Newell's offensive schemes. My favorite was one where Cal would come down court, set up, make 4 or 5 crisp passes, and suddenly from out of the visual mess of all the motion a three-man screen would emerge about 10 feet from the basket and a Cal player would catch a pass just behind the wall and pop a short jump shot. The opposing defenses had no idea what was happening. It was sheer poetry in motion, the choreography was impressive, and I can't recall a Cal player ever missing one of those staged jumpers. The Straw Hat Band would play a peppy accompanying tune and the student section would go nuts. Harmon was in perpetual motion back then. The noise was deafening, you could hear the din even up on Telegraph. It was magic; I hope Madsen can conjure up the same scene.