Cal Men's Basketball Off-Season Recap
A quick review of the program's transition over the past 10 months
Basketball season is nearly upon us, as the Cal Athletic Department hosts a winter sports kickoff event on Thursday, October 19th. Before we start publishing season and roster previews and other hoops-related content, let’s have a quick review of the hyperactive offseason that has led to the current state of excitement and optimism.
January 6th - Cal beats Stanford 92-70. The highlight of last season. Cal shot an absurd 16-of-22 from three point range, tying a school record.
February 23rd - ESPN links Tim Miles and Josh Pasternack as candidates for the Cal job. Even though the season still had a couple weeks left, general consensus was strongly leaning to Mark Fox’s dismissal. Pasternack was an obvious candidate, while the Tim Miles angle was a mild surprise.
March 8th - Pac-12 tournament loss to Washington State. Thus ends ends a historically bad 3-29 season. This game was a microcosm of the entire Mark Fox tenure. Cal was outclassed from the tipoff, but had a mini-run in the middle of the second half to make it interesting. WSU kept their composure, and ending up coasting to an easy double-digit win.
March 9th - Mark Fox fired.
March 9th - The first WriteForCalifornia coaching board is published. No mention of Madsen.
March 9th - Joel Brown enters the transfer portal. Brown would end up at Iona.
March 16th - Kuany Kuany enters the transfer portal. Kuany would end up at VCU, where he is getting positive feedback as a potential difference-maker for the Rams in the Atlantic-10 this season.
March 21st - The WriteForCalifornia Coaching Big Board 2.0, talking about Tim Miles, Josh Pasternack and Amir Abdur-Rahim. No mention of Mark Madsen.
March 24th - Lars Theimann and Sam Alijiki enter the transfer portal. Theimann would end up at Loyola-Marymount, where he has shown off a nice outside shooting touch on social media. Alijiki would end up at Rice University.
March 26th - First report of Madsen as a candidate. After a couple weeks of intrigue with Pasternack, Abdur-Rahim, and Rodney Terry, MadDog makes his first appearance on the radar.
March 28th - Madsen’s Utah Valley team is eliminated in the NIT semi-finals.
March 29th - Cal has a new coach.
April 2nd - Madsen and wife Hannah announce the birth of their fourth child.
April 3rd - Mark Madsen introductory press conference. My favorite quote; The history of Cal basketball is winning and winning at a high high level.
Obviously the national championship, multiple sweet 16s, repeated NCAA
tournaments. I'm going to do everything in my power and we will restore Cal basketball to that level of play.”
April 3rd - Jarred Hyder enters transfer portal. Hyder earned his degree at Cal, and ended up at Cal- Poly SLO as a grad transfer.
April 6th - Marsalis Roberson and Obinna Anyanwu enter transfer portal. Roberson would end up at UC-Davis. Anyanwu is still enrolled at Cal, but is not on the basketball roster at this time.
April 7th - Texas Tech transfer Fardaws Aimaq commits to Cal. Now that the exodus is complete, the inbound flow begins. Aimaq was a high profile target, and is a major win for Madsen as he kicks off the rebuild process. Since then, Aimaq was named to the Pac-12 Preseason All-Conference Second Team. He is the first Cal player to be named all-conference since the all-preseason lists were started in 2019.
April 11th - Northern Arizona transfer Jalen Cone commits to Cal. Cone had interest from Ole Miss, Auburn, Stanford and handful of other P5 schools.
April 13th - Adam Mazarei hired as Associate Head Coach. Mazarei brings strong development experience from his tenure at Vanderbilt. Prior to Vandy, he was with the Memphis Grizzlies for six years in player development and scouting roles.
April 16th - Matt Scherbenske hired as Assistant Coach. Scherbenske, a former graduate assistant under Mike Montgomery, is a well-known recruiter who came over from Texas Tech.
April 20th - Amorrow Morgan hired as Assistant Coach. Morgan was previously with the Loyola-Chicago program.
April 24th - Ken Moses hired as Assistant Coach. Moses was on Madsen’s Utah Valley staff for the 2022-23 season.
April 26th - DeJuan Clayton enters the transfer portal. Clayton was given an 8th year of eligibility by the NCAA, and joined the Manhattan Jaspers in mid-September. He will face off against Joel Brown during the MAAC conference season.
May 1st - Portland transfer Mike Meadows commits to Cal. Meadows would decommit on August 6th, and go on to sign with the Saint Louis Billikens program.
May 2nd - Memphis transfer Keonte Kennedy commits to Cal. Through the offseason workouts, Kennedy is earning an early reputation as the team’s lock-down defender.
May 8th - Texas Tech transfer Jaylon Tyson commits to Cal. Tyson chose Cal over Kansas and several other top-tier programs. As of this publishing, he has not formally cleared NCAA waivers to play this season.
July 30th - JC PG Vladimir Pavlovic commits to Cal. Pavlovic gives the team depth at PG and looks to excel at the pick-and-roll.
July and August - Cal basketball active on social media, highlighting summer activities and teambuilding opportunities;
The Cal Athletic Department has remained active on social media, highlighting snippets from practices and small group drills. My favorite highlight is Coach Mazarei leading the guards through ball handling exercises and then 1-on-1 drills.
The campus and community outreach, combined with a strong social media campaign, has definitely risen the enthusiasm with the fan base about the direction of the program. Let the MadDog era begin!
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*whispers*
it’s basketball szn.