Cal Basketball Two Wins Away From Pac-10 Title, No One Seems to Care. What Gives?
by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2010 12:26 AM PST
in California Golden Bears Men's Basketball
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PrintIt figures. When our Bears are finally in position to capture a conference crown for the first time in half a century, a lot of Cal fans seem either disappointed, apathetic, or looking ahead to other things. It might be the nature of Cal fandom to be so miserable about everything, but you'd think that our fans would be super-revved up now for a conference title bid.
But with only two weeks left in the season, there is literally zero buzz about our team. It's just not there.
Mike Montgomery's Golden Bears are in an uncertain position heading into the final two weeks of the season. The Bears could capture a conference title. They could go to the NCAA tournament. They could do neither. They could do both. Almost all of it will come down to what happens Thursday and Saturday, when all Cal's seniors need to do is win their final two games at Haas to wrap up at least a share of the title.
You'd think there'd be more excitement and anticipation about this sort of breakthrough. But I'd have to describe the attitude taken by most Cal fans as...lethargic. I sure don't feel a lot of excitement, and Coach Montgomery has resorted to desperate measures before our final homestand.
Coach Mike Montgomery ended his postgame radio interview by imploring folks to come out to Haas Pavilion this week for the team's final two home games, Thursday against Arizona and Saturday against Arizona State. Roxy Bernstein, the team's play-by-play announcer, was practically begging fans to come out and get behind the team. "Where are the fans?" Bernstein asked. "They are missing." .. The percentage of capacity for the Bears at home, where they are 13-1, is slightly less than 75 percent — considerably lower than that of the almost 91 percent the Warriors get at Oracle Arena. It hasn't mattered that Haas (11,877) is smaller than Oracle (19,596), that the Bears have the vastly superior record or that they have the cheaper ticket.
There are plenty of reasons for this apathy, but I'm guessing much of it stems from the weakness of our conference. The Pac-10 might be lucky to get two teams in. If projections hold, the Pac-10 champion could have six conference losses. That would be almost as bad as the Furd's '99 Rose Bowl bid. Not a lot to get excited about there.
After the jump, let's explore some of the reasons our fanbase has been curiously apathetic about our Golden Hoopsters.
"But the totally arbitrary preseason polls told me we'd be much better!": What's probably cursed the Bears the most is their fall from that totally overrated preseason rank. The ignorant pollsters were as hilariously wrong about the Bears in basketball as they were in football, discounting the lack of a true big man and Harper Kamp's doubtful status for the season. Of course Bears fans fell right back into that trap of believing the 'experts' rather than judging this team with their own eyes.
But when have journalists ever predicted things right? Someone from the Pac-10 had to go into the top 25, and it should be Cal, right?
Whether we'd have beaten any of the top 25 teams at full-strength is irrelevant now, but you'd have to say those national setbacks in New York and Lawrence have worked out for us in terms of getting that at-large bid. The Bears have played tough opponents, they've earned their RPI, and they're still in good position for an at-large bid--assuming they win the conference.
How they HAVEN'T worked for us is that interest in this team has totally nosedived. Because a lot of us expected Cal to be much better than they were, and because most Cal fans seem to care more about March Madness than the actual season or even our team, much of the interest has been muted. Add in a pretty tumultuous football season before all of that, and it seems like a lot of us are more interested in taking a break.
Basically, it's a malaise of "Who cares? We're one-and-done even if we make it to the tourney." Talk about pussyfooting.
The "wow" factor: It's kinda strange saying that we lack this, but it couldn't be more true. We're very efficient. We make high percentage plays, taking open jumpers or giving up the ball when it's not there. We give the extra pass. We play very well on defense (sometimes). All those basketball cliches. In other words, this hasn't been a team that a lot of people are telling these friends, "Wow, I have to go watch these guys tonight." It's more of a private treasure.
Cal's three stars (Christopher, Randle, Robertson) are all perimeter-oriented players--their games are all pretty efficient, especially when they're all on the floor together. They do the little things that most fans can't appreciate. Their most talented big (Boykin) isn't a real low post threat--he's good with the midrange jumper, the most underrated aspect of basketball, but can't get you two points automatically. Jorge has the corner 3, Amoke has the offensive rebound putback, MSF has that bizarre looking hook shot, etc.
It's a staple of Mike Montgomery basketball--efficient, banging and bruising, hardly exciting. We don't force a lot of turnovers and hit the fast break often. We don't attack the basket a lot. We have a set of strategies that work very well, and we stick to them. It's kind of like watching Tedford's football team lately--not as exciting as the old days, but still pretty good at generating wins.
All these Bears do their things, fill their roles, but for some reason it's not a team that you're raving about to everyone else you know. Probably because you know when a few of those pieces get out of place, Cal falls apart in frustrating fashion. And then you kind of feel stupid talking them up. So they're just for us diehards.
Thus the basketball hasn't been pretty: I'll be honest. If the Bears were playing with NBA rules, even pickup rules, they'd probably have dropped only two or three games in the conference. The 35 second shot clock isn't as much a problem as the teams that milk the clock, drop those defenses that only a 70 year old roundball purist would delight in, and drive the rest of us fans away from the games.
With the way you can play zones in college, unless you have a dominant presence in the post or someone who can pass up high, or a lights out point guard who sets up everyone else, your team is going to struggle trying to move the ball around. It doesn't make for pretty basketball. And the way Cal is set up, it's all about patience executing the offense, which as we've talked about, is far from artistic. Aesthetically displeasing is the phrase.
(Imagine how much easier this season would've been with Kamp. The Bears could've CRUSHED the Pac-10. It's one of those "what-if" scenarios I don't even want to think about.).
And of course, the teams haven't helped either. The Pac-10 has four of the slowest teams in the country (UCLA, USC, Oregon State, and ASU), six of the top 100 defenses, and only three of the top 50 offenses (Cal, UDub, ASU). That's a recipe for uggggly hoops no one wants to watch.
Oregon State, ASU and USC have mucked most of their games up to an agonizing standstill, and it's been a real struggle to watch our matchups with them. Oregon's looked horrid going down the stretch. UCLA fans are close to open revolt. Washington and the Furd are all about home cooking--they're atrocious on the road. Wazzu and Arizona are young and talented and blow leads because they feel like it.
This isn't a slate of high-quality teams. And when the teams aren't good, the resulting basketball isn't much better.
We haven't been consistent enough. Despite the strength of our team and the weaknesses of the others, our longest winning streak this season has been three. THREE! Does anyone here have great confidence the Bears will win the Pac-10 tournament (i.e. winning three games in three nights)? You're always worried with these Bears, because you know the off-night is coming. A jump shooting team will eventually go cold.
Worst of all, the hot shooting kinda makes you fall into this trap that these results can be replicated. you know the letdown is coming, but you get sucked back in just before it's coming, and then, WHAM, Joe Burton dominates your defense. These Bears are not a team you feel safe with, and in this day and age, many people just don't want to commit themselves to that.
How will we screw this up again? This is probably the factor everyone's afraid to talk about. Cal fans have been burned too much, too recently. It's hard to feel anything more than cautiously optimistic going into the final home stretch. We always wait for something horrifying to happen. We all know it's coming. We just don't know how it'll happen.
Are we ready to go through this? Well, whether we like it or not, we're going to find out in a few days whether our Bears are capable of being conference champions, or become another batch of 'coulda been contenders'. Hopefully, we'll at least all care about the outcome.
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Hey, I care.
I care a lot.
Also,
Okay. Let’s get that animal out of the room. Cal basketball is not, nor will ever be more popular than Cal football
Counter-argument: I give you 4 years of Gilby football, including 2 4-7 seasons and a 3-8 season when contrasted with 2 years of Jason Kidd/Lamond Murray basketball AND 1 year of Shareef Abdur-Rahim basketball. During my 4 years we were a basketball school.
Yeah lets use the present circumstances to make bold statements like that.
Imagine if we had the holmoecaust now. You don’t think Cal basketball would be more popular in the next few yrs if that happened?
Should've gone with my first instinct and deleted it the first draft
Deleted now for being ridiculously stupid. LeonPowe wins this round!
Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com
by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2010 5:38 AM PST up reply actions
While I’m thinking about it,
(Imagine how much easier this season would’ve been with Kamp. The Bears could’ve CRUSHED the Pac-10. It’s one of those “what-if” scenarios I don’t even want to think about.).
This guy 
should be a senior now, right?
Of course, 
should have played his senior year with this freshman:
so that’s pretty much a tragic train of thought to board.
Another tragic train of thought...
What if Ed Gray had not gotten injured in the third to last game of the 1996-97 season (Braun’s first)? Gray was the Pac-10 POTY. Even without him, we got to the Sweet 16. But if we’d had him against UNC that night: the possibilities. UNC was vulnerable that night and we didn’t have the scorer to take advantage of it.
I am a Vereenian.
I remember
being pretty juiced after we beat Villanova in 89 or whichever year that was, after a couple of years of Snyder disaster-fests.
Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti. "I treat Timmy differently from most pitchers: I leave him alone."
Bengie Molina: "I don't understand why they didn't want to commit to another year, with my numbers and my experience and things like that." Brain Sabean: "He's certainly welcomed back with open arms".
Mychael Urban: Wow. Probably Dye at this point. Good outfielder, could adapt to RF at AT&T, good RBI guy.
by natteringnabob on Feb 22, 2010 7:24 AM PST up reply actions
That was December 1988. Great game. Nova wasn’t a top 10 team or anything at that time, but they were still a “name” program only 3 years removed from a national title. That win legitimized Campanelli’s program somewhat.
I am a Vereenian.
my ears hurt for a few days after that game
They went pretty far in the tournament that year IIRC, it was a pretty shocking upset.
Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti. "I treat Timmy differently from most pitchers: I leave him alone."
Bengie Molina: "I don't understand why they didn't want to commit to another year, with my numbers and my experience and things like that." Brain Sabean: "He's certainly welcomed back with open arms".
Mychael Urban: Wow. Probably Dye at this point. Good outfielder, could adapt to RF at AT&T, good RBI guy.
by natteringnabob on Feb 22, 2010 10:07 AM PST up reply actions
I feel that the fact our longest win streak has been 3 games has kept a constant feeling of letdown amongst the fans. Every time our bandwagon gets a head of steam, it blows a tire.
I’ve been to every home game since the semester started, and look forward to a raucous environment for the last two home games. I’m gonna miss cheering for such a great shooting team. (We take this for granted too often.)
Ugh, when our best players will be Amoke, Kamp and Gut. It’ll be ugly. Nothing against those guys – who are great and key cogs for this Cal team – but none of those guys are pac-10 level stars. The incoming class looks promising, but they’ll be freshman. and unless they’re Shareef or Jason Kidd (or kevin Love or OJ Mayo level frosh) it will be rough sledding for the next year or two.
Good thing we won’t field a team like that, knowing we have the maxinator himself to lead us to a pac10 title in the coming years.
The only way I see this happening is if Yao Ming decides he wants a Cal education and then banks on people not being able to tell Chinese people apart, and suits up for Coach Montgomery.
As an addendum, I was at a Nike All-Asia Basketball camp 2 years ago, where Monty was coaching – before he got hired at Cal – I was thinking of saying something anti-Furd to him, but I am glad I didn’t. Now.
I also think there’s a natural hangover from the Braun years. Usually, there’s a catalyst game that galvanizes the campus. A game where you want to go because all of the other students are going. I think if we beat Arizona, then the ASU game is that game. It’ll be senior day, the conference championship at stake, and who wants to miss history? For the Tedford era, it was the win against ’SC. Before that, you could have convos between the student and alumni sections at Memorial while the game was going on.
by BlackandOldGold on Feb 22, 2010 6:07 AM PST reply actions
My interest level
has been lower than last season for the simple reason that I don’t have tickets. I was able to get mine pretty late last year, and assumed availability would be about the same. Wrong!
College basketball has just never been that compelling to me, especially on tv; so I support Cal basketball the same way I support the track team or rugby: I’m pleased and proud when they do well, but I’m not a rabid fan that is at every game or meet.
I've been Honked...
Interest Level
I was very, very interested early in the season when we were ranked nationally in the middle of the pack. Those games against Syracuse and Ohio State didn’t sour me, but I have been disappointed with conference play. I only thought we’d lose three or four games, but we could lose six. I didn’t think we’d miss the NCAA tournament, but we very well could. With all of that said, I’m still very interested and I still care about winning the Pac-10 title. I’d still care if we were down there with Oregon or in the middle of the pack like Washington. My interest level remains the same.
The Ultimate Opportunist
by Rated-R Superstar on Feb 22, 2010 7:08 AM PST reply actions
Pac 10 basketball tourney ?
Where is it this year?
That's what I was going to suggest
not the location, but the tournament as sapping interest out of regular season play, as those kinds of things tend to do (Dear Pac-10: do not add 4 teams and make subdivisions…).
Anyway I think it’s permanently in LA which was part of the bribery to get U$C and the branch campus to vote for it.
Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti. "I treat Timmy differently from most pitchers: I leave him alone."
Bengie Molina: "I don't understand why they didn't want to commit to another year, with my numbers and my experience and things like that." Brain Sabean: "He's certainly welcomed back with open arms".
Mychael Urban: Wow. Probably Dye at this point. Good outfielder, could adapt to RF at AT&T, good RBI guy.
by natteringnabob on Feb 22, 2010 7:31 AM PST up reply actions
There are plenty of reasons for this apathy, but I’m guessing much of it stems from the weakness of our conference.
As SS Colonel Hans Lada said, “That’s a bingo!”
Of course, any time one of our teams can actually win a conference title, it’s cause for some celebration and pride. But when put into perspective – in a year in which the Pac-10 basically sucks ass – that level of pride is a bit diminished. In any of the last 5 or 10 years, this Cal team would have been fortunate to finish 5th. While it’s shown flashes of inspired play, it also screwed the pooch on more than one occasion, and seems to be underachieving. This is a team which (we have some good reason to believe) should have already had the conference title wrapped up. A record of 10 – 5 in the conference, given how bad the conference is, kind of blows.
And, although the fans should still be plenty happy about being in first place, that surely is tempered by the underlying, nagging feeling that all it means is getting our asses kicked by whatever scrub team we meet in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Maybe the feeling would be different if Cal hadn’t have gagged against Ucla. Maybe there would be more momentum leading up to a conference winning celebration had we not gotten humiliated in Seattle and Corvalis. And, maybe things will turn around if we can stomp Furd this week, and then hammer on Ucla again in the conference tourney.
I’m just saying …
Whose Axe?
OUR AXE!
I'm WAY excited, but MORE frightened
We’re all Cal fans; we know we’re not supposed to win conference titles. That’s just the way it is. I was getting that feeling we could WIN IT ALL…..then I went to the OSU game last Thursday…..@#$&*$…….
I don’t care how good or bad the Pac-10 is this year; beating those schools you face every year is worth the price of admission. It’s just geography.
Good luck, fellas. Make it happen. We’re already proud of you. Sorry we’re not as loud as other fans at other schools; you deserve the noise.
I'd like to smell the Roses before I die.
We’re all Cal fans; we know we’re not supposed to win conference titles.
I think you’ve got it all wrong. We’re definitely supposed to win conference titles. We’re the good guys, after all. We represent all that it good and right about the world. The problem is, we keep getting cruelly denied our rightfully deserved conference titles. One of these days we’ll be able to claim what’s ours, though.
by atomsareenough on Feb 22, 2010 10:08 AM PST up reply actions
I think also part of it has to do with one playoff appearance in however many years for the Warriors. A generation of kids, myself included, have grown up in the Bay Area already preconditioned to be fatalistic and apathetic about basketball.
That said, I’ll be at the game this Thurs.
HYDROTECH FOR DC
I think part of it is the media
Casual fans are probably used to getting updated on standings through SportsCenter or major websites and won’t waste their lives reading blogs like we nerds do. This is especially true of the students, I think. Some people just show up for one or two games to soak in the experience and shout “Go Bears!” (nothing wrong with that), but they don’t follow it closely enough to understand the big picture of the season.
I care...
I just live too far away to make it too all the home games… That said I will be at ASU on Saturday screaming my head off, and I’ve recruited 3 people to join me, in exchange for the ticket they’ve agreed to join me in screaming our heads off…
.
I will be doing my best this weekend, and I hope others will be too…
.
Two loud sell-outs to finish out the season would be amazing, but if we even just got 90% capacity we could make a lot more of an impact on each home game…
.
Get loud Bears, and finish this season off right…
Things to Remember: Girls usually don't like it when you yell out "Beast Mode!" when switching to doggy style. - TFLN
I think the tourniments, and March Madness...
detract from the regular season. (By the way, that is one of the arguments against a football playoff that resonates with me.) I think the biggest reason though is that virtually none of us picked CAL because of its sports history, but because it is the premier public academic institution with unprecedented support from the people of the State of California. Am I concerned that has eroded — you bet. Is that even more important than if we win the Pac-10 for the first time in 50 years — you bet. Will I be rooting on my Bears — you bet (you see, as I get older, I want it all).
I care too, but the regular season title just doesn't seem to mean enough anymore
We could win or share the regular season title, lose in the first round of the Pac 10 tourney to a team like Oregon State, and not make the NCAA tourney. I can see it happening if we finish 12-6 in the conference. I’ve been to about 80% of the home games this year and there have certainly been many great moments, but I have that pessimistic, sense of imending doom feeling with this team. Games like the Oregon State and USC games on the road are just so deflating, it seems like the Bears don’t play with enough energy some nights.
I’d be absolutely thrilled with making the NCAA tourney and winning one game this year.
by kevinfclifford on Feb 22, 2010 10:47 AM PST reply actions
this reminds me of an excellent name for a Chinese car company I thought of:
Chairman Maotors
or
General Maotors
HYDROTECH FOR DC
by Spazzy Mcgee on Feb 22, 2010 11:15 AM PST up reply actions
Since Max’s real first name is Americanized from Zhaoxu, and because we Americans can’t say Zhaoxu, I wonder what the Chinese would call Patrick Christopher if he played at Beijing University? Would they go with Wang Christopher? Or maybe Li Christopher?
Okay, too much time on my hands. Back to work.
by BlackandOldGold on Feb 22, 2010 3:27 PM PST up reply actions
Probably something more like Biga Buraka Man
HYDROTECH FOR DC
by Spazzy Mcgee on Feb 22, 2010 3:45 PM PST up reply actions
Also, I never really understood why they don’t just take their Chinese name and spell it phonetically instead of picking some old-style American name like Egbert. I assume Zhaoxu is probably something like “Jow-chu.” Why not spell it Jow-chu? It’s just letters, after all…
HYDROTECH FOR DC
by Spazzy Mcgee on Feb 22, 2010 3:47 PM PST up reply actions
Zhaoxu is spelled in pinyin, the official method of romanization that China uses. It was developed primarily to increase literacy, since it’s hard to memorize a bunch of characters. It’s not that great for letting speakers of other languages pronounce names or words because some letters don’t correspond to the sounds in those other languages. For example, x is pronounced similar to the “sh” sound, and the u (written with an umlaut in some cases, but often omitted when it won’t be confused with the other u sound, pronounced “oo”) is a vowel that isn’t in English. It’s hard to describe.
Sigh
Just like on Facebook, I need an UNLIKE button right about now.
This whole post just reinforces negative Cal basketball associations instead of exciting fans to come on out and support their Bears, no matter what. Stop laying out the excuses for everyone’s laziness and encourage people to come out this last week. Send off the seniors with some love.
And it’s super easy to get tix to the games, sheesh, you can get them for $10 usually.
The Bears can be frustrating (that’s all sports teams) but I’ll still be there both nights this week to root them on and hope for the best. Because you know what, it’s what I do.
GO BEARS!
by BearBallCarrier on Feb 22, 2010 11:17 AM PST reply actions
That’ll be coming tomorrow. Hold steady.
Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com
by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2010 3:02 PM PST up reply actions
I'M OUT OF CONTROL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President Emperor Warlord Of The Sun!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
Also, where can you find those $10 tickets? They’re not selling them online anywhere I can find.
Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com
by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2010 3:04 PM PST up reply actions
An UNLIKE button? Sweet!
And yes, $10 are gone now. $20 for Arizona still available.
by BearBallCarrier on Feb 22, 2010 5:40 PM PST up reply actions
Fun Factor
I care. A lot. But I have been a Cal fan for 25 years and any time we’ve had a conference title in sight for a major sport, we’ve f—-ed it up in the end. So, I refuse to get my expectations or even hopes up. Because all it’s ever brought me before is pain. I’ll be absolutely delighted if we win it, but I can’t be basing my enthusiasm on the possibility that we might.
There’s another issue for me with this year’s team, and that is that I think their brand of hoop is boring. I find some of the individual players and their stories endearing, but as a team they are a snoozefest. I long for the Bozeman years — the street ball aesthetic that our teams had then. I know they were undisciplined, and they made the huge screw up as easily as they made the huge win, and we paid them a few thousand dollars here and there, but damn it, they were exciting. I say this in jest about the payments, but those were fantastic teams to watch. The passion was so visible. I don’t doubt that this team is just as passionate, but they wear it on the inside, as does Monty, and I think that rubs off on the fans.
I fear this will be a characteristic of Montyball. And I am willing to learn to live with it. But there’s a lot less to talk about with this team after a win than with some others we have had. “Did you see Theo drain it from 25 feet?” is just not really a conversation starter. And so, the buzz is less.
Yep
There always seems to be this need for Cal basketball to be street. I don’t know WHY, but I guess it’s just not fun to watch a team playing halfcourt hoops unless they excel at it. It’s the same reason people didn’t watch the Spurs and the Pistons, and didn’t respect much of Monty’s accomplishments at the Furd…it was way too whitebread.
Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com
by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2010 3:06 PM PST up reply actions
I enjoy watching a well-executed halfcourt set in college. I would rather King Lear myself with an icepick than watch the Spurs, though.
by atomsareenough on Feb 22, 2010 4:26 PM PST up reply actions
I dunno. As much as I loved the Kidd/Lamond/Buckley/Duck teams, there’s something great about the way our current kids play smart (most of the time), hard basketball with FANTASTIC shooting. Plus Jerome launching from 27 feet is as spectacular as almost anything I saw in the mid-90s. Okay, it’s not as great as getting a front row seat to watch probably the 3rd best point guard of all time, but its still a lot of fun.
It’s not that I dislike like it. It’s nice. It’s aesthetically pleasing. But those Kidd/Lamond/Buckley/Duck/Tremaine/Gonzalez/Yogi teams were electric. We talk a lot about the crowds who are at the games not being into it, and I think it’s that lack of electricity. What gets them into it? An alley-oop. A particularly strong block. A posterizing dunk. And those just aren’t much a part of our current brand of ball. Does this play to the lowest common denominator kind of fan? Sure. But there certainly aren’t 11,000 educated fans who appreciate a good half court set who are going to go to games, so that’s life.
Now, is Monty ever going to coach that kind of team? No, he’s not. Maybe if we rip off a few good seasons in a row, the crowds will become both more consistent and more excited, because they will lose some of the fear of the bottom dropping out and come to appreciate the nuances of MontyBall. But to ask for that in year 2, with the inconsistent way the team has played, irrespective of their current standing, is a lot, in my opinion.
Jerome to P.Chris once or twice a game doesn’t do it for you?
How about appealing to 47% of Cal’s student base with some Zhang action?
Problem is Max wouldn’t be a good matchup against half the teams in the conference because of the way those guys play defense. He’s still way too raw down there. And Cal is fighting for the conference title, it’s not like they’re packed in the middle and can experiment that much.
Ergo, I imagine next year’s team with much lower expectations seeing a lot more Max in the game…and a lot more excitement from the crowd. Go figure.
Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com
by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2010 7:00 PM PST up reply actions
I'm excited dammit!
Full disclosure: I am primarily a football fan with skeptical tendencies (though I will never insult our players and recruits). But I am absolutely fired up about our basketball team’s chance to win the Pac-10. A shot at our first Pac-10 title (Rose Bowl tiebreaker required for football) in a revenue sport in 50 years? Are you kidding me? I’m going to be at both games and I’m going to be yelling like crazy.
All this talk about our style not being exciting is something that may be technically correct, but I don’t get it at all. I like this team’s style, and I really like what I have seen of our players’ characters as nice, smart young men too. I don’t think some of our fans get that there are not a lot of college players that can shoot like Randle or even Theo can, or that have Christopher’s athleticism. I am going to miss those three and Boykin a ton after these remaining few games are over.
I do wish they had a Ryan Anderson or Leon Powe, or heck, even a Jamaal Sampson. As for missing Kamp, I think Harper is a very good player, and he definitely would have helped. But I think he might only have won us an extra game or two, which I guess would have us rolling through the Pac-10, but we would hardly have been a juggernaut. This team needs rebounding and interior defense, and tons of it – Harper would help a bit there but he seems more like an all-round player, good passer, and glue/hustle guy, which is always good, but we already get some of that from Boykin and Theo.
I also don’t buy the tourney as an excuse for not caring about the regular season. I recently watched a couple Pitt home wins against West Virginia and Villanova, and before that, Kansas v. Kansas State at KSU. Now Pitt and KSU have been quite good lately, but they have not won a title in recent memory. Nevertheless their respective arenas were absolute mad-houses. I’m talking Duke-UNC/SEC Football-style mad-houses. Things may be mellower out here, which I think is a good thing overall, but there’s no reason we should not be able to turn up the heat big time in Haas.
I think the key factors we need to overcome are these:
- Braun malaise: sustained mediocrity takes a fanbase a while to recover from emotionally. It’s almost easier to recover from absolutely stinking because then there is so much euphoria around every win (see 2002 FB when we went 7-5, but it felt like 9-3). The problem is that now, we subconsciously discount wins that we should be celebrating with abandon, and agonize over losses that we would shake off if we were coming off an era of truly sucking. If Monty can get us past the ‘decent’ ceiling repeatedly over the next 4-5 years, I think the malaise will fade.
- Lack of upsets (in our favor). Before everyone says that we are favored in most games, keep in mind that we were underdogs against Syracuse, Ohio State, @New Mexico, @Kansas, and @UW. We may have been dogs in our win at ASU and I think it was close to an even spread in our games at Zona and USC. That’s 1-5 or so in games against decent to great opponents where we were underdogs, and 0-2 in games against decent opponents on the road where the spread was close to even (I’m sure I missed a couple games). Not good. Meanwhile, we have been upset by UCLA (at home) and beat down by OSU on the road, both horrible losses. So that huge upside win that gets people fired up about the team has eluded us, yet we have provided some inferior teams with their huge upside win. And frankly, even the exciting close losses against strong opponents like Ohio State and New Mexico were not at home so the excitement was a bit out-of-sight, out-of-mind for some of our fans.
Honestly, our home wins against Washington and USC, along with the two upcoming games against the Zonas are our most marquee home games this side of Murray State. So we have a bad record in potential upset bids and little in the way of exciting home match-ups against good opponents. Again, not good for the fanbase at large.
That could change with scheduling over the years, and we should make a stand and start right now. Arizona and ASU are not great but they are good. These can be great wins if the Bears can pull them off and we allow ourselves to treat them as such! And yeah, there’s that Pac-10 title thing … first in 50 years – I HOPE!
Go Bears!
by tbardhan on Feb 22, 2010 4:11 PM PST reply actions 3 recs
Rec'd for passion!
The reasons you state above make it seem like this has more to do with the general Pac-10 sucking.
Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com
by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2010 4:39 PM PST up reply actions
We shouldn’t have lost to USC, OSU, and UCLA, or gotten blown out as badly as we did in Seattle.
If only 1 or 2 of those things had happened, it would have been considered just a minor roadbump and we still would’ve pretty much locked up the Pac-10 title by now. But all 4 happening really took the wind out of the season. Plus as tbardhan says, although we’ve been upset several times, we haven’t really upset anyone else. It makes you question how good the team actually is. I won’t root for them any less, but for example, if we make the NCAA tourney play Maryland again as is currently projected, I’m not particularly sanguine about avoiding a repeat of last year.
by atomsareenough on Feb 22, 2010 4:48 PM PST up reply actions
Just bought my Cal-Stanfurd ticket for 3/6
Had to do it on the Stanfurd site, and now I feel dirty. I had to come here to make a cleansing post.
3.6 or 3.7. 3.6 is the womans game, 3.7 is the mens game
President Emperor Warlord Of The Sun!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
Um, from your DBD:
BERKELEY – The Cal-Stanford game on Saturday, March 6, at Maples Pavilion will be televised on Fox Sports Net with a tip time scheduled for 3 p.m.
Ragnarok said it was on the Sunday.
President Emperor Warlord Of The Sun!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
My theory: People aren’t that enthusiastic because this team isn’t any better than a lot of teams that we have had recently – Last year’s team, the last Powe team, the Shipp/Wethers teams. I think any of those teams would have won the conference this season. We just haven’t objectively improved much from the Braun Era (though if we still had Braun, I assume we would be terrible.)
I think this team’s seniors are great (but thought the same thing about Shipp and Wethers.) I think Monty is a real difference-maker (but Braun had some success too). I think all of this is an amalgamation of the reasons mentioned above:
We have no Jason Kidd.
There is no other team in the conference I would be excited to see (the Shipp/Wethers era teams I think benefitted a lot from playing freaking awesome Arizona and Stanford teams, the hateable UCLA and USC teams, the emerging Oregon and Washington teams.)
We aren’t terribly exciting (though a big step up from the Braun years),
We have no freshmen of note (which made an otherwise unspectacular 2003-2004 season a lot more fun.)
Plus – I think the impression to some degree is that while Monty has done an awesome job with the motley crew we have now – next year is when he really is going to put his stamp on the program. I think this is the really awesome part – we might win a conference title (might!) but its not like Monty is going to be satisfied with that. Good time to be a Cal hoops fan.
- As always – I have watched every game I could possibly see, as I have always done. But I will admit – I was way more into last year’s team than this season’s team.
It’s the feeling I’m kinda getting. The Bears are at the top of the conference by default this year. It’s not like they’re going out and gangbusting. They’re just in first because no else has been good enough to take it away from them.
Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com
by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2010 5:39 PM PST up reply actions
I think the unfair pre-season expectations hurt this team. Realistically, last year’s Cal team may have been even better than last year’s, if only because we had a halfway healthy Harper Kamp. Sure, our seniors have more experience, but they already had experience. Sometimes fans fall into an assumption that a team with returning players will automatically improve a certain amount.
This year’s team has the same strengths and weaknesses as last year’s team, but with the added burden of a preseason top 15 ranking. So when we played a more difficult schedule and almost inevitably ‘underperformed’ relative to our ranking fair-weather types tuned out.
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Pac-12 On SBN
Pacific Takes (Pac-12) NORTH AddictedToQuack: (Oregon)
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SOUTH
BruinsNation: (UCLA)
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Golden Bears Football Schedule
| Fresno St. | Sat 09/03 | W 36 - 21 |
@
Colorado
|
Sat 09/10 | W 36 - 33 |
| Presbyterian | Sat 09/17 | W 63 - 12 |
|
@
Washington
|
Sat 09/24 | L 23 - 31 |
|
@
Oregon
|
Thu 10/06 | L 15 - 43 |
|
USC
|
Thu 10/13 | L 9 - 30 |
|
Utah
|
Sat 10/22 | W 34 - 10 |
|
@
UCLA
|
Sat 10/29 | L 14 - 31 |
|
Washington St.
|
Sat 11/05 | W 30 - 7 |
|
Oregon St.
|
Sat 11/12 | W 23 - 6 |
|
@
Stanford
|
Sat 11/19 | L 28 - 31 |
|
@
Arizona St.
|
Fri 11/25 | W 47 - 38 |
|
@
Texas
|
Wed 12/28 | L 10 - 21 |
Pacific-12 Conference Standings
(updated 1.2.2012 at 11:12 PM PST)
| North | Conf | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W | L | |
|
Oregon Ducks
|
8 | 1 | 12 | 2 |
|
Stanford Cardinal
|
8 | 1 | 11 | 2 |
|
Washington Huskies
|
5 | 4 | 7 | 6 |
|
California Golden Bears
|
4 | 5 | 7 | 6 |
|
Oregon St. Beavers
|
3 | 6 | 3 | 9 |
|
Washington St. Cougars
|
2 | 7 | 4 | 8 |
| South | Conf | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W | L | |
|
USC Trojans
|
7 | 2 | 10 | 2 |
|
UCLA Bruins
|
5 | 4 | 6 | 8 |
|
Utah Utes
|
4 | 5 | 8 | 5 |
|
Arizona St. Sun Devils
|
4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
|
Arizona Wildcats
|
2 | 7 | 4 | 8 |
|
Colorado Buffaloes
|
2 | 7 | 3 | 10 |
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