Jason Kidd Cal Basketball Retrospective, Part I: Freshman Year
by Avinash Kunnath on May 20, 2011 3:16 AM PDT
in California Golden Bears Men's Basketball
Email
Print
With Jason Kidd fighting for perhaps his last chance to win an NBA ring with the Dallas Mavericks, we thought it'd be a good time to look back at Kidd's career at Cal and reflect on his overall legacy with the California Golden Bears. Without question he's the greatest basketball player to ever suit up for the Bears at Harmon Gym. He's still proving that at 38 years old, he can play with the best in the world. He played effective defense on Kobe Bryant to help sweep the champs, and notched up five steals in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals to keep the Mavs in it against the Oklahoma City Thunder. This won't be a legacy ring; Kidd will have earned his long elusive prize.
(via NBA)
Kodiak, LeonPowe and Ohio Bear were all there to witness Kidd as a Bear. We recap the best moments in a three part series.
Ohio Bear: Jason Kidd: the greatest player I have ever seen play for Cal.
My Kidd memories really begin when I was a junior at Cal, interning at KGO-TV in San Francisco. One of the sports guys did a feature on Jason Kidd, who at that time was a junior at St. Joe's HS in Alameda and already regarded as one of the best (if not THE best) high school basketball player in America. I wasn't really a high school basketball enthusiast or a recruitnik, but 'd heard of Kidd, only because I had read a couple of articles about him in the Bay Area papers. The kid (pun intended) had been viewed as a basketbal prodigy since he was in the 8th grade, if not sooner.
Anyway, as we were talking about the interview, the KGO sports guy said to me: "Don't even think about it. No way he'd go to Cal." So I didn't think about it.
For those who were there, share your memories of Kidd's freshman season in the comments. (Sophomore season to be covered in Part II). After the jump, highlight videos!
(via adlee78)
I figured that Lou Campanelli (our coach at the time) wouldn't be able to get a recruit like that anyway. At no time had Campanelli ever recruited anyone close to that caliber at Cal. Brian Hendrick had probably been his best recruit to that point; as good as he was, Brian was not all world like Jason.
But then, it happened. It started with the boffo recruiting class of 1991: Monty Buckley, Alfred Grigsby, K.J. Roberts, and Lamond Murray. Then the next year, we got a commitment from Jerod Haase. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Jason Kidd decided to spurn Kansas and stay home to attend Cal.
LeonPowe: My Jason Kidd memory begins around January/February of 1992 when I was a senior in high school. I had just gotten into Berkeley, and I remember reading in the Cal High Sports newspaper that the #1 basketball recruit in the country was considering Cal. But I really didn't put 2 and 2 together until McDonald's All American game, when I watched the co-#1 recruit in the country play. In a continuing example of my lack of basketball scouting eye, I thought "really? this guy?" (This would go on to repeat itself when I saw Yao Ming at an early stage and predicted he'd never be strong enough to play in the NBA and also, when I thought that Billy Owens was going to re-define the small forward position in the NBA).
Fast forward to October, and its Midnight Madness at Harmon -Gym- Arena. The band is playing, and this guy comes in with a freshly shaved head. It was clear from the first practice that he was seeing angles that no one else was seeing - not even his teammates, as they failed to finish these seeing-eye passes.
Kodiak: My dad and I drove up to watch Night Court for the first time because Cal had this new player who was supposed to be pretty good. Despite coming off a losing season (10-18?), the stands in old Harmon were packed. It was a long wait to get in - almost like trying to get into a concert. The new guy didn't look all that impressive in the opening drills. Not much of a jump shooter. But, then the actual scrimmage started. You could tell that the game just moved at a different speed for him. He saw things that other guys just didn't see and he saw them before they happened. We all got a good laugh over him bouncing a no-look pass off the side of Ryan Jamison's head. He completed a number of alley-oops which got the crowd fired up. He also had the audacity to try an off the backboard pass more than once, but couldn't get one of those to go down.
LeonPowe: But the season didn't start out that well for the Bears - culminating in an ugly loss to James Madison in December which began the dominos which eventually toppled Coach Campenelli midseason.
Ohio Bear: It was a tumultuous year for Cal basketball. Expectations were high in Berkeley because of the wealth of talent, albeit young talent, on the Bears' roster and Kidd was considered the Jesus in Sneakers of his time. In a controversial move, Athletic Director Bob Bockrath fired Coach Campanelli midseason after a 10-7 start due to verbal abuse of players. But after assistant coach Todd Bozeman took over the team, Cal went on a tear, due in no small part to the play of Kidd.
kidd from cal - part 2a - freshman season (via adlee78)
Sure, Kidd has his moments prior to the Campanelli firing. My first glimpse of how good he could be was in the nationally televised Oklahoma State game in December 1992. With Dick Vitale yelling his head off at Harmon, Jason "The Captain" Kidd (a moniker coined by Dickie V.) had his coming out party.
I remember one of Vitale's calls after a great assist by Kidd. It basically went like this --
"OHHHH! ARE YOU SERIOUS? ARE YOUR SERIOUS? IT'S AWESOME BABY. IT'S JASON. JASON THE CAPTAIN KIDD!"
LeonPowe: So the 2nd game that Coach Bozeman coached ended up against USC which was a decent, but not elite squad, but had the utterly annoying Burt Cooper. I remember Kidd took over the game down the stretch into overtime - and sealed the game by missing a layup - grappling with two Trojans for the rebound, powering up and finishing with the and 1.
That was the loudest I'd ever heard Harmon - which was an extraordinarily loud gym to begin with - and when we won that game, we rushed the court - mainly in relief - but oh it was a joyous rushing!
Ohio Bear: Kidd was also fantastic in a 101-81 drubbing of Ucla at Pauley Pavilion, a signature win by Cal that happened less than a month before Campanelli's firing. But it was the winning streak and NCAA tournament that truly launched Kidd into stardom. If memory serves, Cal lost only once during the remainder of the regular season after the Campanelli firing.
LeonPowe: We finished that Pac-10 season on a roll and the team was starting to come together. With 3-time all-Pac-10 Center, Brian Hendrick, multi-talented combo guard KJ Roberts, scoring machine Lamond Murray, rugged PF Al Grigsby - then off the bench was my favorite Cal Bear of all time Monty Buckley, freshman defensive specialist shooting guard Jerod Haase, Ryan Jamison, Rich Branham and Akili Jones - we were deep and finally unleashed from Couch Lou's slow it down and set-up offense.
I mean seriously - you can't run set plays when you have the best fast breaking point guard of the last 15 years on your team.
The two games Cal played in the NCAA tournament - well, really what can you say. The pretzel layup that Kidd made to beat LSU in the first round and then the one-hand cross over, go baseline, throw pass to Lamond that almost gets stolen, pick the ball off the floor, shovel it in while getting fouled layup was the greatest Cal moment I had experienced as a fan - even better than beating Oregon 42-41 or Desean returning punts against Tennessee.
Ohio Bear: Kidd was the reason Cal won its first round game against LSU -- the "pretzel shot" off the backboard for the gamewinner was typical Jason Kidd. And so was the performance against Duke in the second round, in particular the play late in the game where Jason picked up a loose ball underneath, wrestling it away from a couple of Blue Devils, and went up for an "and 1." (Verne Lundquist on the play-by-play: "OH MY. OH, GOODNESS!") That play showed the type of strength Jason had: then-Washington State coach Kelvin Sampson once quipped about Kidd: "He's not a point guard. He's a pulling guard."
(via adlee78)
LeonPowe: And then we just ran out of gas against Kansas. But that only made us hungry for Jason's sophomore season.
27 comments
|
1 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Kidd arrived at Cal after I had left, so I only got a couple of chances to see him play in real life, including the humiliation of Uclol in Pauley, in which we handful of Cal fans present took endless and (embarassingly) obnoxious glee. Whatever, they’re Uclol fans, they deserved it.
However, my most vivid memory was in the NCAA tourney game against Dook. I was in Las Vegas and had placed a pretty sweet bet on the Bears to beat the spread. It was clear with about 5 minutes left in the game that the money was mine, but the real fun came from the 95% or more of the crowd who were either Dookies or just gave Cal low regard. With each Cal basket, Dook miss, or other positive play for Cal the crowd would boo, spurring me and my couple of friends to again engage in obnoxious glee.
As to favorite Cal player, Kidd is right up there for me. Though, since I was in their cohort and they did finally break the streak, I have a soft spot for KJ and Leonard Taylor.
Go Bears!
I'm thinking of having a little party down in Newport.
I was able to attend both of the NCAA tourney games in Chicago, and despite not being a a big basketball fan, those games remain the most thrilling Cal sporting events I’ve seen live—except perhaps for the 1986 Big Game.
This was an era when 95% of America, and 99% of the Midwest, had no idea who “Cal” was. (UCLA? Cal State? They’re in the Pac-10?). So it was especially prideful to walk through the crowd, wearing Cal gear, getting high-fives from a bunch of random neutral fans who were almost as thrilled as we were to have witnessed one of the most significant upsets in college sports during the 1990s. It really was a landmark moment: both the arrival on the national stage of a new star, and the shocking defeat of a Duke team that was an absolute juggernaut at the time. It reminded me a little of when Russell White returned that kick-off against Miami, except Kidd’s moment was nationally televised and the Bears actually won the game!
Thanks for the memories.
Go Bears!
by California Pete on May 20, 2011 7:29 AM PDT reply actions
Man...
I really despised Lou. Don’t get me wrong. He was better than Dick Kuchen, who was at Cal my freshman year. But that corny jacket, the most boring offense this side of Ben Braun, Todd Bozeman, for all of his considerable faults, knew how to win and brought Cal basketball into the modern era. He recruited all of the athletes on that Kidd team, and it turns out that he could coach too. It’s just that he got caught cheating. I actually don’t fault him for cheating, just that he was dumb enough to get caught. Lou, on the other hand, was such a great coach that college tripped over themselves to not hire him after he left Cal. Instead, he became commissioner of Pac 10 officials, (SARCASM ALERT!) the greatest officials in college basketball…
Lawrence Ross
I actually don’t fault [Bozeman] for cheating, just that he was dumb enough to get caught.
I really gotta disagree with you there. I was a fan of Bozeman when he was hired, though maybe not a fan of the nature of his hiring. But for all the positives he brought with him (energy, enthusiasm, amazing athletes and wins), the fact that he cheated tarnishes his legacy. We’re not one of those athlete mills — we should demand better than the cut-rate sports glory seen at other so-called universities. I’m glad Bozeman seems to have gotten himself straightened out and I hope he has as much success as possible. But the scandal he brought to Cal is not acceptable.
I'm thinking of having a little party down in Newport.
by SoCal Oski on May 20, 2011 8:46 AM PDT up reply actions 4 recs
It’s only a scandal because he got caught, though. ;)
by Missing Barry on May 20, 2011 9:02 AM PDT up reply actions
I disagree...
One of the football coaches we just elected as the 8th best Cal coach, Mike White, cheated and won. Cal plays big boy college sports, so the idea of being an athletic mill and not being an athletic mill is simply degrees. Recently, people have said that Cal has created a gap over UCLA because we’ve suddenly opened our admissions to kids like Marshawn Lynch, who in the 80s and 90s wouldn’t have been admitted, and supposedly couldn’t be admitted to UCLA. Again, one mans athletic mill… Also, when it comes to cheating, no one remembers that UCLA’s John Wooden had uber booster Sam Gilbert supporting the basketball with golden handshakes, nor does anyone seem to worry about John Calipari’s past as he leave programs smoldering via cheating allegations. So do I fault Bozeman for cheating? Nah. Do I fault him for using his own money for a mediocre (though highly hyped hs kid), having an affair w/an undergrad, and then being involved in a pyramid scheme? Yeah, I got him on that. But if you think KIdd got to Cal because he was local, I’ve gotta tall clock to sell you in the middle of the campus.
Lawrence Ross
Recently, people have said that Cal has created a gap over UCLA because we’ve suddenly opened our admissions to kids like Marshawn Lynch, who in the 80s and 90s wouldn’t have been admitted, and supposedly couldn’t be admitted to UCLA.
Yes, people have said that. They are called Ucla fans.
Keeping January 1 open. You know, just in case.
by Ohio Bear on May 21, 2011 5:35 AM PDT up reply actions 3 recs
Slime factor
While I agree that cheating is probably more a matter of degrees than absolutes, I think there is a point to where a program becomes “slimy”. Sliminess is merely a perceptive descriptor, but at some point, you just kind of feel the slime oozing out. SC, SEC, and now Ohio St. all have a film of sliminess to them.
When we first landed Kidd & Murray, it was so out of the blue that I didn’t get that vibe from our BB program. As Bozeman continued and the rumors started finding their way out, our program got that slimy sheen to it. On the other end of the spectrum, Duke may be cheating worse than any of them, but you just never get the slimy feel about them.
Although never accused of any violations, I felt the same way around Bruce Snyder’s teams. I think his ’91 team ended the season as the highest ranked Cal team in decades, I just never felt great about them.
I may be delusional, but both Montgomery and Tedford feel clean to me. When they win, it’s easy to be proud to be a Bear.
I agree, both Monty and Tedford feel clean to me. I think one of their main attractions is that they run and operate programs that are aboveboard. However, in order to stay in this big boy game, everyone goes to the margins. I mean, even though there’s NOTHING to say that we did anything wrong, remember the guy who is at the center of the Oregon investigation about steering kids to the Ducks? We paid him a bit of money too. So there are degrees, as you say.
Lawrence Ross
Todd Bozeman, for all of his considerable faults, knew how to win
Not with you on this one. The 1993-94 team, for all of its talent, underachieved greatly. And the 1994-95 and 1995-96 post-Kidd & Murray teams were underachievers as well.
Bozeman, IMO, was not ready to be a head coach at that time. The mess he left bears that out.
Keeping January 1 open. You know, just in case.
by Ohio Bear on May 20, 2011 9:25 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
I don’t think the 94/95 team was underachieving. With role player Monty Buckley (my favorite Cal Bear of all time) and injured Al Grigsby as their best players – a 13-16 season was right about where they should’ve been. I agree 93/94 and 95/96 underachieved – both getting bounced in the first round of the NCAAs. He was a decent defensive coach, but his offense was “Jason – go!” and then “Shareef, you take the ball and score”
The 94-95 team left me wanting more. True enough, we lost Kidd and Murray. But we had a more experienced Buckley and Duck, and should have had a really good defensive team with Yogi as a shot blocking force. And remember: we beat Ucla at Pauley Pavilion, the only loss of the season for a team that won the NC.
Keeping January 1 open. You know, just in case.
I agree with Ohio Bear… Bozeman could recruit, but he had MANY faults. First and foremost, a deficit in ethics. Secondly, he was not good (ie really bad) when it came to X’s and O’s. His motto for one of his team’s season was “Two Baskets and A Ball, Just Play.” And that really summarized his coaching abilities- it works sometimes when Kidd is your point guard. But the rest of the time, it was ugly.
In the end, he was second, behind Holmoe, for my least favorite Cal sports figure.
Can’t wait for Part II!
I was a ball boy for the men’s team at Cal during Kidd’s final years, which was an incredible experience that I really enjoyed, but I don’t think I fully appreciated at the time.
If you keep throwing up Kidd form Cal videos, make sure you include the one towards the end of the movie when the students rush the court at Harmon (one of the last games there I think), if you look close you can see a chubby kid with a bowl cut run across the bottom of the screen with a sweat broom… that was me!
"Remember the Maine! TO HELL WITH STANFORD!"
kidd went to my high school
and won us a couple of state championships. go pilots!
Lived in Clark Kerr my Freshman year
and there was always this rumor/legend about Kidd’s recruitment. Supposedly, we had some sort of sports groupie hookup similar to all the stories we hear about Oregon girls meeting recruits at the airport and “showing them around” all weekend.
But the story goes that after JKidd finished up his biznaz in a car in the Building 12 parking lot, he committed to Cal that night….
6 1st round draft picks, 2 Super Bowl Champions and counting
by Another Successful Tedford QB on May 20, 2011 10:21 AM PDT reply actions
Go Bears!
California Golden Bears: 2nd place is nothing to sneeze at!
by atomsareenough on May 20, 2011 11:44 AM PDT up reply actions
Recruiting rumors
[I don’t give any credibility to this story. at all. but I think it’s funny]
The rumor that my friends I heard was that since Jason was from a middle class family and already had a car (late 80s Honda Accord – saw him driving it all the time, until he declared to go pro, then he had some sort of Japanese SUV) was that there was a Cal alum with a horse farm in the Oakland Hills and as part of his commitment, Jason was allowed to go ride the horses anytime he wanted.
Are “horse farm” and “ride the horses” euphemisms?
Keeping January 1 open. You know, just in case.
by Ohio Bear on May 20, 2011 7:53 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Genius with a ball
I was attending Cal games throughout his career, and I’ve never seen a player do what Jason did. It was magic. Like a Beethoven symphony or a Steinbeck novel, there are people whose abilities simply defy description or summation. Jason is to basketball, to me, what other great artists are to their realm. Just a freak of ability. I watched him play against UCLA at the Oakland Arena, and I had a seat on the floor, mid-court. I’ve never seen such a dominating performance from all angles. Typical Kidd, he didn’t score the most points, he just completely dominated the game, against the then #1 Bruins. Always felt that if Bozeman wasn’t such a bozo coach, Kidd and Cal could have been national contenders.
Anyway, this post gets me all nostalgic. Unfortunately, like others with great genius in one area, it says nothing about their abilities in others. Seems Jason has quite a troubled personal life, but I imagine he will always be my favorite Bear basketball player for the way he made that ball game look so easy. Sure hope he gets a ring, just for the fun of it.
Spectacular post
I have nothing to add since I was too young to appreciate or even remember much of anything about Kidd’s time at Cal
The #1 greatest threat to America: BEARS
Eye Opening Performance
Okay, going off topic… or onto a tangent at least.
I was living in DC when Kidd was around, so can’t add to it much here. I missed most of this era. However, when you said this, Nick, it reminded me of the game at Haas a few years ago when Cal played Northeastern. They had this little white non-descript point guard who had won the entire crowd over by the end. I think he had 27 points, and was making play after play after play to keep his squad in the game. Whether it was long range shots, drives to the basket, steals, assists… this little library kid was doing it all! The crowd was ooo’ing and ahhh’ing by the end.
I think Cal barely won at the end, but I recall feeling a bit bad for this dude because it had been a tremendous display of basketball. I thought he got lucky that night, but then went home to read that he was actually a known ‘good’ player. He eventually made the NBA (shock #2) and is now, coincidentally enough, helping Kidd with the Mavericks try to get that NBA title. His name? J.J. Barea.
Go Mavericks.
I remember...
For some reason I was home in SoCal during the ‘93 Dook game (I think the game was during spring break that year,) and I was driving back from visiting some friends. I was driving by myself while listening to the game and remember the very end, when Kidd led Cal to a victory, I started screaming like a maniac. I was jumping so much, that I nearly crashed into a car in the next lane! Not the recommended celebration while driving. That is one of the sweetest memories I have of a Cal sporing event and I didn’t even see it!
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
GoldenBlogs' FAQ and Community Guidelines
Related FanPosts on California Golden Blogs
Related FanShots on California Golden Blogs
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
FanShots
Quick hits of video, photos, quotes, chats, links and lists that you find around the web.
Recommended FanShots
Recent FanShots
I recorded the entire last out as Cal clinches the first ever PAC12 Softball Title! It was also a...
Pac-12 On SBN
Pacific Takes (Pac-12) NORTH AddictedToQuack: (Oregon)
UW Dawg Pound: (Washington)
CougCenter: (Washington State)
BuildingTheDam: (Oregon State)
Rule Of Tree: (Stanford)
CaliforniaGoldenBlogs: (Cal)
SOUTH
BruinsNation: (UCLA)
ConquestChronicles: (USC)
HouseOfSparky: (ASU)
Arizona Desert Swarm: (Arizona)
TheRalphieReport: (Colorado)
Block U: (Utah)
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 |
