Pete Newell Court

Pete Newell, Cal's coach from 1954-1960, died on Monday at the age of 93.  He led Cal to its last national championship in 1959 and retired shortly thereafter, having beaten John Wooden's Bruin teams 8 times in a row (and without even paying his players).  In fitting irony, Tuesday's game at Haas featured the two teams he led to national titles - USF, which won the NIT in 1949, and Cal.  Cal paid tribute to Newell before the game with an announcement and video presentation, a moment of silence, and the loudest cheer of the evening.  I was sitting with an Old Blue who commented that "Newell was a great coach and an even better person."  Those that knew him speak with glowing admiration; the rest of us will have to settle for the pride in having this great man associated with our University.

This Cal team is going to live and die on its three-point shooting.  We don't have much of an inside presence (more on that later) so we're going to have to rely on Patrick Christopher, Jerome Randle, and Theo Roberston to hit outside shots.  When they're hot, we'll probably win; when they're cold, we'll almost definitely lose.  Last night, Theo was scorching, hitting 5 threes in the first half and scoring 11 straight Cal points during an early stretch.  He found a spot outside the arc about 1/3 of the way to the left baseline and started firing away - I'm pretty sure he hit all of his threes from the same location.  He ended up with 19 of Cal's 38 first half points.  In the second half, Jerome Randle took over the scoring with 21 points in last 20 minutes.  He finished with 25, 3-4 from beyond the arc.

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After watching the Bears' frustrating and disappointing loss up in Corvallis yesterday, I needed some relief.  I found some at the bottom of a beer bottle (the first couple didn't have any, so I had to keep looking), but I find the best way to ease the pain of a Cal defeat is to follow it up with a Cal victory.  With that in mind, CBKWit and I headed over to Haas Pavilion yesterday evening to catch the season opener of the men's basketball team versus the University of the Pacific.

The only interesting shot I managed to take the entire game.

Overall, it was a good game, close enough to be interesting, but there was never really a doubt that Cal was in command.  A couple times Pacific got within 6, but it never really felt like they had a run in them, and the Bears were able to hold off the Tigers and give Mike Montgomery his first victory at Cal.  Here are CBKWit's and my thoughts on last night's victory:

- My (Ragnarok's) new favorite player:  Jorge Gutierrez.  By my count, he drew at least 4 fouls in the first half, and his infectious energy is exactly what our defense needs this year.  He sort of reminds me of A.J. Diggs, if Diggs had any scoring ability whatsoever.

- Defense overall was pretty good in the first half.  Only 20 points given up, and I don't think I saw any uncontested baskets by the Tigers.  Not very many open shots at all.  No, Pacific wasn't shooting lights-out, hands in their face or not, but it was definitely a nice defensive effort.

- One critical defensive improvement I noticed was ball pressure.  Cal was pretty terrible in this area last year (watching Mitch Johnson, he of zero outside shot, get 5 feet to operate and feed the Lopez twins with ease comes to mind), but last night our guards (and forwards, when defending perimeter shooters) pressured Pacific beyond the arc.  Braun's area of expertise was supposedly defense, but if you caught any of the games at Haas last year (Stanford, UW, and especially WSU and Oregon), you didn't see much defensive skill or, even more discouraging, effort.  Last night, for the most part, our guys got after it.

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OK, sure, the Bears beat Seattle Pacific 91-70 Thursday night, but against a Division II team, the victory left a lot to be desired.  Imagine the varsity team having trouble putting away the JV squad, and you can get a pretty good idea of how unsatisfying this victory was.  I know that not too many of us were expecting Coach Montgomery to work miracles in his first season at the helm of the Golden Bears, especially considering that he himself admitted that the roster was not stocked full of Pac-10-caliber players, but until you see it on the court, it doesn't really sink in.

Seattle Pacific proved to be a more difficult matchup than previously anticipated.

Not that this team is terrible; far from it.  There are a number of talented players on this roster, and offensively, I don't know that this team is going to have too much difficulty scoring.  Against what should have been an overmatched Seattle Pacific squad, the Bears put up 91 on the scoreboard while substituting liberally, but were unable to really pull away from the Falcons until midway through the second half.  The reason?  Sloppy team defense.

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Well, Ryan Anderson is gone, and he's not coming back.  He gets to live the NBA dream, which is cool for him and all, but what about the rest of us?  Next winter, when we're still going to Haas Pavilion, rooting on our Bears, what are we gonna see?  Without Ryan, what are we left with?

Well, we've got a shiny new coach, for starters.  Head Coach Mike Montgomery, formerly Evil Arch-Nemesis Mike Montgomery, will try and lift up Cal Basketball from the dregs of mediocrity that it has been mired in the last 5 years or so.  Unfortunately, losing the starting frontcourt to the NBA off of a team that didn't even make the tournament won't make Monty's job any easier.  There's a good bit of talent on remaining on the roster, but will it be enough?

Of course, much of next year's talk will (initially) focus on who's not suiting up for the Bears.  In Anderson and DeVon Hardin, Cal loses its top scorer (Anderson), top 2 rebounders (Anderson and Hardin) and top 2 shot blockers (Hardin and Anderson).  They also lose, in Eric Vierneisel, their second-leading assist-getter (is that how you say it?  assister?  assistant?).  Personally, I never liked the talk about replacing a player's production, especially with stats like scoring and rebounding.  I mean, even if your leading scorer is gone, someone's going to take a shot pretty much every time down the court, right?  And there's still gonna be 5 guys on the floor trying to grab every missed shot, right?

Anyway, Anderson and Hardin gone, and there's nothing we can do about it.  The only thing to do is move forward and focus on the players still at Cal.  So let's do that.  If I'm picking the best five players to start each game, here's my starting lineup:

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The California Golden Blogs West Coast Office got together with 450 other Cal fans to hear Sandy, Mike, and Jeff speak on Monday night.  TwistNHook provided the pink plastic sunglasses, Ragnarok and HydroTech provided the ladies, and I provided the...pen.  Exactly one of us remembered to bring a writing utensil.  Yes, we've got a pretty good handle on this blogging thing, thank you very much.

If you live in the east bay and weren't able to make it, you missed out.  Two hours of candid talk from our three highest profile Athletic Department employees and barbecue buffet, all for FREE?  Are you kidding me??  Twenty-five bucks for chicken skewers doesn't seem like such a great deal any more.  What did you guys think?

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