More like Cougar Day.  We face WSU, but we also have UW on the horizon.  If the weather cooperates and Cal can make it up there, this should be a great weekend for hoops.  Cal is hoping to build off of its momentum from sweeping the Arizona schools.

First up, the Cougs:

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Use this thread as an open thread for the game today against ASU:

Arizona State Sun Devils (12-1, 1-0) at California Golden Bears (12-2, 1-0)
Sunday, Jan. 4, 5:00 p.m., Haas Pavilion, Berkeley, Calif.
Radio: KYOU (1550 AM) TV: Comcast SportsNet California

via grfx.cstv.com

December has come to a close, January has just started up, the bowl games are beginning to wind down, and Cal fans have a long nine months until Cal football starts up again.  But fear not, readers desperate for their Golden Bear fix:  the end of football season only means that we're smack dab in the middle of basketball season!

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Who else is jonesin' for some college football?  Who else is up at 8AM today just to watch the first bowl game, no matter who's playing?  Am I the only crazy-obsessed person around here?

For some info on all of today's games, check out Yellow Fever's Bowl Game Blowout! I.

First up:  Wake Forest vs. Navy in the inaugural EagleBank Bowl (lol wut?) at 8AM this morning on ESPN.

Then:  Colorado State vs. Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl at 11:30AM on ESPN.

Followed by:  Memphis vs. South Florida in the inaugural magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl at 1:30PM on ESPN2.  When I first heard of this bowl game, I wondered why they were holding a bowl game in Russia; was anyone else confused?

Take a break at 3PM and switch over to CSN Bay Area +, where Cal Basketball resumes after its break for finals to take on the Nevada Wolfpack.

Finally:  #16 BYU vs. Arizona in the Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl at 5PM on ESPN.

EDIT:  Also, if you haven't heard, Cal completed its 2009 football schedule with a home game vs. Eastern Washington on September 12.  As of now, the schedule features 12 straight weeks of football -- no BYE weeks.  From the article:

Cal will try to make adjustments, but Tedford has said he'd like to keep the Big Game as the traditional season-ender.

As of now, the schedule stands as follows:

Sept. 5 - Maryland
Sept. 12 - Eastern Washington
Sept. 19 - at Minnesota
Sept. 26 - at Oregon
Oct. 3 - USC
Oct. 10 - at Washington
Oct. 17 - at UCLA
Oct. 24 - Washington State
Oct. 31 - at Arizona State
Nov. 7 - Oregon State
Nov. 14 - Arizona
Nov. 21 - at Stanford

Part I

Part II

In the first installment, we looked at some recent history of the Cal women's basketball team.  In the second installment, we looked at some of the players on this team.  Now, let's take a closer look at some more players that will be key for this team and the future.  And let's also take a look at how the team has done so far. 

And if you want to see something akin to this scene again, you might need to go to a woman's basketball game this year:

"Haas, packed and rocking!"  via graphics.fansonly.com

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I don't know how many of you are going to be able to watch today's men's basketball game at Missouri, but I thought I'd leave this open thread for those of you who can.  I'll be listening to the game on the radio and adding some comments; feel free to chime in with your own.

If you don't get ESPN U, thanks to Avinash, here is an online stream:  http://www.justin.tv/prd74test

Look, I know that the vast majority of our readership, especially those guys from CougCenter, are women's studies majors.  So, there's no real reason to go over the entire history of the American feminist movement as it relates to Cal Women's Basketball.  But just for the few stragglers who might have slept through "Alternate Sexualities In A Transnational World," here is a quick primer.  Let's Wikped!

via upload.wikimedia.org

First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States. It focused on de jure (officially mandated) inequalities, primarily on gaining women's suffrage (the right to vote).

Second-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the 1960s and lasted through the late 1970s. Where first-wave feminism focused mainly on overturning legal (de jure) obstacles to equality, second-wave feminism addressed unofficial (de facto) inequalities as well as official ones.

And that brings us to the Third Wave.

Third-wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of awesome domination of collegiate American basketball in the earliest part of the 21st century by California women's basketball.  The movement arose as a response to perceived possible failures and backlash against initiatives and movements created by Ben Braun c. 1996 through 2008.

So, forget De Jure obstacles, forget De Facto inequalities, let's focus on De Vanei Hampton.  Put down that Betty Freidan masterpiece and let's learn a little bit more about our women's basketball team.

"I have many buttons on my pants!" via i.a.cnn.net

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The Bears controlled this game almost from the opening tip.

Sometimes you can learn a lot from watching a 30-point blowout; I'm sure of it.  Thursday night was not one of those times.

Instead, I witnessed the first round of the hideously non-descriptively-named "Global Sports Classic", a marketing debacle if ever there was one.  I have no idea what is 'global' about this tournament, unless you take the Bears' opponent's name, 'Texas Pan-American', literally, and calling the first edition of something 'classic' is just a wee bit pretentious, don't you think?  Moreover, the name of the tournament doesn't even imply basketball; "Global Sports Classic" could just as easily apply to a croquet club tournament in Duluth, MN, as it could to this bizarre manifestation of a college basketball tournament.

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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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(not to be confused with the Asian Tigers)

So, I know there's this somewhat important football game up in Corvallis tomorrow, but we've talked plenty about that.  What we haven't talked about at all is the first Men's Basketball game of the year, which is happening in Berkeley almost immediately following the game (5PM tomorrow).  The men will be taking on the University of the Pacific Tigers, a team which I know virtually nothing about.  So, to prepare myself for tomorrow's game, I did a little research.  Here's what I came up with:

The University of the Pacific is located in Stockton, California.  If you've never visited their campus before, don't bother; I have, and I can't think of a single notable or interesting thing about it.  Which is pretty much how I feel about Stockton as a whole, but that's neither here nor there.  Their basketball team is actually pretty good, going 21-10 last year, good for 2nd in the Big West, though a quarterfinal loss to UC Irvine in the conference tournament probably cost them a shot at the NCAA's, which they've been to 3 out of the last 5 years.  Actually, looking over their schedule from last year, there isn't a whole lot to be impressed about.  A 70-66 win over Nevada is pretty good, but other than an 80-64 loss at Oregon, they didn't play a whole lot of teams that weren't either second-tier UC schools or CSUs.

Gone this year is leading scorer Steffan Johnson (14.5 ppg), but second-leading scorer  (12.8 ppg) Chad Troyer, a 6' 4" guard, returns, as does Anthony Brown (10.7 ppg), a 6' 7" senior forward, who has been named to the Big West's Preseason All-Conference Team.  I imagine he's going to be the guy the Tigers' offense will run through.

Pacific's star senior forward, Anthony Brown.  -  Image via grfx.cstv.com

There's not a lot of size on this roster for the Bears to contend with, with just 3 players on the roster standing 6' 8" or taller, with 6' 9" forward Sam Willard the tallest.  Statistically, none of the Tigers' big guys made a big impact last year; Bryan LeDuc led the bigs by averaging 6.9 ppg and 3.9 rpg, playing less than 17 minutes per game.  I imagine the Bears will try and work Jordan Wilkes (and Max Zhang) into the lineup a good amount, but if they're forced to win with taller forwards like Jamal Boykin and Omondi Amoke (and Harper Kamp, if he's able to go), I don't think Bears will suffer too much.

On the perimeter, Chad Troyer is the guy most likely to hurt the Bears.  The senior shot 44% from beyond the arc last year, and if the Bears give him as many open looks as they gave some of Seattle Pacific's shooters last week, he'll knock a few down.  The Bears' strength this year will be on the perimeter, and they need to press that advantage and lock down the outside shooters.

In contrast to our younger Bears (not one player on our team is in their final year of eligibility), Pacific brings 4 seniors and 4 juniors to Haas on Saturday, the sort of experience that good mid-majors use to make a tournament run.  I don't have any idea how good they actually are (they're picked to finish 3rd in the Big West, for what that's worth), but I get them sense that they won't be any sort of early-season patsy for the Bears.  They're the sort of team that a good, tournament-ready Pac-10 team should handle easily at home, but I honestly don't know what our Bears will do.  Forced to predict, I might say Bears by 8, but I wouldn't bet on it.