Cal men's basketball: What excites you about this team?

atomsareenough: What's not to be excited about?! We've got some players this year! We're going to be young, but we should be pretty talented as well. We have several high-IQ players who can distribute and shoot the three ball such as Cobbs, Mathews, Singer, and Kreklow. We have guys who can run and jump such as Wallace, Bird, and Moute. We have solid all-around post players in Solomon and Kravish. We should be able to run up to 9 deep, and I think this will be an exciting, fun team to watch.

Sam Fielder: I'm most excited about the experience and depth that we're bringing back. We had a solid but thin team last year and while losing Crabbe definitely hurts, I'm excited to see how the new guys fit in and set up, how Kreklow looks now that he's finally healthy, and how Solo and Kravish look this year. So really, I'm pretty excited about everything for this year, which means I'm a Cal fan, it's the pre-season, and hope springs eternal.

Ruey Yen: Since I follow plenty of the other fall Cal sports than just football, I have seen and experienced the thrills of plenty of Cal victories on multiple occasions this fall. For Cal fans who only follows the higher profile sports, Cal Men's Basketball season is probably going to be exciting just for the simple fact that the Bears will win plenty of games (they obviously also play more games than Football). While I will be realistic about the number of big upsets that we should expect from the team, Cal Men's Basketball was able to create great moments like last year's wins over Oregon and the win at Arizona. I can't wait to see what kind of signature moments that is ahead of this year's team.

While it would be great to win the conference, I am not entirely certain that the Bears have that great of a shot to do that. I certainly believe that we should be in the mix for the conference title, but a 2nd or 3rd place finish is probably more realistic. Assuming that Justin Cobbs is healthy, we have a great mix of returning starters (Cobbs, Richard Solomon, David Kravish, and Tyrone Wallce may have taken a step forward) and exciting newcomers (Jabari Bird mostly, but also Rooks and Singer). The biggest X-factor may yet again be how much depth (or lack there of) does the Bears have. If Ricky Kreklow and Christian Behrens are both healthy, I like the chance of this team making it to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.

LeonPowe: I want to see J. Cobbs put together a season that gets him paid at the next level. If he plays well enough to be drafted and Bird is everything that is expected, we'll be able to make a second weekend run.