Golden Nuggets: Ivan Rabb Speaks Out At NBA Combine

Congratulations to all Cal student athletes who are graduating this week, all Cal students in general, and any Golden Blogs readers regardless of where they are enrolled.

Men’s Basketball

• Ivan Rabb justified staying an extra year at Cal while speaking to reporters at the NBA Combine.

• Rabb worked out for Portland where he talked about the idea of playing with fellow Oaklander Damian Lilliard (who he knows personally). Not sure Rabb would be available at pick 15, but he would love to play there.
• Rabb later did an interview for the Boston Celtics. Of course, he talked about being mentored by Jaylen Brown.

• Wyking Jones’s contract details have been announced.

Women’s Basketball

• The WNBA season began on Saturday. Layshia Clarendon and Brittany Boyd made it to their team’s opening day rosters.

Baseball

• The San Francisco Chronicle did a feature on Andrew Vaughn. Did you know he has more home runs in 2017 than any Giants or A’s player right now?
• Cal gets a 2019 commit in pitcher Eli Wood, who was a teammate of current pitcher Jared Horn in Napa. Hope that means the program is confident in being around by then.
• Cal fell behind 5-2 to Stanford but rallied in the late innings to tie it. Unfortunately, Furd prevailed in the 10th inning with a two-out rally. The teams play at Noon today.

Softball

• Cal won the first two games against Oregon State but lost on Senior Day yesterday. Both the Bears and Beavers are on the NCAA Tourney bubble. Find out if the Bears get in at 7PM on ESPN2. UPDATE: They’re in!

• This Cal Sports Quarterly feature on senior Vanessa Alvarez, published in print very early in the season, is now available online. She wound up having a pretty good season after missing most of 2015 and all of 2016 with injuries (That’s the focus of the article).

Track and Field

• Congratulations to Peter Simon. He became the first Cal player in 36 years to win the Pac-12 shot put title.

Soccer

• Jonathan Klinsmann was named to the Team USA Under-20 squad and will play in the U-20 World Cup next week! Recently, he lead Team USA to a CONCACAF championship (their first ever), which is why the squad is in the U-20 World Cup, and received a Golden Glove Award for his efforts.

Swimming

• Hayden Tavoda of the Women’s Diving team is headed to the Netherlands to take a Public Health program, after graduating from Cal this year. She had a stellar diving career here.
• Ryan Murphy, decorated Olympian, is also a decorated champion in the classroom. He was named to the 2016-17 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-District™ Men's At-Large Team. The disctrict covers the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii. This honor nominates him for the All-America honor, which will be announced in a few weeks.

Golf

• This article from a few months ago about the Men’s Golf team, previously only available in the Cal Sports Quarterly, is now available online.
• Men’s Golf season as a team ended, but Collin Morikawa will go for an individual title. First he has to play in the Stanford Regionals with 9 other individuals (and 13 teams). Top 5 individuals (outside of those 13 teams) and Top 5 teams advance to the NCAA Championships. Good luck!

Rugby

• The Cal Rugby family is struggling over the tragic injury to Robert Paylor.

Football

• Trace’s look at the offensive line for the 2017 season.
• Trace also compiled a list of every high school player that has received an offer by Cal for 2018.
• Details of Tim DeRuyter’s contract is out.
• NJ.com did a scouting report on Davis Webb at his first Minicamp for the New York Giants.
• Don’t give up on Jared Goff (none of us were doing that right?). He is “exceeding expectations” in his first Minicamp (a few weeks ago) under new coach McVay.

Athletics

• The new Cal Athletics Hall of Fame class is here! It was revealed just a tad after I finished my last Golden Nuggets. It includes Jason Kidd. The induction in September 8 and there will also be a ceremony at the September 9 Cal Football home opener. Full class is here.

As always, Go Bears.