Golden Nuggets: Looking Back at MBB’s First 2018 Win

Still a slow news time for the Cal Athletics program, but as the Olympic Sports are approaching some articles have popped up.

Men’s Basketball

• Trace looks back at the Oregon/Oregon State weekend series.

It’s still a year of looking for improvement for this Cal Men’s basketball team. With the youth of the group playing as big of a role as it has, these struggles that they’ve had are a bit endemic. There’s turnover problems, defensive gambles that lead to easy shots, bad fouls, indecision, you name it, they’ve done it. It lead to one of the worst losing streaks in Cal history, a 9 game skid that was finally broken against Oregon State.

The losing streak was something that the players noted as not being a focus, as head coach Wyking Jones said after the Oregon State game that the coaches never brought it up to them, but the staff brought it up privately among themselves.

• Ned Averbuck will be honored at the Cal/Stanford game on the 18th as he will receive the Pete Newell Career Achievement Award.

Baseball

• It was not that long ago that an unimaginable tragedy hit Jared Horn and Cal Baseball. Last weekend he took the mound in Training Camp (his second start) and Ryan Gorcey had the scoop.

Getting to that final inning, though, was a bit of a slog for Horn, who was clearly frustrated after giving up his second three-run home run of the day to Jonah Davis -- an opposite-field job that followed an earlier rocket to right by Tanner Dodson.

”I think when he’s going good, he’s kind of a complete pitcher, where he can throw that change up, he can command his fastball, and then allow his breaking ball to work,” Neu said. “He just didn’t get in good counts early on, and he’s still getting back into it. I thought it was a positive outing to see him finish strong.

”He’s been great on the field. I think him being around the team and the guys and everything has been really good for him. He’s just such a tough kid, and he’s got such good support. He’s been amazing. I know it’s probably tough at times, but he’s been nothing but great out here.”

By the way, its a very long article with a lot of other tidbits about other players expected to make an impact this year. Can’t wait for Opening Day in a little over a week!

• The team also got a new recruit in catcher Cole Elvis! Gotta love that last line!

The reason Elvis waited as long as he did was that he wanted to be 100-percent sure. He had an official visit last weekend with the Dirtbags -- who have reached the postseason three of the last four seasons, and in 10 of the last 17 -- and had heavy interest from Stanford, too. The Cardinal, though, wanted Elvis -- who holds a 3.9 cumulative GPA and a 4.2 this year -- to take two extra classes and re-take the SAT.

”I’m not really a Stanford kind of guy,” Elvis said. “I’m a Cal kind of guy ... I knew I was going to make my decision later [Saturday], and Cal just felt like the place. It felt like home.”

• The Softball team is also going to begin play soon. They were chosen to finish 7th in the very competitive Pac-12 that has 4 teams ranked in the Top 10 and 6 in the Coaches Poll Top 25. (Cal received votes)

Misc.

• FB: We reported on Everett Johnson choosing the Bears yesterday, here’s more information on what made his decision.

The summer after his eighth grade year, Everett Johnson, his father and his brother drove up to the Bay Area for an AAU basketball tournament at Berkeley High School. Everett wanted to come up a bit early, though. He wanted to see the Cal campus.

The trio spent most of the day on campus. A security guard let them in to see California Memorial Stadium. They watched runners at Edwards Track Stadium, and camps on Evans Diamond and at Hellman Tennis Complex. Johnson fell in love with Cal that day, he said, and when he returned to Berkeley this past summer for a football camp, and again this fall, when the Bears played Washington State, he was hooked.

”Going on the field, looking up in the stands and seeing the atmosphere there, I knew then, as soon as they offered me, that I wanted to commit,” said the now-6-foot-8, 290-pound offensive tackle.

• MWP: Nine men’s water polo players were named to the ACWPC All-Academic list, featuring all players with GPAs at or over 3.2. The team was also given an All-Academic award for having a team GPA over 3.

Congrats to Gianni Taranto and Cade Kruse who were named “Outstanding” (GPAs between 3.71 and 4). Congrats to Cameron Wright, Mikey Williams, Luca Cupido, Spencer Farrar and Safak Simsek who were named “Superior” (GPAs between 3.41 and 3.7). Congrats to Jack Pickard and Spencer Tagg who were named “Excellent” with GPAs between 3.2 and 3.4.

• BVB: A recap of the Beach Volleyball’s retreat at the Costanoa resort.

Beat the Buffs!