Golden Nuggets: Wyking Jones Defends Recent Personnel Changes

Basketball

• Men’s head coach Wyking Jones defends his decisions to cut certain players to try and fix the team. Rusty Simmons brings up similar cases around the nation to try and defend Wyking as well.

“Ultimately, I’m just trying to figure out what works best, what players to have on the court and what players to have in practice,” Jones said. “There is some turnover as you go through that process. It’s my job as head coach to make those decisions.

“It’s not always going to be the popular decision, but for me, it’s the decision that is best for our program, for our team and for us to improve.”

...

Though they won’t be allowed to practice with the team, Jones has promised to honor the legally binding scholarships given to McCullough and Winston if they choose to stay at Cal. He said he has even worked with his video department to create highlight reels and talked to coaches of lower-level programs in an effort to find transfer possibilities.

Meanwhile on the women’s side, Lindsay Gottlieb went viral on Twitter after recounting what she perceived as racism from a Southwest Airlines employee. I won’t take sides here, but just found it incredible how much attention it got. Various websites including Deadspin, CNN, and even Twitter moments have reported on it. Here is SF Gate’s article on it.

Baseball

• Still not too late to vote for Andrew Vaughn for the Golden Spikes award! Sunday is the deadline.
• Cal took two out of three from Arizona State but it was not enough to make the postseason. Head Coach Mike Neu tells his thoughts of the Bears season.

“We ended up falling short of where we wanted to be,” said Cal head coach Mike Neu. “Hopefully this is a building block for the guys coming back and for the new guys to understand that we maybe have to do a little more in some of the games that we were in a position to win that we didn’t come through on.”

• Aaron Shortridge’s effort in the final game of the season earned him Pac-12 Player of the Week honors.
• Tanner Dodson is a finalist for the John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year Award, which as you can guess... is given to the best dual threat at position player and pitcher.

Football

• Trace Travers assesses the special teams and their spring ball performance.
• Jon Wilner ranks the Pac-12 North teams by Skill Position depth, and the Bears rank fourth.
• Addison Ooms made the watchlist for the Rimington Trophy, given to the best center in college football.

Misc.

• Jon Wilner interviews Pac-12 Networks distribution chief Alden Budill on the challenges of getting more providers to show the channel.
• Congrats to new Men’s Rowing head coach Scott Frandsen, who will succeed Mike Teti. He was the associate head coach last season.

Awards

• WWP: Dora Antal made NCAA history by making the ACWPC All-American first team in all four of her seasons at Cal. Only two other players have ever done that. Anna Illes also made the All-American list in all four of her seasons, but this year she’s on the second team. Carla Carrega made the third team and Madison Tagg, Emma Wright, Kitty Lynn Joustra were honorable mentions.
• MTEN: And so did Dominic Barretto. Congrats to all three.
• MGOLF: Collin Morikawa earned his second straight First team All-American honors from PING.
• WTEN: Olivia Hauger and Karla Popovic earned Pac-12 All-Academic honorable mention awards.

Didn’t you say that?