Johnfox said:

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Yeah but you're saying this comment out of emotion. Once you come to your senses, you'll see that if Cal sweeps the road trip and goes to Charlotte and defeats SMU or (the 15 seed game + 7 seed game), Cal will have 7 Q1 wins. They will also boost their metrics and the WAB will significantly go up.

Sucks today but let's take a step back and calm down.

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Maybe so, but seeing how they played today at home, how likely is that? Once I come to MY senses, I'll take a step back and see that making the NIT is still a great improvement. And hope it portends an even better team next season.

Back from the Haas...

Good Lord, I wasn't expecting that Senior Day against Pitt would also be our lay-an-egg day. Half of me wants to analyze what the heck happened, but you know what, sometimes you just lay an egg.

Still could make MM, but our chances aren't looking too good. The thought I'm left with right now is that a trip to the NCAA Tournament would be the jump start we need, in terms of fan support, recruiting, everything.

Oh well, I have enjoyed this season and there will probably be more left to enjoy. Go Bears!

Back from the sauna bath - I mean game.

Reading this thread I read a lot about Madsen's ability to coach and role players making mistakes.

Well this may be an oversimplification but as good as some of our players can be, too often they just don't come to play. OTOH, Dorsey, Campbell, and sometimes Dort get criticized for skill deficiencies but AT LEAST DORSEY, CAMPBELL AND DORT COME TO PLAY EVERY GAME. Their teammates should try to do the same - I'm talking full effort every game.

JB was a Chieftain said:

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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Back from the sauna bath - I mean game.

Reading this thread I read a lot about Madsen's ability to coach and role players making mistakes.

Well this may be an oversimplification but as good as some of our players can be, too often they just don't come to play. OTOH, Dorsey, Campbell, and sometimes Dort get criticized for skill deficiencies but AT LEAST DORSEY, CAMPBELL AND DORT COME TO PLAY EVERY GAME. Their teammates should try to do the same - I'm talking full effort every game.

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Are you talking about Ames? Agreed he's laid an egg the last 2 games but no doubt we would not be here without him.

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No im not talking about anyone specifically. I'm just saying that one of the trademarks of a successful team is when the players (regardless of skill level) "bring it" every game. Dorsey, DJ and Dort give maximum effort every game. Their teammates the other guys- no.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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JB was a Chieftain said:

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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Back from the sauna bath - I mean game.

Reading this thread I read a lot about Madsen's ability to coach and role players making mistakes.

Well this may be an oversimplification but as good as some of our players can be, too often they just don't come to play. OTOH, Dorsey, Campbell, and sometimes Dort get criticized for skill deficiencies but AT LEAST DORSEY, CAMPBELL AND DORT COME TO PLAY EVERY GAME. Their teammates should try to do the same - I'm talking full effort every game.

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Are you talking about Ames? Agreed he's laid an egg the last 2 games but no doubt we would not be here without him.

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No im not talking about anyone specifically. I'm just saying that one of the trademarks of a successful team is when the players (regardless of skill level) "bring it" every game. Dorsey, DJ and Dort give maximum effort every game. Their teammates the other guys- no.

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Lets hope we dont see tbe traditional Cal basketball fade at the end-of season

I had previous engagements that kept me from watching the game today. Looms like I chose a good game to miss.

Cal's probably NIT bound, barring a surprising run in the ACC Tournament. But that's kind of what Cal fans had hoped before the season started, right?

I'm still in a bit of shock over that game, easily the worst performance of the season.
I disagree with Red that only 3 players "came to play," effort was not the issue.
3-point shooting was atrocious and we barely got to the line (I have never seen so much obvious contact ignored by refs in a single game). Those two things are how the Bears win games along with keeping turnovers low (we had 17), so it was a perfect storm of crap that came our way. All you can do is shake it off and win your next two.
NIT or NCAA, this team exceeded expectations, I'm thankful.

barsad said:

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I'm still in a bit of shock over that game, easily the worst performance of the season.
I disagree with Red that only 3 players "came to play," effort was not the issue.
3-point shooting was atrocious and we barely got to the line (I have never seen so much obvious contact ignored by refs in a single game). Those two things are how the Bears win games along with keeping turnovers low (we had 17), so it was a perfect storm of crap that came our way. All you can do is shake it off and win your next two.
NIT or NCAA, this team exceeded expectations, I'm thankful.

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Yes barsad, maybe my comment was a bit over the top, and should be slightly defined. The one thing about the guys I mentioned is that when they step on the court it seems like their intensity level is always completely amped up. So often today our players looked like they were in a daze - literally not ready or focused, no sense of urgency To be successful you just can't do that. While I agree their game was somewhat off, I don't think you can ignore how little intensity they played with, especially in the first half.

01Bear said:

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I had previous engagements that kept me from watching the game today. Looms like I chose a good game to miss.

Cal's probably NIT bound, barring a surprising run in the ACC Tournament. But that's kind of what Cal fans had hoped before the season started, right?

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Yes, NIT is still a good result given preseason expectations. Next season we need to schedule tougher in non-conference and probably will be able to if other programs think we are likely to be good.

sycasey said:

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01Bear said:

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I had previous engagements that kept me from watching the game today. Looms like I chose a good game to miss.

Cal's probably NIT bound, barring a surprising run in the ACC Tournament. But that's kind of what Cal fans had hoped before the season started, right?

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Yes, NIT is still a good result given preseason expectations. Next season we need to schedule tougher in non-conference and probably will be able to if other programs think we are likely to be good.

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Hopefully, Cal will be able to retain Justin and Lee. (Camden and Dai Dai will have used up their eligibility, right?) I'm also hoping Cal keeps Campbell and Carr while picking up some even better players. Cal looks like it's in the beginning of building a potential contender, but it will need to sustain (or better yet, improve) its recruiting. That said, I really like this team and its chemistry. It's easily the best team Cal has had under Madsen thus far.

Agreed

HKBear97! said:

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oskithepimp said:

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I've seen enough Cal sports to realize that we have this awful trend of playing down to bad teams that we should beat "on paper." I don't know what it is but it happens year after year, team after team, basketball and football. Maybe it's the Cal Curse, but it's amazing, perplexing, and infuriating.

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The trend I see in Cal sports is just when a program has a chance to make a statement and move themselves into relevancy and the national conversation - raising the bar for Cal sports overall - that team somehow finds a way to blow it. Happens time and time again.

In the words of the immortal Chick Hearn, Cal has two chances of making the tourney, slim and none, and I think slim may have just left the building.

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Slim hasn't left the building it has now entered the building. It used to be legit.

Isn't Ames a Junior?

Yes, Ames has another year, but I don't believe Dejuan Campbell does.

Still with eligibility:

Carr
Pippen
Ames
Petraitis
Dort
Kocanas
Yeanay
Dut
Ruff

No mo:

Camden (unfortunately)
Bell
Campbell
Ilic

Not sure about Dorsey. Thought he was gone, but he didn't "walk" today.

HKBear97! said:

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oskithepimp said:

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I've seen enough Cal sports to realize that we have this awful trend of playing down to bad teams that we should beat "on paper." I don't know what it is but it happens year after year, team after team, basketball and football. Maybe it's the Cal Curse, but it's amazing, perplexing, and infuriating.

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The trend I see in Cal sports is just when a program has a chance to make a statement and move themselves into relevancy and the national conversation - raising the bar for Cal sports overall - that team somehow finds a way to blow it. Happens time and time again.

In the words of the immortal Chick Hearn, Cal has two chances of making the tourney, slim and none, and I think slim may have just left the building.

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Yes. If I was a gambling man, I could have banked a fortune betting against us in so many "season/program defining" or "momentum changing" games that we seem to always **** our pants in.

To be fair. The game we usually lose is the game against SMU. So the fact we're now losing the game after the KEY game is progress? lol

Big C said:

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Yes, Ames has another year, but I don't believe Dejuan Campbell does.

Still with eligibility:

Carr
Pippen
Ames
Petraitis
Dort
Kocanas
Yeanay
Dut
Ruff

No mo:

Camden (unfortunately)
Bell
Campbell
Ilic

Not sure about Dorsey. Thought he was gone, but he didn't "walk" today.

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I think you got whole list right, and don't think Dorsey has another year

oskithepimp said:

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Yes. If I was a gambling man, I could have banked a fortune betting against us in so many "season/program defining" or "momentum changing" games that we seem to always **** our pants in.

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Pitt covered by 22.5

ducky23 said:

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To be fair. The game we usually lose is the game against SMU. So the fact we're now losing the game after the KEY game is progress? lol

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And with (minimum) three games remaining, it's not necessarily program defining!

This was the worst of the worst in many respects. The Bears' play was bad enough, but the officiating was maybe the worst I've seen, at any level. The life of a Cal fan, I guess.

The underlying metrics are nonsense. If we were to bracket the tourney on metrics why do we even play the games. I'm as sick as the sickest person here because of today's loss but I'm not gonna let it blind me from the fact that this team has beaten good teams and played a month without its starting center. Pitt is a bad ACC team but they aren't that bad of a team. Any at large team could lose to them and especially any 7 seed or lower. There are too many intangibles such as today's horrible officiating, for metrics to accurately represent teams. Auburn is still so high in metrics and they have 14 losses. At some point they just aren't that good.

Onebearofpower said:

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The underlying metrics are nonsense. If we were to bracket the tourney on metrics why do we even play the games. I'm as sick as the sickest person here because of today's loss but I'm not gonna let it blind me from the fact that this team has beaten good teams and played a month without its starting center. Pitt is a bad ACC team but they aren't that bad of a team. Any at large team could lose to them and especially any 7 seed or lower. There are too many intangibles such as today's horrible officiating, for metrics to accurately represent teams. Auburn is still so high in metrics and they have 14 losses. At some point they just aren't that good.

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Auburn has a lot of losses because they played a lot of tougher teams. Cal has fewer because we played a lot of cupcakes out of conference. The advanced metrics pick this up and rank accordingly.

The committee doesn't bracket based on those underlying metrics . . . they consider them but mostly it is wins and losses and who you beat. What those metrics can be is predictive, and they would have predicted that Cal was due for an egg-laying some time soon. Well, we just got it.

Dort and Rytis both walked on senior day. I don't expect them back. Ames will get offers.

ducky23 said:

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sycasey said:

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Onebearofpower said:

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The underlying metrics are nonsense. If we were to bracket the tourney on metrics why do we even play the games. I'm as sick as the sickest person here because of today's loss but I'm not gonna let it blind me from the fact that this team has beaten good teams and played a month without its starting center. Pitt is a bad ACC team but they aren't that bad of a team. Any at large team could lose to them and especially any 7 seed or lower. There are too many intangibles such as today's horrible officiating, for metrics to accurately represent teams. Auburn is still so high in metrics and they have 14 losses. At some point they just aren't that good.

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Auburn has a lot of losses because they played a lot of tougher teams. Cal has fewer because we played a lot of cupcakes out of conference. The advanced metrics pick this up and rank accordingly.

The committee doesn't bracket based on those underlying metrics . . . they consider them but mostly it is wins and losses and who you beat. What those metrics can be is predictive, and they would have predicted that Cal was due for an egg-laying some time soon. Well, we just got it.

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Did those metrics predict that auburn would take a quad 3 loss today?

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My exact point. The metrics don't predict any upsets ever. The metrics had us winning by 7 or so today. The metrics were wrong. The metrics have Auburn having 5 more wins. They don't. The metrics don't have Cal with an egg laying loss they have Cal losing like 8 straight games to start conference play. But the metrics are a linear model. And the game of basketball doesn't work like that. The model doesn't really care about wins and losses and cares about efficiency. I think Auburn should have to win some games to actually make the tourney. They have a harder schedule yes but they also have lost to some not great teams. I don't think they deserve a spot over us. It's about if you win not how efficient you are in your losses.

In the Post game press Madsen said his disappointed he was in how poorly the team performed- but as usual he always answers by saying that it is on him-as coach he takes full responsibility, blah blah blah. Is this a stock answer that is all he can say without calling out and alienating any of his players?

Dorsey is gone. Nolan walked last year and simply decided not to do it again.

3Cats4CAL said:

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In the Post game press Madsen said his disappointed he was in how poorly the team performed- but as usual he always answers by saying that it is on him-as coach he takes full responsibility, blah blah blah. Is this a stock answer that is all he can say without calling out and alienating any of his players?

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When he was HC, Hue Jackson took responsibility for every Raiders' loss in the post game pressies and it got old…real old.

From time to time Derek Carr would take responsibility for a loss but then un- take it by adding, "…and a lot of people get mad at me when I say that.*"

*No, Derek, they are mad because you don't say it more often because it's true.

Certainly Pitt would beat Miami of Ohio

Onebearofpower said:

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The underlying metrics are nonsense. If we were to bracket the tourney on metrics why do we even play the games. I'm as sick as the sickest person here because of today's loss but I'm not gonna let it blind me from the fact that this team has beaten good teams and played a month without its starting center. Pitt is a bad ACC team but they aren't that bad of a team. Any at large team could lose to them and especially any 7 seed or lower. There are too many intangibles such as today's horrible officiating, for metrics to accurately represent teams. Auburn is still so high in metrics and they have 14 losses. At some point they just aren't that good.

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