Bears Add Forward Amier Ali from Transfer Portal

Welcome, Amier Ali!

Go Bears!

stu said:

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Yet again Madsen finds a high upside guy in a challenging situation. I expect Ali to reach his potential at Cal

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- and then leave us….

Go!Bears said:

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stu said:

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Yet again Madsen finds a high upside guy in a challenging situation. I expect Ali to reach his potential at Cal

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- and then leave us….

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Better to have loved and lost ...

Joaquin, can you expand on this statement about Bell:
"… and Chris Bell's future undetermined."

barsad said:

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Joaquin, can you expand on this statement about Bell:
"… and Chris Bell's future undetermined."

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He's appealed for another year as he is out of them. Its a kind of long shot but we'll see.

Go!Bears said:

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stu said:

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do some people keep Yet again Madsen finds a high upside guy in a challenging situation. I expect Ali to reach his potential at Cal

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- and then leave us….

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Why do some of you keep saying negative stuff that we all know. We're trying drum up some support for this program and some of you always have a negative comment that everyone else already knows iis true but has accepted it and moved on for the good of the program.

I mean what if we got Dukes entire team. What would you say?

Would you rather the old system where it takes 10 years to build a program from scratch or todays NIL where you can do it in three or four?

TonyTiger said:

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Go!Bears said:

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stu said:

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do some people keep Yet again Madsen finds a high upside guy in a challenging situation. I expect Ali to reach his potential at Cal

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- and then leave us….

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Why do some of you keep saying negative stuff that we all know. We're trying drum up some support for this program and some of you always have a negative comment that everyone else already knows iis true but has accepted it and moved on for the good of the program.

I mean what if we got Dukes entire team. What would you say?

Would you rather the old system where it takes 10 years to build a program from scratch or todays NIL where you can do it in three or four?

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I'd rather have the old system

Would you rather the old system where it takes 10 years to build a program from scratch or todays NIL where you can do it in three or four? - I'd rather have the old system

I mean what if we got Dukes entire team. What would you say? - I'd say Go Duke. I don't root for the laundry, I root for the people. People I used to share something with - the experience of Cal, affection for the institution. Duke's players would not have that. We have nothing in common. I am not invested in them, nor are they invested in my community. We are strangers. I am not going to get excited about their success.

Why do some of you keep saying negative stuff that we all know. We're trying drum up some support for this program and some of you always have a negative comment that everyone else already knows iis true but has accepted it and moved on for the good of the program. - I guess I haven't accepted it yet. I keep hoping against hope that we can restore some of what made what I loved great. Student Athletes. Long term player development. The commeradery of the accomplishment of having built something, rather than having purchased it. The day I accept that it will always be they way you describe it will be the day I let my season tickets lapse. It will be a sad day for me.

TonyTiger said:

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barsad said:

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TonyTiger said:

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Go!Bears said:

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stu said:

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do some people keep Yet again Madsen finds a high upside guy in a challenging situation. I expect Ali to reach his potential at Cal

---

- and then leave us….

---

Why do some of you keep saying negative stuff that we all know. We're trying drum up some support for this program and some of you always have a negative comment that everyone else already knows iis true but has accepted it and moved on for the good of the program.

I mean what if we got Dukes entire team. What would you say?

Would you rather the old system where it takes 10 years to build a program from scratch or todays NIL where you can do it in three or four?

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Old system, please.

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I cant believe you guys are serious, both programs were near death and if it weren't for great hires and the NIL wed be in the Pac 2.That said i felt the same way at first but these guys are 18, your kid can work where they want why cant athletes. It sucks for us true bloods but force it down, it has a bad taste but take it like medicine. There is no alternative.
PS, this isn't forever once we get good we can go more and more to the old ways but like Tedford, he had to take JC players first and get good before he got tosh and Keenan Allen and more came as freshmen.

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You haven't been paying attention. This is forever. Everyone is doing it. There is no do this for a little while, get over the hump and go back to normal. If the donors think that, they might as well stop now. There is only do this now and do more later when everyone does more. And do more. And do more.

There are alternatives. There is Cal opts out of the rat race, which they aren't going to do. And there is opting out as a fan, which a lot of people have done. But I agree that if you want to play college football and basketball at the highest level, this is the system. But I also sympathize with those who want to complain about it.

BearlyCareAnymore said:

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if you want to play college football and basketball at the highest level, this is the system. But I also sympathize with those who want to complain about it.

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THIS!!! A thousand times this.

It really is binary (and when people don't think this way it just makes me see red)

IF you want to be on team relevance ("I only want to play football on the highest level and if we play Davis we are irrelevent") then you are ALL IN. The university does this all the time (and also makes choices the other way). It says, "If we are going to offer a doctorate in X we will be the damm best department in the country and invest in doing it right."). Cal should not do **** half ass. ANd there are 10000 things it does in ICA that do this half ass....want to play football at the highest level but not fully committ. That just pisses me off to no end because it is essentially fraud. It says you WANT championships but not really. And if you pay attention you see this. I don't like fraud EVER and so I get mad.

Now team drop down essentially accepts that cal will never go all in. It really doesn't even know how to think about that. Nor (I know this pisses them off) do our donors. I mean it is great that Tosh had a $$$. ALl in would be launching a citizens initiative and exempting CMS from local CEQA or electing city councilmembers who would wave police fees on game day....JUST LIKE NEARLY EVERY SEC COLLEGE TOWN DOES. It would be seizing Witter from Rugby and giving it to Football. It would be building lux boxes on the East Side of CMS. It would be creating scarcity and raising the laughably low 5K for seat backs at Haas. It would be, bluntly, figuring out how to have NIL budgets combined of 40-50Million and getting there.

On team drop down we know Cal will never accept those things. Nor will the majority of BI'ers. So we accept that really Davis level competition is where we belong and believe in making the best of that situation as it can work for the university for why it says it does ICA (donor and student engagement for the good of the university as an academic institution).

HKBear97! said:

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TonyTiger said:

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barsad said:

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TonyTiger said:

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Go!Bears said:

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stu said:

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do some people keep Yet again Madsen finds a high upside guy in a challenging situation. I expect Ali to reach his potential at Cal

---

- and then leave us….

---

Why do some of you keep saying negative stuff that we all know. We're trying drum up some support for this program and some of you always have a negative comment that everyone else already knows iis true but has accepted it and moved on for the good of the program.

I mean what if we got Dukes entire team. What would you say?

Would you rather the old system where it takes 10 years to build a program from scratch or todays NIL where you can do it in three or four?

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Old system, please.

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I cant believe you guys are serious, both programs were near death and if it weren't for great hires and the NIL wed be in the Pac 2.That said i felt the same way at first but these guys are 18, your kid can work where they want why cant athletes. It sucks for us true bloods but force it down, it has a bad taste but take it like medicine. There is no alternative.
PS, this isn't forever once we get good we can go more and more to the old ways but like Tedford, he had to take JC players first and get good before he got tosh and Keenan Allen and more came as freshmen.

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Umm, what great hires and NIL kept Cal out of the Pac-2, exactly? News that Cal received a lifeline with massively reduced revenue sharing from the ACC came in September, 2023. Wilcox was still the football coach and Madsen hadn't even coached his first game yet.

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Exactly. If we had made competent hires 5-8 years ago (including at AD), there is a good chance we are in the B1G. Our horrible past leadership (some of which remains) is the reason we almost did not make it a power conference and had to beg and buy our way barely in at that. Hopefully we have the leadership in place so we are better positioned when the next round of realignment occurs.

Usocaltownie said:

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BearlyCareAnymore said:

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if you want to play college football and basketball at the highest level, this is the system. But I also sympathize with those who want to complain about it.

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THIS!!! A thousand times this.

It really is binary (and when people don't think this way it just makes me see red)

IF you want to be on team relevance ("I only want to play football on the highest level and if we play Davis we are irrelevent") then you are ALL IN. The university does this all the time (and also makes choices the other way). It says, "If we are going to offer a doctorate in X we will be the damm best department in the country and invest in doing it right."). Cal should not do **** half ass. ANd there are 10000 things it does in ICA that do this half ass....want to play football at the highest level but not fully committ. That just pisses me off to no end because it is essentially fraud. It says you WANT championships but not really. And if you pay attention you see this. I don't like fraud EVER and so I get mad.

Now team drop down essentially accepts that cal will never go all in. It really doesn't even know how to think about that. Nor (I know this pisses them off) do our donors. I mean it is great that Tosh had a $$$. ALl in would be launching a citizens initiative and exempting CMS from local CEQA or electing city councilmembers who would wave police fees on game day....JUST LIKE NEARLY EVERY SEC COLLEGE TOWN DOES. It would be seizing Witter from Rugby and giving it to Football. It would be building lux boxes on the East Side of CMS. It would be creating scarcity and raising the laughably low 5K for seat backs at Haas. It would be, bluntly, figuring out how to have NIL budgets combined of 40-50Million and getting there.

On team drop down we know Cal will never accept those things. Nor will the majority of BI'ers. So we accept that really Davis level competition is where we belong and believe in making the best of that situation as it can work for the university for why it says it does ICA (donor and student engagement for the good of the university as an academic institution).

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Is there something wrong with aspiring to be like Columbia? I honestly don't care if we win the national championship. I think our teams should be a reflection of our university not the other way around.

Go!Bears said:

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Usocaltownie said:

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BearlyCareAnymore said:

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if you want to play college football and basketball at the highest level, this is the system. But I also sympathize with those who want to complain about it.

---

THIS!!! A thousand times this.

It really is binary (and when people don't think this way it just makes me see red)

IF you want to be on team relevance ("I only want to play football on the highest level and if we play Davis we are irrelevent") then you are ALL IN. The university does this all the time (and also makes choices the other way). It says, "If we are going to offer a doctorate in X we will be the damm best department in the country and invest in doing it right."). Cal should not do **** half ass. ANd there are 10000 things it does in ICA that do this half ass....want to play football at the highest level but not fully committ. That just pisses me off to no end because it is essentially fraud. It says you WANT championships but not really. And if you pay attention you see this. I don't like fraud EVER and so I get mad.

Now team drop down essentially accepts that cal will never go all in. It really doesn't even know how to think about that. Nor (I know this pisses them off) do our donors. I mean it is great that Tosh had a $$$. ALl in would be launching a citizens initiative and exempting CMS from local CEQA or electing city councilmembers who would wave police fees on game day....JUST LIKE NEARLY EVERY SEC COLLEGE TOWN DOES. It would be seizing Witter from Rugby and giving it to Football. It would be building lux boxes on the East Side of CMS. It would be creating scarcity and raising the laughably low 5K for seat backs at Haas. It would be, bluntly, figuring out how to have NIL budgets combined of 40-50Million and getting there.

On team drop down we know Cal will never accept those things. Nor will the majority of BI'ers. So we accept that really Davis level competition is where we belong and believe in making the best of that situation as it can work for the university for why it says it does ICA (donor and student engagement for the good of the university as an academic institution).

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Is there something wrong with aspiring to be like Columbia? I honestly don't care if we win the national championship. I think our teams should be a reflection of our university not the other way around.

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Columbia isnt the right comparison and feeds team relevance's narrative. Ivies are too small, too wealthy and have a well oiled philanthropy machine. The right analog are uc davis, ucsd and slo. To start to see this one first rejects the falsehood that cal is the "flagship"....which it is not in law, budget or governance since 1958. From there we rightly ask why cal is just one of 2 ucs that try to do this and if there is a viable path forward if we say no.

I actually am agnostic on the answer. I do, however, do not believe it stupid to ask.

We have signed our grant of rights to the ACC through 2036. The "drop down" advocates can plan for 2037 if they want, in the meantime those of us who want Cal to compete for an ACC Championship and a CFP berth in the next few years will do that and we can debate moving down 10 years from now.

calumnus said:

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We have signed our grant of rights to the ACC through 2036. The "drop down" advocates can plan for 2037 if they want, in the meantime those of us who want Cal to compete for an ACC Championship and a CFP berth in the next few years will do that and we can debate moving down 10 years from now.

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I think it an open question of whether ACC last that long. Perhaps. FSU and others have different ideas and the more and more it becomes not the p4 but rather the P2+2 the more pressure will build.

Moreover, that assumes that the entire structure remains over the next 10 years. While I will NEVER bet on congress I do believe pressure will continue to mount for a solution that involves CBA and that, I also believe, is at least in semi-tension with 4 conferences trying to be the "owners". Instead I think they are blown up (lead by the SEC and if the ACC wishes to remain they will be left in the cold). What will emerge is a super conference mostly made up of the SEC and B1G and then enough schools to create geographic and numerical symmetry. As NBA and NFL, this superconference, in turn, will negotiate with all the networks and "flip the table" as to who has the negotiating power.

Now ALL of this is above our paygrade. The die has been cast in the short term and it feels like arguing against gravity. What I don't want is the effort to be in a recast G5 as that seems to bring all of the bad but very little of the go$$$od.

socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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We have signed our grant of rights to the ACC through 2036. The "drop down" advocates can plan for 2037 if they want, in the meantime those of us who want Cal to compete for an ACC Championship and a CFP berth in the next few years will do that and we can debate moving down 10 years from now.

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I think it an open question of whether ACC last that long. Perhaps. FSU and others have different ideas and the more and more it becomes not the p4 but rather the P2+2 the more pressure will build.

Moreover, that assumes that the entire structure remains over the next 10 years. While I will NEVER bet on congress I do believe pressure will continue to mount for a solution that involves CBA and that, I also believe, is at least in semi-tension with 4 conferences trying to be the "owners". Instead I think they are blown up (lead by the SEC and if the ACC wishes to remain they will be left in the cold). What will emerge is a super conference mostly made up of the SEC and B1G and then enough schools to create geographic and numerical symmetry. As NBA and NFL, this superconference, in turn, will negotiate with all the networks and "flip the table" as to who has the negotiating power.

Now ALL of this is above our paygrade. The die has been cast in the short term and it feels like arguing against gravity. What I don't want is the effort to be in a recast G5 as that seems to bring all of the bad but very little of the go$$$od.

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Sure, and hopefully we make good decisions when that happens. I think it will be reasonable to debate where we go based on the rules at that time and the options we have at that time given the strength of our program at that time. My hope is we succeed as a member of the top tier, but failing that, some sort of "West Coast Ivy League" with Stanford and the other UCs might be an better option than some equivalent of the Moutain West. Hopefully we will not be faced with that choice.

calumnus said:

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socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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We have signed our grant of rights to the ACC through 2036. The "drop down" advocates can plan for 2037 if they want, in the meantime those of us who want Cal to compete for an ACC Championship and a CFP berth in the next few years will do that and we can debate moving down 10 years from now.

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I think it an open question of whether ACC last that long. Perhaps. FSU and others have different ideas and the more and more it becomes not the p4 but rather the P2+2 the more pressure will build.

Moreover, that assumes that the entire structure remains over the next 10 years. While I will NEVER bet on congress I do believe pressure will continue to mount for a solution that involves CBA and that, I also believe, is at least in semi-tension with 4 conferences trying to be the "owners". Instead I think they are blown up (lead by the SEC and if the ACC wishes to remain they will be left in the cold). What will emerge is a super conference mostly made up of the SEC and B1G and then enough schools to create geographic and numerical symmetry. As NBA and NFL, this superconference, in turn, will negotiate with all the networks and "flip the table" as to who has the negotiating power.

Now ALL of this is above our paygrade. The die has been cast in the short term and it feels like arguing against gravity. What I don't want is the effort to be in a recast G5 as that seems to bring all of the bad but very little of the go$$$od.

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Sure, and hopefully we make good decisions when that happens. I think it will be reasonable to debate where we go based on the rules at that time and the options we have at that time given the strength of our program at that time. My hope is we succeed as a member of the top tier, but failing that, some sort of "West Coast Ivy League" with Stanford and the other UCs might be an better option than some equivalent of the Moutain West. Hopefully we will not be faced with that choice.

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That is fully aligned wiyh my view.