How 'Bout them Bears!

The Cal Men's basketball team kicked off their season with a 100 - 42 drubbing on Alaska Fairbanks last night.

The good news is that Cal has some shooters, which we need. Patrick Christopher had 32 points, but more importantly was 5 for 9 for three points. That is great because if the Bears have a chance at all this season in a very, very tough Pac 10, he is going to have to be the man. Theo Robinson is hurt, with the hip surgery. There is no telling how he will be when he gets back from that. But my guess is it won't help. So Patrick Christopher is going to have to play huge this year for the Bears to dominate.

Ryan also had 23 points, which is good. Those two are going to be the keys to this team this year. They both need to step up.

Devon Hardin had 8 points, and was 4 for 8 against a team whose tallest guy was 6 foot 7 inches. I don't know what to say about that except that he is back. Jordan Wilkes was 1 for 2 from the three point spot, and 2 for 5 overall. He had 10 rebounds in 20 minutes. His line was just about as good as Hardin's - that is good news.

Max Zhang also got in for a bit, and hit the final free throw that put the game to 100 points.

If the Bears can get the front court going defensively, and get a bunch of rebounds, we should be OK. Against a small team, we got 14 offensive rebounds to their 21 defensive. That is a pretty good ratio. The sad thing is, they got 15 offensive rebounds (we did get 38, so the ratio was better). They just missed a bunch of shots (17 of 69 vs 35 of 65 for the Bears).

Anyway, this is just an exhibition against a small team. But is is fun to see a bunch of guys who need to step up seem like they can. And it is fun to see a bunch of guys back from injury.

We have definite problems with depth at the guard slots. Here is the guard walk-on report:

Nican Robinson - 16 minutes
Thomas Fang - 2 minutes
Eddy Miller - 10 minutes
David Liss - 12 minutes
Patrick Armstrong - 3 minutes

Total - 43 minutes, or a little more than 1 full time player. 4 for 11 from the floor, with 11 rebounds. 4 assists and three turnovers.

Knezevic was held scoreless in 21 minutes of play (0 for 2), but he did have 7 assists and only two turnovers. So that is great. The walk-ons will not help in the real games.

Harper Kamp played great as a true freshman, with 11 points, two rebounds and two blocks in 19 minutes. He, Vierneisel, Anderson, and Christopher will be a nice rotation on the wings, with Hardin, Zhang and Wilkes inside. But we need to support the guard slot, and we just do not have anyone at this point to spell Knezevic.

So some good news. At least our walk-ons are getting some early time and will have more experience when we get to real games, but we really need our injured guys back. Randle is slated to come back in a few weeks, so that is great. And his deal was not a physical injury, but a medical issue. So he should be healthy and strong when he gets back.

In fact, any other year I would feel pretty good about this team. But the Pac 10 is so good this year. So we will see.

GO BEARS!!