Basketball

Well, I held off posting after the Arizona State game. I said earlier that it was a must win game. That we needed to sweep the weekend to stay in the NCAA hunt. That the Pac 10 was tough, and we needed to win every home game in order to advance. But when we lost in double overtime, I thought, oh well, lets see what happens on Saturday.

But we gave two games away over the weekend. Yes, these were tough teams. But every team is tough in the Pac 10 (except for Oregon State, who just fired their Coach, John Jay, yesterday). And so, if you want to win, you have to win at home. Does anyone really expect that we can take these two teams on the road? Because the Arizona teams are the ones that we should have had a chance to beat.

We have only won two Pac 10 games. That is only two more than John Jays team. And one of our victories was over Oregon State.

I truly believe that this is the most talented Cal team that we have had since I have been watching for about 25 years, including the Jason Kidd years. If not better, than just as good. But the Pac 10 is much tougher. And we do not have the ability to put the games away. It is not like we are out of any game. But it is like we do not know what to do at the end of games, and other teams do know what to do. It is like we are out there, running around with our heads cut off.

Example. We are down two points. 50 second left, we get the ball. That is the time to move up the court quickly, and get a shot off, so that we have a chance of getting it back. Instead, we take our time, make sure that the clock is below 35 seconds, before we event take a shot. The opposition has no time-outs left (they gave their last time out at 6 minutes, which seemed stupid at the time, but seemed to work out for them OK). So we have to foul, pretty much guaranteeing them the two points.

The other aspect that is unusual about these teams is that the defense seems to be less effective. I won't say that it is because we have a poorer defense - in fact it may be that the opposition is simply better. But I say that our defensive pressure has not kept up. We could not make stops when we needed to. We frankly relied on missed shots and rebounding, as opposed to forcing poor shots and steals, and taking away the lanes. We did pick up two pr three charges against Arizona, but that was mainly because their guys were just running towards the basket totally out of control.

It was a familiar song for Cal fans this year. Like the football teams, our hoops team just can't seem to put anyone away.

I see us winning maybe four more games, unless something drastic happens. And if that is the case, then I see Ben Braun moving on. Clearly, this is the most competitive team that we have had, and we need to start to capitalize on it. We have three starters who have NBA potential - maybe even probability - in Hardin, Christopher, and Anderson. We have a decent point guard. We have strong players off the bench, and a strong, young team. If we can not get it done this year, then we definitely need to look in another direction.