Challenges

Ray Ratto put out what I guess he thought was a good piece in the Chronicle about the coaching search, and the Cal men's basketball place in the universe (see it here).

But he raises a good question as to what we can expect from our basketball program. Do we, the fans, have an over-inflated expectation of what out team should be? What should the University of California expect from it's athletic teams? Should we expect that we are going to challenge for National Championships? For League Championships? Or just for exciting games where we beat some teams that we should not, and lose to some teams that we should not?

I think there are basic minimum qualities that we need as an institution:

1) Needs to be an upstanding citizen - no slipping parents $30,000 for the signing on the dotted line. No getting caught as strip clubs and in undergraduate dorms, etc.
2) Needs to graduate the players - our current level is too poor. For those athletes who are coming into the program, there needs to be an expectation that they can graduate. In other words, no academic casualties.
3) Needs to be competitive.

The first two are fairly easy to define. Ben Braun did a good job there. Even though we had some transfers, we fairly well graduated our players, and we had no NCAA violations. Ben represented the university well.

He was fired because he failed at number three for the past few years.

So what does that mean? If you look at his resume, he got the Bears to the post season 8 times - three NIT (one of which he won) and 5 NCAA tournament. He got to the NCAA roughly once every other year. But only once in the past 4 years.

The question is, what can the University expect? Well, we expect that our colleges and departments be top 10 in most areas. We have a number departments that are number 1 academically. We are the flagship University for the largest state in the country. We should expect that we are the top public institution in the country.

Athletically, I see no reason why we can not compete at that level. In fact, i see plenty of reasons to demand that we do excel at that level, for most sports, but particularly for the big dollar sports.

Our state funding is being cut. We are going to rely more and more on private donations in the future to fund our university. Athletics is already privately funded. But the level of funding needed for the University is going to be increasing rapidly over the next 30 years. More people need to give. And, frankly, more people need to become involved in the University, in order for that to happen. There needs to be a more emotional connection. And athletics can help that. In fact, it is clear that overall donations to the University go up at the same time that donations to the athletic department go up.

So, for the University to maintain it's high level of success, the athletic department needs to help.

So, when the question comes up, what is the Natural Place for Cal Athletics in the greater world of sport, and the local columnist writes, Cal will never be a top flight program, what he is really saying is that because the Berkeley folks are trying to get the stadium project halted, and the weirdo's in Berkeley do not like sports, and it just has not happened recently, so it will never happen. And I say that is bullshit.

I have to get historical here, but Cal was dominant in both athletics and academics for the first 60 years of the last century. And there are really no other reasons for that success other than the fact that the best wanted to come to Cal, and that we invested in being the best. That is all it takes. Arizona was a joke before Lute Olsen. So was Stanfurd, until Montgomery. So was Cal football, until Tedford. It is not rocket science. If you had the best coach in California, people would come. Simple as that.

Let's also remember that the last coach who left the Bear's hoops team was Pete Newell. Every other coach since then has been fired. So it is not like this is a place that people want to leave. Braun would have been here for 20 more years if you would have let him. This is a destination. This is not a stepping stone.

I think Sandy Barbour recognizes that this is a destination job, that we are willing to do what we need to in order to win (meaning pay for performance) and we are in an area where there should be plenty of recruits. In other words, just like football, we should be a dominant force in men's basketball, year in and year out.

What I mean by that is consistent finishes in the top three of the league. Winning the league one our of every three or four years. Making the tournament every year. Making the elite 8 every four years or so. Making the occasional final four maybe once a decade, and having a National Championship every 20 years or so. That would be a consistent top 10 team. And that is what we should be aiming for AT THE MINUMUM. It is not like we can not do it - we do it in any other number of sports that we put out there: Rugby, Water Polo, Women's Softball. Crew. We are going to get it done in football. We are a consistent top 15 team now, and we are going to be making headway to get to the next level. We will be in BCS bowl game sooner rather than later, and hopefully a BCS participant on a regular basis. I can easily see that happening. Women's basketball is just taking off under Coach Boyle. They are now a top 10 team. They need consistency, but they can get it. Hell, even the Baseball team is doing something for a change.

There is, and should be an expectation that Cal produce the best. All it takes is a coach, and time. And I think we can get that in Berkeley.

GO BEARS!!