Cal Basketball Season Wrap: Year 2 Under Coach Mark Fox a Disappointment
Before Cal traveled to Las Vegas last week for the Pac-12 tournament, coach Mark Fox was asked if a first-round victory over rival Stanford could have a soothing effect on a disappointing season.
He didn’t flinch while providing a clear response.
“That’s like giving someone one aspirin for a wound that needs surgery,” Fox said. “One win isn’t going to solve the struggles of our season or change the perspective that I have toward the season that we’ve just gone through.”
The Bears beat Stanford 76-58 to open the Pac-12 tournament -- probably their best performance of the season -- then lost to Colorado the next night to finish at 9-20.
Since Cal began playing basketball in 1907, it had endured just two 20-loss seasons through 2017. Now the Bears have lost 20 games three times in the past four years. Their 85 defeats over that span are 14 more than the program had suffered over any four-year stretch.
Fox exceeded expectations in his debut the season before, winning 14 games after Wyking Jones delivered back-to-back eight-win seasons. But the Bears regressed this year, significantly on defense but in most areas, really, on the way to a 3-17 Pac-12 record,
The conference tracks team statistics in 21 categories and the Bears rank among the bottom four in 17 of them. So there is work to do across the board.
Fox said when he was hired that the rebuild would take time and the timetable remains unclear.
“The experience of that road has to be traveled,” he said last week. “And you have to endure the pain and you have to endure the adversity, you have to deal with all the things that go into a rebuilding of a program. That’s what makes it in the end rewarding.”
The Bears faced challenging health and safety restrictions before and during the season that no doubt impacted their development and continuity. In fairness, most teams on the West Coast dealt with constraints.
Grant Anticevich
Photo by D. Ross Cameron, USA Today
Matt Bradley, the team’s top scorer and best player, missed seven games because of two separate ankle injuries. And starting senior forward Grant Anticevich underwent an emergency appendectomy that cost him several weeks.
Even so, it’s difficult to locate signs that point to a breakthrough coming soon.
Fox has acknowledged the Bears must upgrade their talent level but none of the team’s freshmen or sophomores have given indications they are potential all-conference players.
The Bears’ three-player 2021 recruiting class is rated 62nd nationally by 247Sports, eighth among Pac-12 schools.
Assuming that Jason Kidd is not walking through that door, what can the Bears’ returning talent reasonably aspire to a year from now?
The first question — scary to all Cal fans — is whether Bradley returns for his senior season. He has given no indication that he’s planning an exit for any reason, although Cal has not made him available for media interviews in more than two months.
Bradley has improved each season and almost certainly would have been a first-team All-Pac-12 honoree had he not missed seven games. He averaged 18.0 points per game to rank third in the conference, and the next step in his development is to use the defensive attention he commands to more consistently involve his teammates.
Mostly there are questions:
The Bears will return their two most important frontcourt players— Anticevich and forward Andre Kelly — but can they deliver on a regular basis?
Joel Brown
Photo by Chris Brown, USA Today
Sophomore point guard Joel Brown is a good defender and a capable distributor but can he shake his reluctance to shoot and improve his 50 percent accuracy at the free throw line?
Will combo guard Jarred Hyder, who wasn’t cleared as a transfer by the NCAA until mid-December, blossom without the uncertainties he faced this season?
Can grad transfer Makale Foreman, who came from Stony Brook, find a comfort zone as a Pac-12 player?
Is big man Lars Thiemann ready to make a leap in his junior season and will grad transfer Ryan Betley join Anticevich and Foreman in opting to replay their senior seasons?
Can young players Jalen Celestine, Kuany Kuany, D.J. Thorpe and Monty Bowser provide more than glimpses of potential?
Fox suggested a season like this one helps a coach “identify your demons so you can address them and get better.”
The last part is the key. Getting better.
Cover photo of Matt Bradley and coach Mark Fox by Mark J. Rebelias, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
