ESPN Gives Cal a C Grade for Its 2024-25 Basketball Season

ESPN's report cards for the 18 ACC schools gave six teams an A, two received B's, five got a C, four received a D and one got an F

Rytis Petraitis is the only Cal player who started more than half of the Bears' games in 2024-25 who will be back at Cal for 2025-26 | Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

ESPN’s Myron Medcalf’s evaluation Cal’s 2024-25 basketball season suggests the Golden Bears still have work top do to be competitive in the ACC.

ESPN is issuing report cards for the performances of each team in Power Five basketball conferences this past season. And the ACC report cards came out this week.

Medcalf gave Cal a grade of C.

Here is how ESPN described its grading system:

Part of this process is straightforward: A good team that played like a good team will earn a strong grade, and a good team that played like a bad team will not. But it will be complicated for certain teams. Some had championship dreams. Others hoped to win just one game. Either way, we are judging each squad's season based on preseason expectations while offering grace on a case-by-case basis for any unfortunate midseason events.

Six ACC teams received an A grade, and that included Stanford, which won 21 games, the most victories for the Cardinal since the 2014-15 season, after being a preseason pick to finish 17th of the 18 teams in Kyle Smith’s first year as head coach.

Duke, Clemson, Louisville, Georgia Tech and SMU also received A grades.

Twoi teams – Florida State and Virginia – received a grade of B.

Cal was one of five schools that received a C grade, the others being Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Virginia Tech.

Here is ESPN’s comment about Cal’s 2024-25 season:

Mark Madsen won 13 games in his first season at Cal, which was 10 more than the Bears had won the season before (2022-23). But he couldn't build on that tally in 2024-25 during the program's first campaign in the ACC. Cross-country treks were a challenging adjustment for Cal and rival Stanford. And North Dakota transfer BJ Omot missed all but four games because of injury. Still, the Bears didn't continue to improve, which is the goal in a rebuild.

The travel turned out to be a factor for the Bay Area teams. Cal and Stanford won one road game apiece against an ACC school located in the Midwest or on the East Coast.

Cal will almost start from scratch again in 2025-26 with most of the roster made up of incoming transfers and freshmen. The Golden Bears' success will depend to some degree on its schedule. The ACC will play an 18-game schedule next season, and will not play one ACC opponent at all. The Bears will play Stanford and one other ACC team twice each and will play the 14 other ACC teams once.

Cal was graded higher than five other ACC schools. Boston College, North Carolina State, North Carolina and Wake Forest received a D grade, and Miami was the only team that got an F.

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