Counting Down Cal's Top-50 Transfer Athletes: No. 32 Thomas Kilgore

The transfer portal era in college athletics seems like it’s been with us forever. Likewise, most fans can recall less turbulent times when transfers happened, they simply didn’t look like a stampede to the 1849 California Gold Rush.

We thought it was time to rank the best transfers Cal teams have attracted, most of them in recent seasons but also including a few OGs from yesteryear.

We limited our ranking to transfers from four-year colleges.

Here is the next athlete in our countdown:

32. Thomas Kilgore

Sport: Basketball

Arrival year at Cal: 1996-97

Previous school: Central Michigan (Kilgore averaged 16.0 points in two seasons with the Chippewas, including 18.9 as a freshman in 1994-95)

Contributions at Cal:

— After sitting out the 1996-97 season as a transfer, Kilgore sat out the first five games the next season then scored 12.9 points per outing, including a season-high 21 points to go with eight assists in an 86-75 win over Washington State. He was named to the Pac-10 All-Newcomer team.

— A 6-foot-2 combo guard, he averaged 2.14 steals per games as a junior, joining Jason Kidd and Gene Ransom as the only Cal players to average at least two per game for a season. Kilgore had five steals in three different games.

— Kilgore led the Bears in scoring nine times as a senior, with 14 games of at least 15 points, including 21 in Cal’s win over No. 9 North Carolina. He averaged 14.2 points for the season and was the Bears’ most efficient 3-point shooter at 38.7 percent.

— Kilgore and UCLA’s Baron Davis were the only two players to score double figures in every conference game that season. He joined teammates Geno Carlisle and Sean Lampley as All-Pac-10 honorable mention picks.

— He finished his two-year Cal run averaging 13.7 points with 100 steals.

Standout performance: Kilgore’s most memorable game was a career-high 34-point effort in a 79-73 road defeat to Washington State. He shot 11 for 18 from the field, made 11 of 14 free throws and added seven rebounds 35 minutes.

Impact on his team: Kilgore led the Bears in scoring in Pac-10 games (16.5 points) as a senior on a team that set a program record for highest average home attendance (10,482) on its way a 22-win season, a fifth-place finish in the Pac-10 and a championship run at the NIT.

Previously on our list:

No. 33: Liam Bell

No. 34: Trevor Davis

No. 35: John McLaughlin

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