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Franklin and scholarship part ways at Cal over starting job
By Michael Duca January 6, 2011 |
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BERKELEY--How can you be anything but disappointed about the decision when point guard Gary Franklin decided to leave Cal after starting 11 games and came off the bench for the last two. He was asked to come off the bench and played 30 minutes off the bench and decided apparently that and a four year education at Cal was unsatisfactory for his talents. It's an interesting situation because that deprives Cal of that scholarship for the rest of the year and they were already working him in because Max Chang went back to China in the summertime to work with the national team and wound up staying in China and signing a professional contract back there, too late for Cal to replace his scholarship. So now the Golden Bears are now playing with two hands tied behind their back at this particular point in time. Other people will have to step up and a lost opportunity for one player is a gained opportunity for others and in this case it's going to be walk on Nigel Carter from L.A. and Emerson Murray from Vancouver. It is disappointing because the truth is that all of us after seeing Franklin play after 13 games are scratching our heads and wondering how this kid could have been rated the 18th best guard in the country last year? He was shooting something like 25% from three point range until he hit 4-7 against Stanford. He's not an accomplished defender, he's not an accomplished ball handler, he can't create off the dribble. There was evidence of a little trouble in paradise early on when head coach Mike Montgomery moved him to the shooting guard position and moved Jorge Gutierrez to the point guard position. Which makes sense since Gutierrez is in the neighborhood of fifth or sixth all time in assists at Cal already. Franklin said that he was going to work hard to adjust to the new position and coach Montgomery said "well that's an interesting statement from him to make since the only actual time I saw him play in high school or on film he was playing shooting guard and not point guard." Franklin insisted that he was not a point guard his entire high school career. So something wasn't fully kosher there and we may or may not ever find out what the whole story is. Jorge' Gutierrez and Brandon Smith: Smith is from the same school that Theo Roberts played at De La Salle. They train particularly the ball handlers well. Smith you can see just at the beginning of this year that he now he makes better decisions out on the court. He seems to be developing a more court vision in that sense. Now that that position has been handed to him as a starter and there's nobody looking over his shoulder. He probably is going to blossom into that position and there is going to be a lot of growth in him this year. Murray is raw, there is just no two ways about it he's a raw player. Maybe with the exception with a couple of guys you can think of there may not be this great basketball training at the high school level in Canada like some other places in the United States. There's potential there he's a hard working kid, a big kid, but it remains to be seen how he's going to develop under the heated pressure of the Pac Ten. They no longer have the luxury of developing these guys in non-conference games. Gutierrez is of course in a whole different category, he is the defensive heart and soul of this team, he is their motor, their energy guy, their motivator, he pushes everybody to be a better player on the floor. Everybody wants to go out and suddenly go out and defend Gutierrez. Even though he's not a pure shooter he's developed himself into a scorer also. He should be a fine basketball player for Cal by the time his career is over. Michael Duca does Cal questions each week for Sportstalk Radio |
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