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One step at a time, Cal Basketball could be better than third place
By Morris Phillips November 7, 2011 |
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BERKELEY--The excitement of Cal basketball is back which is 24th in the country ranked in the pre season with four returning starters. So Cal basketball should be very exciting with the first game slated on November 11th versus UC Irvine at Haas Pavilion. They have a great opportunity to make the tournament for the third time in four years under head coach Mike Montgomery which in itself is a great accomplishment without much size, the team's not going to be very big but their talented. The competition: UCLA will be much better this year, Arizona will be much better, both of those teams are picked ahead of Cal and Cal is predicted to be third in the Pac 12. Cal will have to contend with UCLA's size and they will have four or five players in their rotation that are 6'9 and above. This should be a very exciting season and Cal will be in the thick of it. Head coach Mike Montgomery: You just can't discount what Mike Montgomery has done at Cal. Last year his streak of 13, count them 13 straight NCAA qualifiers ends and here he is with a 24th ranked team in the country in pre season and the very next year or so for somebody whose accomplished as much as he has winning 600 games at the collegiate level and coaching over 20 years at the division one level one of his greatest accomplishments is having his 13th straight NCAA qualifier spanding his time at Stanford and then his first two years at Berkeley. Jorge Gutierrez: This is Montgomery's first recruit at Cal and one of his favorites a guy who kind of personified Montgomery's low block style, Jorge Gutierrez can guard anybody on the floor and he often does. He's a pre season all Pac 12 pick, he won't lead Cal in scoring but he will lead them in floor burns. Allen Crabbe: Crabbe comes back in his sophomore year he was a high rising recruit a late signee by Cal somebody who was under the radar as a high school player and blossomed as a senior and clearly is one of the best young players in the Pac 12 who can shoot it, he can put it on the floor and score and at first he's a shooter but he developed a bit of versatility and definitely somebody Cal's looking to have score between 15-20 points a game. Crabbe is unlikely to disappoint unless we see a recurrence of the concussion problem that he had last year he missed a couple of games and may have had some recurrences over the summer when they went on the tour and he played for the U.S. team. Other than that his future is very bright. Harper Kamp: If you think about Harper Kamp the first thing you think about is the triple overtime game against Arizona at Cal last year. Harper scored over 30 points in that game as usual against bigger players all night and he's really turned out to be a great player for Cal an undersized power forward whose good out on the floor and he can mix it up inside. Can Cal get a little better than third place: Sure they could you know when you talk about the Bears being better than third or better than what their predicted to be you have to start with Justin Cobbs he's a transfer from Minnesota and he's a third year sophomore he scored 15 points he led the team in scoring and I'm not sure how many points he scored in the first exhibition game this week and all words were during last year during practice that he was taking advantage of everybody in practice and now he's getting his chance to show what he can do on the floor. So he allows Cal's back court to get a little bit bigger and a little bit more explosive in terms of their scoring and if he turns out to be a big time player then Cal could do much better than what their predicted. Morris Phillips covers Cal basketball for Sportstalk Radio |
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