Stars out at Haas Pavilion

The Cal Basketball season finale versus UCLA was bound to have a huge crowd because of ESPN's national coverage and the assignment of the College Gameday show at Haas Pavilion. Among the folks that we saw...

Gameday Staff:

Rece Davis - the host genuinely enjoyed the Haas crowd and was seen mingling with students after Gameday

Bobby Knight - 'the General' wore red (he loves to play the villian) and was "play-choking" one of his friends at halftime of the game (video to come)

Jay Bilas - the Dukie was very professional and gave high fives to the audience as he walked through the crowd

Digger Phelps - brought the house down during a commercial break when he danced with a pair of blonde Cal Dance team members. It must be nice to be the zany guy on the Gameday crew.

Hubert Davis - I wish he would show some of our players how to play in his smooth, in-control manner.

Erin Andrews - She spent most of the evening far from the student section but looked very cute in a dark suit. She gave the occassional wave to the fans.

Former Bears:

Anwar McQueen - he's been at several games this season and I hope he continues to be a fixture.

Kevin Johnson - the Mayor of Sacramento was courtside in a smart brown blazer. He was definitely into his date, Washington D.C. school superintendent Michelle Rhee. They exchanged a couple of (edited) of kisses and he was definitely sharing his basketball insights with her during the game. I'm glad that he's "dating" someone his own age.

Others:

Tracy Murray - this former UCLA sharpshooter was probably doing color for the UCLA radio broadcast. He looked like he could still drop 50 points on the Warriors. I think he made good investments, his suit and shoe game was still tight.

Jamaal Wilkes - the father of Jordan Wilkes (and UCLA alum) has been a mainstay of Cal Basketball games. Here's hoping we see him at Haas even after Jordan's graduation.

Here is some video from the game.

The Max Zhang post (the future of Cal Basketball?)

If you've been following Cal Basketball over the past decade you are probably familiar with former Coach Ben Braun. His tenure was marked with relative mediocrity (although he did win Cal a "National Championship") and a knack for signing players international players. Some would be good contributors (Richard Midgley, Amit Tamir) while others (Saulius Kuzminskas, Shahar Gordon) were total busts.

One region that Braun never tapped was Asia. Although Ma Jian had a standout career at the University of Utah -- there had not few if any Chinese nationals to play NCAA basketball. After the first Chinese players entered the NBA (Wang, Bateer and Yao) I thought that Cal would be uniquely positioned to recruit collegiate Chinese basketball players.

Consider:

• Cal's large Chinese American student population
  
• The Bay Area's strong Chinese American community
  
• Top basketball competition in the Pac 10 conference
  
• Cal's worldwide academic reputation

It seemed clear to me that if China was going to allow its players to play collegiate basketball that Cal would be the perfect place to go. There have been many stories written about how China has hundreds of top basketball players within its sports academies. Market research has shown that basketball's popularity has grown rapidly over the past decade and some think that China is the next basketball powerhouse.

Enter Max Zhang. The 7-3 center was the last member of Braun's recruiting class and many saw the move as another desperate "project" recruit. Zhang, who would be the tallest player in Cal history was admittedly very raw. He had only played the game for 5 years and did not have the strength to play right away. Braun's critics were very focal with their discontent.

I think this was a brilliant move by Braun. If Zhang could develop into a serviceable NCAA basketball player -- Cal could have a pipeline to the burgeoning Chinese talent pool. St. Mary's University has become a top 25 team by recruiting Australians. If Cal can recreate this model -- the future for Chinese basketball players in the US could be very bright.

Max was more of a curiosity than a basketball player in his first year. He sat out the season to develop physically and adjust academically. Although Braun was fired after season's end, new coach Mike Montgomery has been very complimentary of Max during his tenure. Next time we'll discuss Max's on-court progress.

Breaking the 'Furd curse

hey kids... happy new year to everyone. my apologies for the lack of updates. guess i've been out and about having fun. hope this entry makes up for lost time...

today's wednesday but we're only a couple of days from the start of the nfl's second season, the playoffs. here's hoping that the 49ers beat the packers up in green bay. i'm not quite ready to stop watching football yet so i'm hoping that my niners can pull off the big win in wisconsin. last sunday was a glorious sports day for me. the niners crushed the saints, the raiders lost a heartbreaking loss and my cal bears hoops squad beat stanford for the first time in 5 years.

i've been following this cal this year with great ease because most of their games have been televised but it was a true pleasure to watch the stanford game in person. although the bears were not playing their best-- they had the fortitude to hang in the game and win it pulling away. i love teams that scrap... and more importantly-- teams that rebound. i attended the game with a bunch of friends and there was such a feeling of jubliation when we won that game. it may seem a bit silly but my friend cheryl and i ended up in the mob that stormed the field. (ok, for the sake of accuracy... our seats were up in the nosebleeds so we didn't technically storm the court. we sort of walked on during the madness.

i had a feeling that the bears would pull it out... i had a feeling that it would be a perfect sports day for me! =)