Date 1/14 || Time 11:00 || Venue Haas Pavilion || Video ACC Network
Duke enters the ACC era of West Coast travel this week with a trip to the Bay Area to take on Cal and Stanford.
Cal is first and some of y’all are gonna need a nap because this one starts at 11:00 East Coast time.
The University of California was where Pete Newell coached until his health forced him to leave the sidelines. At Cal, he had one of the great runs in NCAA coaching history: Newell took his Bears to the Elite Eight twice,
made two Final Fours and won the national championship in 1959. He was idolized by many younger coaches, including Indiana’s Bobby Knight. One wonders what it would have been like had he coached throughout the 1960’s against UCLA’s John Wooden.
He also coached the 1960 Olympic team and won the NIT in 1949 while at San Francisco.
Cal has had some good eras since and Jason Kidd’s team upset Duke in the 1993 NCAA tournament’s Sweet Sixteen, but it has never gotten back to that Newell level. Not many schools have ever been there though, to be fair.
Currently the Bears are coached by Mark “Mad Dog” Madsen, who was an average but very intense athlete who won great respect from Lakers teammate Shaquille O’ Neal, who admired his tenacity.
Coaches personality tend to transfer to their teams, so you can reasonably expect an intense match from Cal, and while this is always true in 2o25 NCAA basketball, this is not the same team we saw in Cameron last year.
Last season, Madsen’s first, the Bears were 14-19. This season, they’ve almost matched that win total already.
Currently, Cal is 13-4 overall but just 1-3 in the ACC. It’s worth noting that of their four overall losses, three were on the road: one close loss at K-State (99-96), a 24 point loss to Virginia (84-60) and a narrow loss at Virginia Tech (78-75). The only home loss was to Louisville, 90-70.
Cal’s roster includes some familiar names: Dai Dai Ames, who played at Virginia last season, Chris Bell, who was at Syracuse previously, John Camden, who was at Memphis and Virginia Tech before blossoming at Delaware, and two sons of NBA greats, Justin Pippen and Stephon Marbury II.
The rotation consists of Ames (6-2 junior), Pippen (6-3 sophomore), Camden (6-8 senior), Lee Dort (6-10/245 senior), Semetri Carr (6-0 freshman), Rytis Petraitis (6-7 senior), Nolan Dorsey (6-5 senior), Milos Ilic (6-10/235 senior) and DeJuan Campbell (6-2 senior).
Given what we know of Madsen, and based on his success at Utah Valley, where his last two seasons his teams finished 20-12 and 28-9, and what we’ve seen at Cal so far, the Bears will compete. He likes a looser approach and doesn’t call a lot of rigid plays. However, this season, he has more talent to support that. This team has the potential to get really hot.
Ames, who was handcuffed last season in the Tony Bennett system, which Ron Sanchez maintained after Bennett’s sudden pre-season retirement, has really blossomed in Berkeley. He’s one of four scorers in double figures for Cal with 17.8 per game. Pippen gets 14.7, Bell 13.8 and Camden 13.2.
Ames had one of the more amazing clutch plays of the season with his four-point play against Notre Dame that sent Irish coach Micah Shrewsberry into a rage. Was it a bad call? Probably. Did he make the three and the foul shot?
Yes he did.
Dort is their best rebounder with 7.5 per game while Pippen is the main distributor with 4.1 per game. He’s also a good rebounder with 3.5 an outing.
You might look at this game and think well, obviously Duke should win. They’ve got Cameron Boozer and Isaiah Evans and Pat Ngongba. The talent is obviously better.
Thing is, that doesn’t always carry the day.
Basketball is a game of momentum and when you’re on someone else’s court, you’re in their house, as the Cameron Crazies like to point out from time to time.
And Cal has talent too. Ames has shown he’s for real. Bell used to brag that he was the best shooter in the ACC. He wasn’t and isn’t, but can he get hot and take over a game?
Yes he can. And he knows Duke well.
And add to that these factors: 1) there’s a long flight to get to the Bay Area, 2) Duke hasn’t been defending all that well lately and 3) the game is at 11:00 East Coast time.
Back in his Celtic days, Robert Parish just stayed on East Coast time as much as possible. If he was playing in LA and the clock said 9:00, it was 12:00 in Boston and Parish was most likely in bed or trying to get there. It was a wise recognition of his body clock and probably extended his career.
Jon Scheyer is a smart coach and he’s traveled enough to understand the dangers travel poses for a team. At 11:00 East Coast (body) time, some of his guys, not all but some, would normally be sound asleep. That’s a really serious concern. Do you work out? Ever played a competitive sport?
Now consider doing it near bedtime. It’s not going to be fun, right? There’s no getting around that.
Keep in mind too that with UNC going as the travel partner for this set of West Coast games, the fans and media are going to hype this up. Duke and UNC both played in the Pete Newell Classic, Duke in 2000, losing to Stanford, and UNC in 1999, losing to Cal, but both were in Oakland. We can’t recall the two titans of the ACC playing Cal or Stanford on their home courts, and on the same weekend? It’s a huge deal. Huge.
Cal and Stanford are not on the level of Duke and UNC, but they have a chance to bloody both up this week and they’re going to try hard to do that. So are the fans. We’ve always seen this as a dangerous road trip. It won’t surprise us at all if the home teams pull upsets, preferably of UNC.
We didn’t really address point #2 there and that’s a concern. Duke could certainly defend better. We saw a brilliant first-half from Dame Sarr against SMU and Maliq Brown is a brilliant defender, which is why they both started against the Mustangs, but some other guys need to step up.
Oh, and come to think of it, there is an important point #4: Duke has developed a real tendency to start slow. Given the other factors we just mentioned, it would be good to break that habit on the West Coast. Sooner or later, it’s going to be costly and it would be better to not fall behind like they did against SMU and others.
Call it a hunch, but from this distance out, it looks like a Caleb Foster game waiting to happen.
We’ll add links as we see them.
- The Big Week Has Arrived: Duke & Carolina Set to Visit Haas
- Cal takes on Cameron Boozer and No. 6 Duke at home
- And one: Ngongba’s career day, disciplined defense power Duke men’s basketball to win over No. 24 SMU
- Cal Hosts No. 6 Duke, No. 14 UNC At Haas Pavilion
- Ames and Cal host Duke
