by Michael Duca

 

BERKELEY–It’s nice that Cal is 6-3 but it would nice to see the Golden Bears start winning basketball games away from Haas they’ve got one victory from their home floor so far this year and that’s not going to work in the Pac 12. The Pac 12 is absolutely loaded this year and for Cal they have shot at a reasonable seeding at a conference tournament.

The Bears could have a 20 game winning season they have a shot at making the big dance, they’re going to have to win some road games.It’s never easy because your traveling which takes a lot of time away from the court and takes a lot of energy. You know how much fun it is to wait for your seat on the plane now imagine these guys doing it all the time.

Your away from home and your in a hostile crowd and your in a building that’s not yours, your depth perception and sight line comes to path through everything. You have to adjust to the building a little bit and for two or three minutes its just enough for the other team to get the crowd moving and make it hard on you.

The time change in Maui didn’t hurt them, or the altitude in Santa Barbara didn’t effect them, they just got outplayed by Santa Barbara and it was bound to happen sooner or later. Santa Barbara has never beaten a Pac 12 team finally all things come to an end, all things change, it just looks on the stat sheet that Cal didn’t shoot very well on the road and if that happens their probably not going to win.

Cal guard Jabari Bird he is Cal’s premier recruit this off season and he played in my hometown of Richmond, Bird is an extraordinary talent there and as you know Cal head coach Mike Montgomery has a little difficult time trusting freshmen and a little difficulty giving them a lot of responsibility on the offense. It gives you an idea how special a talent that Bird is.

Bird is on the floor every game he’s a starter for every game and he’s basically stepped into Cal player Alan Crabbe’s shoes. Bird is not a Crabbe quality outside shooter and anybody in basketball hardly is. Bird has great competitiveness and the rest of his game he’s actually got a more complete game than Crabbe does.

Bird is not necessarily more skilled but he’s played as hard 100 percent of the time, Crabbe was proned to gaging a few plays if his shot wasn’t falling for him. So on those merits Bird is giving Cal everything they could be that they hope to get out of a freshman. Montgomery is getting as much experience out of him that he can before the conference games start because there’s nothing but good teams in that conference.

Michael Duca does commentary on Cal basketball each week for Sportstalk Radio