"Seriously, John, Farve just isn’t that good." 

I didn’t listen to the radio broadcast, instead spending the waning moments before I finally got my Sayid fix following the game online.  But I’m pretty sure that the radio broadcaster was Al Michaels and that his call went a little something like this:

..Eleven seconds, you’ve got ten seconds, the countdown going on right now! Randle, up to Anderson…five seconds left in the game…Do you believe in miracles? YES!!!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, well, stunningly, unbelievably, incredibly, incomprehensibly, incomprelievably, stunnedibly Cal upset the #9 team in the nation, Wazzu.   Here’s the box score.  I can’t really comment on the game, anything more than what stattracker told me.  Anderson had a big game with 27 points, making up for his disappointing effort after Stanford.  I believe Ragnarok listened to the radio broadcast and might be able to lend more insight. 

Yet, for some reason, I’m making this post.  The California Golden Blogs:  Ensuring the wrong people make the basketball posts since 2006! 

All I know is this is vintage Braun.  Winning just enough games to keep his job and give fans hope.  Losing enough games to destroy that hope in as emotionally devastating a manner as humanly possible.

But for a few nights, at least, celebrate!  As far as Eastern Washington is concerned, we are the best basketball team!  Unless Gonzaga is in Eastern Washington.  They might be, I went to California public school, my geography is poor.

Anyway, Saturday, Cal heads to northwest Utah to take on UDub.  Should be fun!  Until then, GO BEARS! 

Yeah, we haven’t written anything about this game so far, and my guess is, you don’t care that much.  Many of you have probably written this season off, and possibly the rest of Braun’s tenure.  Possibly some of you are actively rooting for a complete collapse, hoping that will finally lead to Braun’s ouster.  Whatever your reasons for apathy or outright hostility, here’s one more:  the game’s not even on TV.  I can’t say I’m terribly disappointed.

It used to be that the Washington road swing was relatively kind to Cal.  From 2001-06, Cal was 7-5 in the Evergreen State, with 5 of those wins coming against Washington State.  Only once did the Bears come home winless (the disappointing ‘03-’04 squad).  However well UW was doing, you used to be able to pretty much count on a win against the Cougars, and road splits in the Pac-10 are valuable commodities.

Then, of course, Wazzu got a lot better last year, and the Bears were swept up there for only the second time this decade.  This year doesn’t seem much more promising.  Washington State is 17-2 and ranked 9th in the country, and with good reason:  they lead the country in defense, holding opponents to 53.9 ppg.  They may not be world-beaters on offense, but they play their system to near-perfection, and everyone buys into it.  If this game’s score is in the 50s, the Bears have no chance; if it gets up into the 70s, perhaps they pull it out.  I doubt it.

The Bears, on the other hand, don’t all seem to be on the same page.  Part of that is youth, with only Hardin and Vierneisel classified above sophomore status.  Jerome Randle, in particular, represents some of the Bears’ struggles:

"Personally, I’m not a halfcourt point guard," Randle said. "But I have to do whatever I have to do for the system. I have to buy into the system.

"I create as I go. If I see an opening, I’m just going to go for it. I’m not scared to do anything. Coming down the court full speed, that’s what I’m better at. And, hopefully, if we defend, I’ll be able to do that."

Should Randle take more heed of Braun’s coaching?  Sure.  Should Braun change his offensive style to suit the talents of the players he has?  Absolutely.  Braun recruited all these guys, and if they’re not working in his system, whose fault is that?

Randle’s breakneck pace is certainly something I’d like to see more of, although with perhaps a pinch fewer turnovers.  If he can use his speed to break down the Coug’s tough transition defense, the Bears might actually have a shot in this game.

You know, I expect this game to be close.  Whatever their flaws, these Bears are a talented bunch, and I expect at some point that will shine through.  Basketball players will make basketball plays, if not perhaps with the frequency one would like.  In fact, all of the Bears’ losses this year have been relatively close ones, and only against UCLA did the Bears fail to hold a second-half lead.  Here are the 7 losses:

@ Kansas State : L 82-75
Game was tied at 69 w/ 2:37 left.  Only 5 of the Wildcats’ last 13 points came on field goals.

Utah : L 67-65
Game was tied at 65 with 0:05 left.  Awkward last-second shot gave the Utes the game.

UCLA : L 70-58
The Bears got as close as 2-points w/ 14:15 left in the second half.  In fact, considering the Bruins jumped out to a 13-2 lead, you could say they essentially played them even after that.  Still, it was always clear that UCLA was the better team.

@ Oregon : L 79-70
Though their last lead was 56-54 w/ 7:19 left, the Bears were as close as 3 points with less than 4 minutes to go.

Arizona State : L 99-90 in 2OT
Obviously, a 2 overtime game is close.  The Bears actually had the last shot in both regulation and the first overtime, but couldn’t end the game in either case.

Arizona : L 79-75
The Bears let a second-half lead slip away, but this was still a tie game with 0:48 to go.

Stanford : 82-77
Though the game was last tied at 51 with 9:27 left, the game was still as close as 3 points with only 2:18 to go.

I bring these games up not to make excuses for the losses, but to point out how close the Bears are to beating good teams.  They have yet to be blown out, and only UCLA demonstrated that they were definitely better better than Cal.  This is not a team with no hope (*cough* Oregon State *cough*), and if the Bears can figure a few things out, they might surprise a lot of us.

That said, even if the game was on TV tonight, I’d still watch the season premiere of ‘Lost’ instead.  Can you blame me?

(TwistNHook Edit:  Look, Hydro’s post here is really really cool.  Make sure to read that.  But I just wanted to bring your attention to another thing thats really really cool.  This post from Yahoo Sports.  Marshawn is in there!  And Mickey Pimentel!  And Justin Duchererererererererer!  Also, on another note, Leon Powe had an amazing night the other night.  Double double!  Ok, back to your regularly scheduled HydroTech Post!)

Alright Bears, signing day is only a half of a week away.  Since my last recruiting post, which didn’t seem that long ago but was around 3 weeks ago, the Bears have picked up a few more commitments. 

When I last left off, Cal had just picked up a commitment from Kendrick Payne, a defensive tackle from Texas (Scout profile; Rivals profile).  At the time he didn’t have any film.  Now he does.  Here are my thoughts:  The first thing which really stands out to me his outstanding play-recognition skills and awareness.  He seemed a step ahead of the OL in his recruiting videos.  OL was going to cut block?  He gracefully side-steps the cut-block and is in the backfield in an instant.  Run is going away from him?  He pianos sideways easily, bypassing his blocker and makes the tackle even though he’s a back-side defender.  His also maintains a great awareness for the ball location while locked up on his blocker.  So often, it seems like some players lose focus on the ball and only concentrate on their blocker when engaged but Payne doesn’t.  He also is fairly quick too.  Of course, he’s only 260 pounds right now.  So when he puts on 30 more pounds and up to a Pac-10 playing weight he might be a touch slower.  But still, his mobility reminded me a bit of Brandon Mebane.  Also, Payne is a midyear student and is already on campus, hitting the books, and the weights. 

The next commitment was Aaron Tipoti, a DE from Hawaii (Scout profile; Rivals profile).  He’s around 6′1" to 6′3" and anywhere from 230-250 pounds.  He’s Tosh Lupoi’s first recruit - I believe, as since Lupoi has probably been assigned to work the state of Hawaii now that Delgado is gone.  His recruiting videos are limited, but here are my thoughts: Tipoti seems to do best off the end at defensive end than inside.  Against guards, it seems as if his efforts might be stymied more.  But off the end, he does an pretty good job attacking the edge.  He seems to use his hands pretty well in order to free himself.  In case you didn’t know, Delgado was huge on teaching the DL martial arts hand techniques to keep the OL’s hands off of them.  Lupoi definitely got lots of training in the martial arts from Delgado and Lupoi is surely going to pass it off to all the Cal DLmen.  Tipoti seems very athletic too.  He’s definitely got a DE body and gets a good drive out of his legs. 

Next, Cal got a commitment from a local prospect, Chris Little, a safety out of Oakland (Scout profile; Rivals profile).  He’s a decent sized prospect at 6′2" and still might be growing.  His videos are a pretty tough to see but my thoughts nonetheless: First, he’s a thick guy.  The recruiting services has his weight around 210 or so, and he surely looks it.  He is taller and thicker than everyone else in his videos but he also maintains good speed too.  He seems to be a pretty solid tackler and looks to be able to provide ample run support by closing in on the run fast. 

Cal continues its tradition with great offensive centers by picking up a commitment from Dominic Galas (Scout profile; Rivals profile).  He’s rated as about the #10 center in the country if you average the rankings from Scout and Rivals.   Galas was originally an Oregon State commitment, but Cal has pursued him hard and won his allegiance.  My thoughts on his videos: Well, he can definitely take on defensive players who are bigger and heavier than he is.  In his videos he was consistently moving out defenders who outweighed him.  Galas gets a nice low pad level on the defenders, gets under their pads, and moves them right out of the play.  While watching some one on one clips, what really stood out to me is Galas’ great positioning.  Aside from one clip, he didn’t really get himself out of position or give the defender leverage on either side.  He played tough against DTs that were bigger, heavier and possibly stronger.  What also struck me about Galas, and which may be the most important attribute, is his demeanor.  He’s all business.  While other players seemed to be trash-talking and looking for some banter in return, Galas didn’t say anything back.  He comes across as very business-like and serious.  Galas’ serious attitude reminds me of former Cal workaholic Byron Storer and current Cal center Alex Mack.  In fact, that’s one thing that all of Cal’s recent centers seemingly all have in common, a great work ethic.  That must be something that Coach Michalczik looks for in his players. 

Finally, Cal’s latest commitment is Josh Hill, a CB from Texas (Scout profile; Rivals profile).   Hill is from the same highschool as Kendrick Payne.  In fact, the two are teammates.  So not only is Cal starting to tap Texas for recruiting talent, but it gets two solid looking prospects from the same team, and the same side of the ball.  Remember the last DT/CB duo Cal recruited?  Just a bunch of nobodies named Brandon Mebane and Daymeion "Dante" Hughes.  Could this be the next NFL duo who are former highschool teammates and college teammates?  Maybe.  My thoughts on Hill’s recruiting videos: he seem to do just fine in man coverage.  There is a lot of video of Hill blanketing his WR and breaking up the ball.  On deep balls he locates the ball well and breaks up the play.  He shows good awareness at spotting WR bubble screens and getting to the ball carrier.  I don’t really like labeling players based on highschool video but he definitely seems like a playmaker.  His speed is good too, and he can run down players from the opposite side of the field.  Being 6′0 to 6′1" gives him decent height to match up against taller WRs.  All in all, a solid player.  Seems like there might be a little Dante Hughes in him. 

Alright, signing day is about 5 days away.  I think some of the other bloggers are going to be running a few recruiting related articles over the next week.  Notice I didn’t talk about star ratings at all in this post?  I think Ragnarok is going to talk about dem stars.  And we here at the CGB have a little recruiting story of our own that I think Twist is going to share.