One of the three new ACC members, Cal, is coming off a rough 13-19 season, but have an almost completely new roster. (The only returners are guys who will almost never play…) The Golden Bears, led by coach Mark Madsen, hope to compete year one, but will have to put together a lot of different pieces to do so.

Returners:

There are no real returners worth noting for Cal. For a team with 9 incoming transfers, the only returners are guard Vladimir Pavlovic and forward/center Devin Curtis, neither of which averaged more than a point per game.

Transfers:

The transfer class for the Golden Bears is headlined by 6’7 Air Force transfer Rytis Petraitis, who averaged 15.7 points and and 6.3 rebounds per game last season. Petraitis is a strong finisher at the rim who can also stretch and hit threes at a fairly efficient rate.

Cal is also adding a guards Christian Tucker, Jovan Blacksher Jr, Andrej Stojakovic, and DJ Campbell. Tucker seems to be the one to slide into the starting point guard role, after averaging 11.3 points and 5.4 assists at UTSA. He is a crafty finisher and great passer, and will be vital in this offenses ability to run smoothly with so many new pieces. Blacksher is a grad transfer from Grand Canyon, where he only averaged 4.8 points last season, but averaged 15.8 in the 2021-22 season. He tracks to be more of a veteran presence on this team than anything else. Stojakovic, the son of former NBA player Peja Stojakovic, is coming off of an underwhelming freshman year at Stanford, where he came in as a 5 star recruit yet only averaged 7.8 points per game. However, Andrej showed his potential with a 20 point game vs. USC and a 16 point game vs. Arizona. Their final incoming guard is DJ Campbell, who averaged 11.6 points at Western Carolina this past season. Campbell tracks to be a good scorer off the bench for the Golden Bears. He’s an athletic presence with a good mid range jumper and efficient 3 point shot (41%, however on low volume)

Cal has a few more forward transfers as well, 6’8 BJ Omot, 6’7 Joshua Ola Joseph, and 6’9 Spencer Mahoney. Omot is a rising junior from North Dakota who averaged 16.7 points per game last season. BJ is a lengthy finisher at the rim and can stretch the floor. The only worry with him is that he was fairly inefficient last season and moving up to a power conference may emphasize that problem for him. Ola Joseph is coming from Minnesota, so he has high major experience. He averaged 7.5 points last year, however he lost all minutes down the stretch which hurt his average, even though he had a stretch of 9 straight games in double figures near the beginning of the season. As a physical presence, Joshua shot 74% at the rim last season, and he can stretch the floor, shooting 40% from three on the season. In my opinion, a very underrated pickup for Coach Madsen. Their final incoming forward, Spencer Mahoney, redshirted last year at Washington State, and will most likely play minimal minutes this year with the 3 forwards ahead of him.

Finally, California is bringing in two transfer centers, 6’8 Mady Sissoko from Michigan State, who averaged 3.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, but is a strong defender who will have to play significant minutes with the strong bigs in the ACC. They also have Lee Dort incoming, a 6’10 big from Vanderbilt coming off a season where he only appeared in one game.

Recruits:

The Golden Bears have only one incoming freshman, top 300 recruit Jeremiah Wilkinson, a guard who may redshirt or get limited minutes off of the bench.

Season Outlook

Overall, there is some potential for this California team, however, I find it hard to believe they can put together a great season with all the new pieces and entering a new conference. They had many departures, and all things considered, didn’t do a terrible job to fill them. However, I would still project this team to be right around .500 or slightly below. They will have to rely on a bunch of players making a serious jump in play level to at least maintain their production, which isn’t a very realistic result. I would be shocked if the Golden Bears make a postseason appearance. (Sorry Aman!)

(P.C. Cal Athletics)