Cal sports: every day is opposite day
By now, plenty of people have made the joke: the Cal football team, led by Jesus Jeff Tedford, limped to a .500 finish, and the men’s basketball team, led by Ben “offense is for sissies” Braun, started the season 6-0. Braun’s Bears even broke a Cal scoring record, dropping the mercury in Hades by a few degrees. The hoopsters broke their string today, falling to K-State on the road, but there’s reason to be optimistic for conference play, and plenty of reason to comment on the irony of the relative performances of the football and basketball squads.
But it’s not just the men’s bball team that’s flipped things around. The women’s basketball team is on the verge of a top 10 ranking, its players are getting profiled in full ESPN articles, and the coach turned down an offer from Duke. They’re poised to get even stronger as they get healthier. When I was at Cal, the women’s team was horrible. A seventh place finish in the conference was cause for celebration. Things have certainly picked up. This is a very good thing.
Speaking of tall women who could break me over their knees, the #6 women’s volleyball team just swept the #2 team in the country, advancing to the NCAA semifinals. This is literally unprecedented: the Bears have never gone to the semis before. And again, when I was at Cal, this team was terrible. We had a couple stars and a bunch of scrubs, and if the team took Stanford to OT in one of three games you called it a moral victory. Now, with a legit shot at winning the championship? Awesome.
Oh, and have you seen them?
Kat Reilly (#10), winner of the newly created Caffeinated Female Athlete of the Year / Please Marry Me award.
Maybe any one of these things could happen by itself, but look at the full list and tell it doesn’t make you do a double take:
- Tedford-led football team: bad
- Braun-led basketball team: good, including on offense
- Women’s volleyball AND women’s basketball: nearly elite
- Hot women at Cal: including Reilly and Stokke, there are now at least two.