It's time to honestly recognize.....

[rodserling]

For those of you who think this decision of playing or not playing Skal has more to do with this year than the future are wrong IMO. Cal cannot bench Skal and appear to give up on him due to the the future perception on recruiting. Cal's great players first recruiting pitch has been a huge success. And bailing on a 5 star player this soon, regardless of whether its deserved or not, would tarnish that perception.

Cal didn't get to this point by not marketing his product in the best way.

 

[SilentsAreGolden]

I just wouldn't start him. i know how cal operates, but he's never had a kid this far away from where he needs to be actually getting 30 minutes a game. I don't think some realize this. Skal is not a top 10 recruit. At this point, he's closer to the top 50. I'm cool with playing him and letting him learn (not work through), but that's not how we recruit. Cal missed and we need to slightly adjust.

That's my opinion it's worthless but there why we're here.

He still doesn't. Skal is playing 21.5 mins a game. He's only cracked 30 once, the first game.

 

[SilentsAreGolden]

Man right now you think Skal is good? I figured I was stating the obvious.

When we recruited Skal lots of the Memphis scene felt he wasn't good enough to play here. I watched him and thought they were just pissed we were on him, and to an extent, they probably were. But Memphis high school top 25 kids are usually overrated IMO. When cal was at Memphis he avoided them except for Thaddeus Young but he ended up at Georgia Tech.

I disagree about it being all mental. Skal is 7 foot and has a decent touch on the offensive end. There's literally nothing else in his game at this point. He's not Anthony Davis. He has not had good coaching. It's not what we need and Cal didn't recruit him to play instructor for 4 years, he recruited him because he's supposed to be ready to be a major contributor year one. I don't see that coming with Skal. We are coming up on being half way through the season, don't forget.

As far as starting, you're right, it's pretty pointless with Cal teams as long as the players understand it. I'm a coach and was an athlete and I know how players respond. If this group feels favoritism, it could be lethal. Honestly, I trust cal to weigh that option the right way. But my opinion is he shouldn't start at this point, if for nothing more than symbolism and maybe a method to tap into Skals "beast" if it's there.

Skal has lots of upside and will get better. There's no doubt about it. I was just offering an opinion.

Do I think Skal is "good"? Obviously he isn't playing close to good right now, but I don't think that his current level of play is a good representation of his game, just as the 26 pt game against NJIT was. But you don't make the shots he was making early in the season if you don't have skills. You don't get ranked as highly as he was if you don't have skills. Towns struggled early last year, Davis struggled offensively early on, as did Brandon Knight. I'm not saying Skal is as good as those players, but they obviously ended their seasons playing much better than they did in the first 10 or so games. I'm just reacting to some of the posts here that seem to be implying we got a dud that has no chance of being a solid contributor to this team.

Maybe he won't be the Top 3 draft pick type player we thought, but I do think his head is just not in the game right now because he didn't expect to struggle with learning the game at this level. He didn't have enough preparation. The skills are there IMO, he just doesn't have the experience most kids do coming into their freshman seasons. And I don't think Cal is infallible by any means, but I don't think he would continue playing him if he thought Humphries would do better. Hopefully, Wynyard surprises everyone and can provide a spark to our frontcourt play.

 

[Primedfor9]

Sorry, but what's going on with Skal can NOT be called a "slump." A slump is when a normally good player goes through a bad spell. But, unfortunately, Skal has NEVER yet established the "normally good" part (sorry, stats amassed against NJIT don't count). Truth is he's never ever had a good game against good competition. And if you've never had a good game against good competiton then you're certainly not in a "slump", instead you're just a bad player.

That said, I am NOT giving up on him. I still believe the talent is there, and am still very much hoping he eventually gets it and emerges. But characterizing this as a "slump" is inaccurate, if not flat out dishonest. You have to first establish yourself before you can go into a slump, Skal has never done that yet.

This makes no sense, he's only played against three good teams. Also, have you not been watching the games? Lee has been playing more of late.