A flattering analogy, but it only paints half the picture of what Sir Alex meant to soccer. With 49 titles under his belt in 39 years as manager, Ferguson indelibly shaped Manchester United, the English Premier League and the global sport of soccer.

Since his arrival to Manchester in 1986, he transformed his club to become the most successful club in England and a global brand recognized by billions across the world. In comparison to Ferguson’s influence, Belichick’s seems miniscule.

Over the past seven days, flocks of journalists, players and coaches paid tribute to Ferguson. I was initially wary of joining the herd by writing my own Ferguson tribute. But upon realizing how influential Sir Alex has been to my childhood, I couldn’t resist.

Ferguson and his Manchester United made me a huge soccer fan, but upon further reflection, he meant a lot more. He was a hero and a teacher for me — being a role model for me to strive toward.

Whenever I think of Ferguson’s influence on me, I drift back to middle school, when  I played pickup soccer. My friends and I all cherry-picked the best qualities of our favorite soccer idols — most of them Manchester United players — and mimicked how they played.

For 30 minutes of lunchtime every day, we were Fergie’s boys. We proudly represented Manchester United from Los Angeles.

I now have a more mature appreciation of Ferguson as a manager and as a man. Now, I aspire to be like Fergie — a man driven by his passion to become the best in his profession yet someone who never forgot his roots and his compassion.

Ferguson was a man of many flaws — most notably, his ruthlessness to his players and journalists — but his strengths ultimately triumphed over his blemishes.

One of the most endearing tributes I’ve read of Ferguson this past week was from a journalist who was banned three times from the Manchester United training grounds. The journalist fondly recalled how Ferguson took time to help out his long time beat writers and regularly attend funerals of staff members and their families.

He knew the line between business and personal. He knew when to be Sir Alex and when to just be Alex. That is something I would like to emulate.

Before I conclude, I want to flash back to July 2005, when Ferguson signed Korean midfielder Park Ji-Sung to Manchester United. As the first Asian player to play in England, Park was my childhood hero, and the signing was a huge moment in my life.

In hindsight, I came to realize that Park’s signing was solely business, but back in 2005, it represented something more. It symbolized that if you worked hard, anybody — even a pockmarked, flat-footed soccer player like Park — can reach his or her dream. It was the American Dream — taking place in northwestern England.

For an immigrant boy like me, who — at the time struggled to fit into the American lifestyle — that was a groundbreaking realization.

Now at Berkeley, I am living a part of the dream. At the same time, Alex Ferguson is moving on, having lived his dream.

While we’ve never crossed paths, I just want him to know how he shaped who I am. I just want to thank him.

Contact Seung Y. Lee at sylee@dailycal.org Follow him on Twitter @sngyn92.

The post The UnSeung Hero: Saying goodbye to Sir Alex Ferguson appeared first on The Daily Californian.

I know it’s time; I’m just not ready. I guess that’s why I’ve been putting off writing this, even though the words have been piling up in my head. I close the page, put it off for another day, week, month. Maybe if I don’t write it, it won’t end. But I know I don’t have to be ready — saying goodbye is never something you’re ready for, it’s just something you do.

How do I bid farewell to a friend? To a family? To a passion so deep it causes unnerving frustration but also fits of laughter and tears?

The Daily Californian has taken me to Seattle and Tempe, Columbus and Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and up and down California — but I never really needed to go anywhere. In college, I had a place where I slept, and then I had the office (where I also occasionally slept). Eshleman was all I needed. Hearst too, to some extent, because it’s the people who matter, not the place.

Four years I spent at the Daily Cal (and boy is it scary to refer to my time there in the past tense). During the first week of my freshman year, I applied to be a sports reporter, eventually becoming an assistant editor, two-term sports editor, opinion page editor (though I like to pretend that didn’t happen) and two-year beat writer of football and men’s basketball.

I met athletes and coaches, gained experience and contacts. More than anything else, though, the Daily Cal gave me something to care about and people to care about it with.

Colleagues became friends, and those friends became family. They gave me love and support and comfort, yes, but they also called my bluffs and would not accept sufficient work but instead demanded my best. They kept me in line and gave me hope and inspiration. That’s not easy.

I don’t mind that my two seasons covering the football team coincided with Zach Maynard’s as starting quarterback. I’m gratified to have gotten the opportunity at all, to learn from the best and train the future. I got everything I could have ever gotten out of this organization, heartfelt moments but also heartaches, much like Cal football itself.

And like an old blue, I can pine for the good ol’ days, waxing nostalgic of the way it used to be or should be. Or could still be. Not a place where opposing views aren’t heard and ingenuity blurs into complacency but one synonymous with communication, accountability and vision — from the top down and the bottom up. A place bursting with integrity and, yes, innovation. Lots of innovation.

Yet, I think my lament is healthy. It’s good to have something to care that much about.

That’s probably what I’ve learned most over the last few years: acceptance. As much as I tried, I can’t do it all or change everything. I tried my best, but sometimes there’s nothing that can be done. I’ve had to live with that, stomach it, swallow it.

I’ve made mistakes along the way, as we all have. I put too much trust in some people and not enough in others. I worked too hard and unfairly expected the same from others. I agreed to serve as the summer opinion page editor. But I have no regrets, no reservations.

I think of the Mount Rushmore of former editors at the sports desk and hope I’ve made them proud. I think of my two assistants — who put up with me being a perfectionist but unable to decide what to eat for dinner — and hope they know I’m proud of them. I couldn’t have done it without you two.

There is something special about our department, something ingrained in that desk. We don’t eat our young, but rather, we nurture them. The ones that stay with it leave with an enduring bond.

A poet once wrote that “medicine is magical and magical is art.” Well, writing has been my art. It’s had the power to heal and comfort, to empower and inspire.

To the readers, I hope I served you well. I hope I’ve been known for more than the corny endings to my stories and the Paul Simon songs I use for headlines. I won’t get to do that in the real world.

To my parents, I thank you for understanding that writing articles was a higher priority than studying and going to class.

I’ll miss the meetings, unbearable as they often were, and the thrill of just making deadline. I’ll miss the backroom, with its overflowing glasses and people. I’ll miss the smell of the air on a Game Day and the feel of the ink of a Gameday.

Some people, after graduating college, wish they could have done something one last time — maybe lie on Memorial Glade on a sunny afternoon again or hike to the Big C at sunset.

I wish I could go back to the sixth floor of Eshleman, stroll to the back of the newsroom where the sports desk once lay — the best spot — sit down on the comfiest chair in the office and go to work.

Life won’t be the same without you.

Jonathan Kuperberg is looking for work. If you have a job, contact him at jkuperberg@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @JonathanKupe. But actually, I’m serious. Hire me. Please.

The post Farewell column: Still crazy after all these years appeared first on The Daily Californian.

As the light shined upon the ancient Incan ruins, Fujita, a Cal alumnus and an NFL linebacker, perched on one of its giant stone slabs and signed a one-day contract with the New Orleans Saints. By Tuesday, his contract will expire, and he will no longer be a professional football player.

But Fujita was not at Machu Picchu to fancifully end his NFL career. This journey was never about him in the first place — it was for his friend and former Saints teammate Steve Gleason, who is debilitated by ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Fujita and company carried the wheelchaired Gleason up 10,000 feet to Machu Picchu in a 10-hour journey to raise awareness of ALS. As Fujita signed his contract, Gleason sat by his side.

Over the years, Cal football has produced superstar players like Aaron Rodgers, DeSean Jackson and Tony Gonzalez, but none has been more active in social issues than Fujita. He has been the most exemplary athlete to represent Cal at the professional level.

In addition to having a productive 11-year career in the NFL, which included a Super Bowl ring with the Saints in 2010, Fujita has made his mark in the league as a humanitarian and activist. From the restoration of Louisiana wetlands and the promotion of LGBT rights to ALS awareness, Fujita has forged a reputation as a model NFL player, on and off the field.

Recently, Fujita made national headlines for his New York Times op-ed supporting marriage equality. Playing in a hyper-masculine league in which homosexuality remains a taboo subject, Fujita stepped up as one of the very few athletes who has outspokenly backed the issue. With murmurs that NFL players might come out in the foreseeable future, Fujita is currently at the forefront of creating an environment for what could be a seminal moment in professional sports history.

As Fujita leaves his professional playing days behind, a new crop of collegiate athletes waits to enter the league via this weekend’s NFL Draft. Hundreds of athletes, including a handful from Cal, will wait for their chance to get their golden ticket to play football and earn millions of dollars.

But what this society needs more from the NFL — or any professional league — are player-activists like Fujita. Although lionizing athletes as heroes is a wary path to tread, the impact that professional athletes can have on a community is significant and positive.

It’s foolish to expect that a majority of the professional athletes will become player-activists like Fujita. But it’s not wishful thinking to expect more athletes outspoken and active on social causes.

The best place to foster this mentality is at the university level, and UC Berkeley has the prime prestige and precedent to spearhead the changes. Many of Cal’s student-athletes —  some of whom will become professional athletes, Olympians, etc. — are already active in non-athletic groups, but the activism is still limited.

Fujita was interviewed two years ago by The Daily Californian and stated that he believed Cal student-athletes, while more active in comparison to those at other campuses, were not fulfilling their potential.

For the Cal community, the legacy Fujita forged is not just a badge of honor — it is a mandate that needs an heir for the advancement of the world we live in.

Contact Seung Y. Lee at sylee@dailycal.org Follow him on Twitter @sngyn92.

The post The UnSeung Hero: Scott Fujita and the spirit of social activism appeared first on The Daily Californian.

I wrote these words on Monday while watching the news of the Boston Marathon bombing unfold. As the headlines grew from “Explosion at Boston Marathon” to “Two Bombs Explode at Boston Marathon” to “Two Dead from Bombing at Boston Marathon,” I found myself lost in those awkward speculations. It was the only place I could occupy, because I am geographically as far removed from home as those hypotheticals are from reality.

I should clarify: I do not call Boston home. I grew up in northern New England, a two-and-a-half hour drive up three of the four interstates that exist north of Massachusetts. But for many of us up there, we take the Hub as our own. The Red Sox are referred to as “we,” as in, “We lost yesterday,” or “Why on Earth did we trade for Joel Hanrahan, he lost us the game yesterday.” The same goes for the Patriots, although we prefer not to say “we” when we let Wes Welker walk to Denver. Then we say “they.”

All of us have spent time in Boston, often because of sports. I have been going to Red Sox games since I was 7. I remember that August night like it was yesterday: After a long rain delay, my dad and I moved down to seats just behind the Sox dugout, where we listened to Flash Gordon’s pitches crackle through the freshly washed air and watched Nomar’s 10th-inning walk-off wink into the night behind the Green Monster’s klieg lights. I’m not the only one who has a story like that.

Those sports memories, though, aren’t the only things pulling us back to Boston. We all have friends or family who live and work in the city. So when we hear about something like the bombing, it wrenches us out of whatever far-flung location we happen to find ourselves in and puts us in this limbo where we desperately want to be there but simply cannot.

We begin to check in with those people. Facebook mercifully updates us that our friends are safe. Texts trickle in, although sometimes they make you queasy as they comfort. My childhood friend, who works in Boston and was enjoying the Patriots Day revelry, texted me, “We’re all good down here. I was within a couple blocks when it happened, but got home okay.”

The time between the announcement of deaths and the announcement of the names of the dead is the worst. Even though we know there is a minuscule chance that a friend might be among the three, I, at least, constantly checked updates until I knew everyone I know was safe. This breeds a strange, irreconcilable emotion though: I feel an intense sadness upon reading those names but also the guilt of having heaved a small sigh of relief when I did not recognize any of them.

But the best part of this is that no one has a monopoly on the feelings that accompany a tragedy like this. I feel one degree removed from the bombing because I am 3,000 miles away. Someone who is 3,000 miles away and doesn’t know anyone there might feel two.

But the emotion that pours out of that other person is no less intense or less valid than the feelings I feel. Reading the messages of support from my two worlds displaced a little of that afternoon’s pervasive sadness. Despite the day’s events, I could not help but smile as I watched the East and West coasts converge to rally behind our city.

Contact Jordan Bach-Lombardo at jbachlombardo@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @jordan_bl.

The post The Lombardo Trophy: Boston tragedy hits close to home appeared first on The Daily Californian.

I had purchased one ticket for the second game of the A’s-Mariners series just two days prior on a spring break whim. I’d never seen an M’s game by myself before.

Waiting by myself for the Fremont train in the smelly Berkeley BART station, among throngs of boisterous A’s fans laughing and conversing, I began to regret my whimsy.

Who goes to a baseball game by himself, I wondered. It’s a social event by nature; the slow pace of the game lends to conversation and company. What would I do in the half-innings of inactivity? What are all those people with their friends and their jokes going to think of me, alone in a sea of camaraderie?

These questions ran through my mind as I boarded the train. I found a seat near the window and gazed at the sun setting over the Oakland skyline.

The train arrived, and I took the long walk down the corridor between the BART station and the Oakland Coliseum. Not content with my third-deck seat, I snuck past an usher during the national anthem and found a seat in the first deck, parallel with the left-fielder on the third-base line.

After falling behind one run early, the M’s grabbed the lead for good in the third on a three-run homer from left fielder Mike Morse. I stood up and clapped while the surrounding fans groaned and booed the lone Mariners fan.

As the game wore on and the A’s fell even further behind, fans streamed for the exits. The sun faded into the hills beyond the stadium, and those remaining in the park bundled up with blankets and heavy coats.

Lying in bed later that night, I reflected on my initial hesitancy at the Berkeley BART station.

The game ended up being fun as hell.

I enjoyed analyzing the pitching and fielding of the players without the distraction of my friends. I liked texting my dad and friends watching from home. Sure, there’s plenty to recommend about going to the ballpark with your buddies, but the experience of going to a ballgame by oneself is both vastly different and similarly enjoyable.

My hesitance, I think, stemmed from my perception of the stigmas attached to attending an event alone.

In a vacuum, doing things alone is no big deal. But in my mind, I didn’t want to be the abstract archetype of a friendless loner. Those weren’t the actual circumstances, but my idea of what it meant to go to a baseball game by myself made me feel as if they were.

It’s much lonelier to succumb to your personal insecurities, I figured.

With that thought, I turned out my lamp, laid my head down on my pillow and fell asleep, content as I’d ever been.

Contact Michael Rosen at mrosen@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @michaelrosen3.

The post Thoughts from an Oakland ballgame appeared first on The Daily Californian.

That’s right. Better than March Madness, the World Cup, Wimbledon, the Rose Bowl, the World Series, the Tour de France, the Kentucky Derby, the NBA Finals and the Super Bowl.

The Masters Tournament begins on Thursday in beautiful Augusta, Ga.

Alright, I will admit that the Olympic Games are better than the Masters. But they certainly are not as classy. And since the Summer Olympics don’t take place again until 2016, the Masters will be the greatest event in sports for the next three years.

This might shock some readers. For many 20 year olds, golf is just a boring sport for old, white guys. But anyone who thinks that hasn’t experienced the Masters the way I have.

I grew up with the Masters, and it has a special place in my heart that can’t be replaced by any other event or sport.

It’s just unlike any other major golf tournament. While in my adolescence I often hit the links myself, nothing got me more fired up to spend an afternoon on the course more than watching the Masters.

That’s because the Masters is different than any other event on TV. What makes the tournament so different is a respectful, relaxing environment that cannot be replicated anywhere else.

Golf is supposed to be the gentleman’s sport, and the Masters is its premier event.

The tournament has the best audience in sports. Tickets to the Masters are notoriously difficult to get, as they have stayed in the same families for generations. In 2012, the club released a handful of tickets to the general public for the first time in 40 years via a lottery system.

That exclusivity is unfortunate for fans like myself who dream of attending the tournament one day, but makes the TV experience something that can’t be found anywhere else. You will not hear rowdy fans yelling “GET IN THE HOLE” like you will at most other major tournaments. Those fans can’t get past the gates at Augusta.

The quiet, respectful audience combines with the soothing voices of Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo to create an environment like no other.

The experience of the Masters is something I’ve become addicted to, and it only happens once each year. In a world of high-intensity sports, there’s just something refreshing about the relaxing and respectful environment that is only found at the Masters. Even other major tournaments can’t replicate that unique environment.

And anyone who mistakes that relaxing experience as being “boring” has clearly never sat down and watched the Masters.

From Bubba Watson’s unbelievable hook shot out of the trees to set up his winning putt in a playoff last year to Mickelson’s shot between two pines in 2010, the Masters can simultaneously be one of the most relaxing and exciting events in sports.

And those are just the highlights from recent years — I won’t bore you with the tournament’s 76-year history of dramatic finishes.

But no matter how many highlights you look up on YouTube, the real highlight is the course — it’s breathtaking from every angle.

I have a romanticized version of the Masters brought on by my childhood.

Because of that, I don’t expect everyone to fall in love with the Masters the way I have. But everyone should be able to enjoy it.

So go ahead, turn on the TV this weekend.

With only four minutes of commercials per hour, the tradition and history will be nearly uninterrupted on a relaxing Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

There’s no way that after watching the Masters, you will not want to grab some clubs and hit the links yourself.

And with all due respect to the Olympic Games, no amount of watching Michael Phelps has ever made me want to jump into a swimming pool.

Only the Masters can inspire me that much.

Contact Riley McAtee at rmcatee@dailycal.org.

The post The classiest event in sports appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The same goes for American broadcasters. They may walk the walk, but they will never talk the talk. Joe Buck somehow has a following, and the lovers of March Madness claim the supremacy of Gus Johnson, with his passionate bellowings about the great buzzer beaters of the tourney. But neither of these men are fit to hold a microphone for the greatest announcer of them all, the inimitable, bombastic Ray Hudson.

Ray Hudson — man, myth, legend — was born in Gateshead, England, and played for Newcastle United. He has been calling soccer games for almost a decade now. In his nine years in the booth, he has developed a talent for equaling even the most beautiful of the beautiful game’s moments with his grandiose descriptions. This might sound like a bad thing — Shouldn’t a commentator should enhance a game, not overshadow it? — but trust me: Ray Hudson only makes your viewing experience more enjoyable.

BeIN Sport is Ray’s current home, where he gets to call each league game played by his favorite team to watch, Barcelona. (He once declared of the Blaugrana, “If there was no Barcelona, why would you get out of bed in the morning?) He also gets to spend his days ogling Lionel Messi, the runaway best player in the world and Hudson’s undisputed man crush. (Ray on Messi’s play: “He could make an onion cry,” and “They should name a constellation in the heavens after Lionel Messi.”)

Ray drops a dozen pearls every ninety minutes. They range from hilarious to bizarrely hilarious to uncut genius and have inspired such scrutiny and curiosity that one soccer radio show has a recurring segment called, “What Were You Thinking, Ray Hudson?”

Hilarious: “Victor again does his impersonation of the Exxon and spills it.”

Bizarrely hilarious: “Real Madrid’s defense stretched out like spandex on Miami beach and Casillas is left naked!”

Uncut genius: “He’s braver than a matador in high heels and a pink tutu!”

He’s so great that there’s a Twitter feed that live tweets his games and a tumblr devoted to his poetry.

For those depressed by the dour Buck calling your baseball games, switch over to the excitable and occasionally incoherent Hudson, who sometimes sounds like he downed a dozen Red Bulls before the game. After one particularly loud yelp in 2011, he apologized to his audience, saying, “Excuse me for being excited people, but we’ve just witnessed a goal that would wake up a catatonic!”

Ray is something of a renaissance man, equating particularly fine plays with the sculptures of Bernini and breaking down the mass-energy equivalence for football fans — “E equals mc squared, and M stands for Messi!”

Most importantly, Ray is a man of sports, and sports alone. The only thing he hates more than the celebrity shots TV cameras take during games is when his co-commentator Phil Schoen starts talking about the celebrities himself. Once, Phil dared to bring up Tom Cruise during a Real Madrid game, prompting an epic, populist outburst from Ray: “Will you stop talking about tennis players and stupid Hollywood actors Phil! It’s the gladiators out there, man! Not tennis players. Tom Cruise… If he smelled a soccer jockstrap he’d faint dead away.”

Fox Soccer, please hire him to do the World Cup.

The post The Lombardo Trophy: Ode to Ray Hudson, soccer’s best voice appeared first on The Daily Californian.

This comes as a surprise to no one, except perhaps the campus’ braintrust that devised the scheme in the first place. Going forward, they still contend that, with some tweaks, ticket sales will pick up and pay for the majority of the project. But looking at the numbers — as of Dec. 31, the campus has received pledges for only $151.3 million worth of seats and collected just $43 million— it is hard to be as optimistic. And from a student’s perspective, it is a downright frightening position to be in when I consider how UC administrators have wriggled their way out of other holes they themselves have dug.

Take, for example, the $60 tuition surcharge the UC Board of Regents will likely renew on Thursday. That money does not go to student services or faculty salaries. It pays the damages stemming from a lawsuit brought after an epic UC screwup. Students are now paying out of pocket for mistakes made by university administrators a decade ago.

Or consider the proposed solutions to the university’s current Student Health Insurance Program quagmire. Over the past few years, the UC Office of the President coerced the university’s campuses to join the program, promising lower rates and increased stability for all parties. Instead, through some staggeringly bungled accounting and planning, the fund now has a $57 million deficit. Dramatically raising student payments into the plan is being considered as a possible fix.

Or just look at the years of consistent tuition increases, one of which was expressly committed to paying for employee pensions. This problem arose because UC administrators, in concert with state leaders, decided to stop paying into the UC’s pension plan in 1990. Two decades later, students are left to pick up the pieces.

On campus, the majority of another capital project is already funded by students. Of the $223 million required to reconstruct Lower Sproul Plaza, students must pony up $124 million. Apparently, students at public universities are now expected to pay for their facilities themselves.

This is all not to suggest that the Memorial Stadium situation mirrors these other instances outlined above. But parallels between them exist — namely, administrators’ overestimations, outright mistakes and stated plans have led to students funding more of a public university’s operations than they should. So when we consider the current Memorial Stadium mire, is it really that hard to imagine that 10 or 20 years down the road students will pick up the tab?

The campus will immediately come out and say this will never happen. And it likely will not for many years. But this administration’s own record allows for this possibility. Not only has it already shown a willingness to allow students to fund capital projects, but it has also already used student fees to fund athletic department expenditures.

So as the Endowment Seating Program sputters along over the next decade, continually missing its fundraising targets along the way, pay attention to where the administration is looking for money. It might have its eye on your wallet.

Contact Jordan Bach-Lombardo at jbachlombardo@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @jordan_bl.

The post The Lombardo Trophy: Are students Memorial Stadium’s eventual saviors? appeared first on The Daily Californian.

“I feel like I just fall in love with my 3-point shot. But I feel like I can score in any number of ways — I just don’t do it. And I don’t know why I don’t do it, it’s just something that I have to develop.”

— Allen Crabbe in 2012

For his first two years at Cal, Allen Crabbe was his own worst enemy.

Crabbe last year talked about leaping over his own mental barrier that kept him from being more aggressive with the ball and driving to the paint. His perfectionism and adoration of his smooth three held him back.

But this year, he changed. He became more assertive with the ball. Instead of settling for the catch-and-shoot 3-pointer, he absorbed contact and drove for more high-percentage shots. His points per game rose from 15.2 to a conference-leading 18.6.

It’s easy to identify Crabbe’s change in his style of play by simply watching Cal basketball games. But statistics help put context to how effective the incumbent Pac-12 Player of the Year’s metamorphosis has been this season.

All the numbers agree that Crabbe isn’t camping out by the 3-point line anymore. Compared to last season, Crabbe’s 3-point attempts this season decreased by around 20 percent (208 to 167), and his 2-point attempts shot up coincidentally by around 20 percent as well (207 to 259).

As his long-distance shots declined in frequency, his shot selection around the rim, whether it be dunks, layups or floaters, skyrocketed — according to hoop-math.com, his percentage of shots this season (20 percent) from around the rim nearly doubled from last year (11 percent).

Crabbe also isn’t driving into the rim recklessly and blindly. He’s been really astute with his high-percentage shot selection — Crabbe makes 70 percent of his shots by the rim.

Once a one-dimensional perimeter shooter, the 6-foot-6 guard developed a potent driving game, making him a more complete guard.

With Crabbe’s frequent drives into the post came an increase in fouls drawn. According to kenpom.com, Crabbe this season drew 4.3 fouls per 40 minutes, a whole foul more than in his past two seasons.

And with more fouls came more free throws. Crabbe’s free throw attempts rose by 30 percent this season. His free throw rate — an indicator of how frequently a player reaches the charity stripe relative to his field goal attempts — increased to 29.5 from 21.4 last season.

Statistically, there should be little doubt in saying Crabbe is more effective with his growing offensive repertoire.

But the statement reaches a quandary in the world of sabermetrics when realizing Crabbe’s effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage — the two most widespread sabermetrics to identify a player’s shooting effectiveness —  remain almost identical to the past two years.

How is that possible?

Crabbe’s involvement in the Cal offense in terms of importance and volume ballooned this season. Last year, Crabbe was an auxiliary attacking option to seniors Jorge Gutierrez and Harper Kamp. This year, he has been Plan A in all of Cal’s offensive plays with little support.

Despite going up against the opposing team’s best defender every single game, Crabbe took more shots than in previous seasons. It’s actually impressive that Crabbe’s percentages have not dipped below his underclassman years’ this season.

But that’s when the naked eye enters to be the final judge. The naked eye confirms what the numbers imply: Crabbe’s more aggressive style of play has been more effective.

This can only bode well for Mike Montgomery, Cal fans and, of course, Crabbe’s own NBA stock.

Seung Y. Lee covers men’s basketball. Contact him at sylee@dailycal.org Follow him on Twitter @sngyn92.

The post The UnSeung Hero: Is Allen Crabbe more aggressive now? Is it working? appeared first on The Daily Californian.

In fact, no one saw the most important dunk of Saturday’s game. That’s because it didn’t occur during the game. It happened well before tipoff, when the Beavers were warming up.

When Oregon State was practicing its layups — you know, that drill that every team from the NBA to elementary school does where one line shoots and the other line rebounds — freshman forward Olaf Schaftenaar dared to dunk. The referees promptly hit Schaftenaar, a Dutchman making his first career start for the Beavers, with a technical foul, giving the Bears two shots from the charity stripe to start the game. Allen Crabbe made one of the free throws — the final margin of Cal’s 60-59 victory.

According to the NCAA rulebook’s Section 6, Article 1, Subsection e, a player “dunking or attempting to dunk a dead ball before or during the game, or during any intermission” shall be assessed a technical foul. Disregarding the vagueness of the language — are balls used for practice drills dead balls? I wouldn’t have thought the ball came alive until the game started — this is monumentally stupid. Dunking is part of the game of basketball. Warming up before the game is supposed to prepare you for playing basketball. So if players can’t practice dunking, then they can’t practice all aspects of the game they are about to play.

This is like an umpire preemptively calling a batter out for hitting a home run during batting practice or a judge assessing a golfer penalty strokes for drilling a hole-in-one during a practice round. Notice that neither of those are currently part of the NCAA’s rulebook.

Imagine the scene: You are a freshman international student who left home just a few months ago to travel more than 5,000 miles to play the sport you love. Filled with adrenaline after getting the nod for your very first start, you do what all athletes wish they could do: dunk the basketball. You do it, and two hours later, you realize that you may have cost your team the game. In an organization full of bizarre and baffling rules, this just might be the silliest.

Before closing, a quick note to the NCAA about its rulebook: It stipulates (in Section 4, Article 1) that for men’s games, at least one referee must be on the floor 30 minutes before the game starts. For women’s games, at least one official must be on the floor only 15 minutes before tipoff. Why the discrepancy? Women only need half as much supervision as men? I would love to see Brittany Griner throw one down 20 minutes before gametime and get away with it while Olaf stews.

Contact Jordan Bach-Lombardo at jbachlombardo@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @jordan_bl.

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