Marsalis Roberson became the first commit of Cal men’s basketball’s 2021 recruiting class Thursday afternoon. The 6’5″ and 180-pound shooting guard is rated as a four-star recruit by 247Sports and is in the top 100 players in his class nationally. He is the first top-100 recruit to commit to Cal since Charlie Moore in 2016.
A local from Oakland, Roberson becomes the latest in a string of athletes from Bishop O’Dowd High School to join the team, following in the footsteps of freshman forward Monty Bowser and former players Paris Austin and Ivan Rabb.
“I chose Cal because I have a really good relationship with the coaching staff and I like their play-style and also they were recruiting me the hardest,” Roberson told 247Sports. “Coach (Mark) Fox called my grandpa, my mom, my uncle, basically my whole family and no other coaching staff did that so that was cool.”
Roberson’s mother also works as an academic adviser at UC Berkeley. He chose Cal over offers from Nebraska, Rice, Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara.
Fox and his staff have been hoping to continue the streak of Bishop O’Dowd players and have given an offer to Jalen Lewis, a class of 2023 composite five-star center.
As for the rest of the 2021 class, eyes are turned toward DaRon Holmes, a four-star power forward from Montverde Academy who’s ranked in the top 50 nationally and who recently narrowed his list to four schools including Cal.