Cal came in like lightning. He exploited a market inefficiency. He recognized that the average top 25 prospect was better than they were generally thought to be and embraced a marketing strategy tailored for NBA minded player.
We peaked in 2015 and just kinda rode that momentum until it petered out in the 2020's. We might have been the "It" team, I think that has probably been Duke for awhile now, but we have been strictly a second or third tier program since 2015 in terms of performance. After 2015, our average recruit got worse. Despite less high level freshman, they still entered the draft at a high rate. Kansas and Duke in particular began hunting on our turf and taking high impact prospects.
I have tremendous memories of the Cal era. The first half of the 2010's was so much fun. The latter half of the 2010's had some frustration, but the 2017 team was a real contender while the 2016 and 2019 teams were good enough to make a run with some luck. I loved the Cal era. It just ran it's course, and it was time to move on.
