Cal Sports Report

Cal Basketball to Face Vanderbilt This Season and Next Season

Mark Byington is Vanderbilt's new coach after he led James Madison to a 32-4 record last season

Jake Curtis

Mark Madsen
Mark Madsen / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
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Cal has scheduled a home-and-home men's basketball series against Vanderbilt that will begin this season, according to CBS Sports college basketball reporter Jon Rothstein.

The Golden Bears will face Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 13 this coming season, then will host the Commodores in 2025-26 on a date yet to be determined. It's unclear whether this season's game against Vanderbilt will be Cal's season opener, but it probably will at least be among the Bears' first three games.

It might be the first game for new Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington.

Facing Vanderbilt will be an interesting matchup for Cal forward/center Lee Dort, who transferred from Vanderbilt to Cal this past offseason. He played 17 games for the Commodores in 2022-23, averaging 1.7 points. But he played in just one last season, when he was suspended from the team after he was hit with legal charges that were eventually dropped.

Vanderbilt went 9-23 overall and 4-14 in the Southeastern Conference in 2023-24, and head coach Jerry Stackhouse was fired after the season. He was replaced by Byington, who was the head coach at James Madison last season when the Dukes went 32-4 and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Cal will have virtually a brand-new team after going 13-19 overall and 9-11 in Pac-12 play last season in Mark Madsen's first year as Cal's head coach. The top eight scorers from that team are not on the Golden Bears roster this season, and 2024 All-Pac-12 selection Jaylon Tyson was a first-round pick of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2024 NBA draft.

Among the transfers coming to Cal this season are Andrej Stojakovic, BJ Omot, Jovan Blacksher Jr. and Rytis Petraitis. Petraitis will also be playing against his former team when Cal hosts Air Force on November 21. Petraitis led Air Force in scoring last season at 15.3 points per game.

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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