Cal Basketball: Ex-Golden Bears Point Guard Joel Brown Heading to Iona

After four losing seasons in Berkeley, Brown joins a team that played in the NCAAs this year.

Former Cal point guard Joel Brown, who played four seasons and led the Bears in minutes played this past season, has transfer to Iona, he announced Sunday on social media.

Brown joins an Iona team that is coming off a 27-8 season that included a bid to the NCAA tournament, but is starting over after the departure of legendary coach Rick Pitino to St. John’s.

Joel Brown / Twitter

Brown, from Brampton, Ontario, Canada, averaged 6.9 points, 3.3 rebounds and a team-best 3.2 assists this season. Partly because he was the Bears’ only healthy point guard much of the season, he played 1,040 minutes, an average of 32.5 per game.

Brown is expected to graduate from Cal at the end of this spring semester.

He was among eight scholarship players to enter the transfer portal after coach Mark Fox was fired following the Bears’ 3-29 season. Brown is the fourth of those to find a new school, joining center Lars Thiemann (Loyola Marymount), forward Sam Alajiki (Rice) and guard Jarred Hyder (Cal Poly).

Guard DeJuan Clayton, forward Kuany Kuany, guard Marsalis Roberson and forward Obinna Anyanwu have not announced their plans.

Brown played 122 games for Cal, starting 93 of them. He averaged 4.8 points and 2.8 assists but struggled to shoot, converting just 41 percent from the field, 29 percent on 3-point attempts and 49 percent from the free throw line.

He scored a Cal career-high 22 points in the regular-season finale vs. Oregon State this year.

Brown played on Cal teams that were a combined 38-87 in four seasons, including 17-61 in Pac-12 play. He hopes to have more success at Iona, which reached the NCAA tournament in two of three years under legendary coach Rick Pitino before his  departure for St. John’s after last season.

Iona has a solid basketball legacy, having earned six NCAA bids the past seven seasons (excluding 2019-20 when the tournament was canceled due to COVID). The Gaels are now coached by Tobin Anderson, whose 16th-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson team upset No. 1 Purdue in the opening round of this year’s NCAA tourney.

Cover photo of former Cal point guard Joel Brown by Richard Jackson, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo