Cal Basketball: Coach Mark Madsen Promises Record-Setting Turnaround
It was a 19-second promotional video posted on Twitter, but new Cal coach Mark Madsen laid down the gauntlet for his team. He offered a challenge and promised the Bears will meet that challenge.
“I could not be more excited. The work starts here. The work starts now,” Madsen says in the video. “It’s gonna help us win. We have the opportunity to have the greatest turnaround in NCAA history.
“We’re gonna do it.”
It’s the kind of inspirational carrot Cal’s players need after going 3-29 last season.
It’s what success-starved Golden Bears fans want to hear from their new coach — a show of hope after six consecutive losing seasons have drained many of their faith in the program.
If you’re going to dream, why not dream big?
But exactly how big a flip are we talking here?
The NCAA record for the biggest one-season turnaround by a Division I men’s basketball team is 17.5 games, executed by Towson, which flipped a 1-31 season in 2011-12 to 18-13 in 2012-13.
Pat Skerry, coach at Towson then and now, said he’ll be rooting for Madsen and the Bears.
Towson coach Pat Skerry
Photo by Adam Cairns, Columbus Dispatch
“I watched Utah Valley a couple times. I like their toughness. They ran good stuff,” Skerry said in a phone interview, referring to Madsen's previous school. “I don’t know coach Madsen other than I loved him when he was (a player) at Stanford. I’m sure they’re going to be a reflection of him.”
A former Pitt and Providence assistant, Skerry was named coach of the Tigers — a Colonial Athletic Association team located just outside Baltimore — prior to the 2011-12 season.
Believe it or not, the program he inherited was in far worse shape than Cal. Towson had suffered 15 straight losing seasons when Skerry came on board. Plus, they were facing a postseason ban, the result of academic failings in the program before he arrived.
The Tigers opened that first season with a 100-54 loss to No. 13 Kansas. That triggered a run of 22 consecutive defeats before Towson beat UNC Wilmington 66-61 — the team’s only win all season.
“Even during the first year, we went after it every day. I never went into practice like, `Hey, Johnny, let’s feel good today,’ “ Skerry said. “It was basically, who’s going to survive? A few of them did and that gave us an identity that we’re going to be competitive.
“We established habits. The buzzword everybody likes to use is culture. I always feel like if you have good habits you probably have a pretty good culture.”
That was the starting point. Skerry then went to work rebuilding his roster.
“Talent is the baseline in everything you do.” he said. “We ran the exact same stuff from Year 1 to Year 2.”
He brought in three Division I transfers, a JC player and a freshman. All five were among the team’s top six scorers that next season, led by 6-foot-8, 245-pound Georgetown transfer Jerrelle Benimon, who averaged 17.1 points and 11.2 rebounds and earned conference player of the year honors.
Madsen is endeavoring to do the same thing, having already brought in two DI transfers and likely pursuing at least a couple more.
His task will be tougher in that ascending the ladder in the Pac-12 is more challenging than in the Colonial. But he has the talent pool of the transfer portal into which he can drop his fishing line. That didn’t exist a decade ago. Because of that, Skerry said, “It’s easier to do now.”
From 1-31 to 18-13, Towson made an NCAA-record 17.5-win improvement for the program’s highest win total in 19 seasons. The year after that, the Tigers went 25-11.
So, what do the Bears have to do next season to eclipse that impressive turnaround? An 18-game leap from 3-29 would add up to a 21-11 record.
How does that sound, Cal fans?
Lofty? Oh yeah.
Possible? Perhaps.
Worth pursuing? You bet.
“You can’t be easily discouraged,” Skerry said. “I look at it from the outside, saying they’ve got a guy who’s built for this.”
Photo of Cal coach Mark Madsen
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
