Mark Madsen Says Cal Will Have Different Style of Play This Season

Cal will play fast and free this season. At least that’s what coach Mark Madsen and his players said during Wednesday’s ACC Tip-Off media event in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Madsen, who had surgery on his right shoulder in August to repair labrum tissue, was clear that he wants unselfish play, which was not always the case last season.

“In terms of style of play we will play uptempo, we will share the basketball and we will pass the ball unselfishly,” Madsen said.  “Our identity has always been moving the basketball. Now last year, we did not do that. We did not do a good job of sharing the ball. I take responsibility for that. But this year the ball is really moving, everyone is sharing it. “

The three Cal players who attended ACC media day – Dai Dai Ames, DJ Campbell and Rytis Petraitis – all commented on the freedom they feel with the style the Bears will play in 2025-26.

“Definitely the ball movement and trying to play fast,” Petraitis said of this season's style. “I feel like last year we were trying to slow the ball down a little bit. And calling a lot of plays. Feel like we have the ability this year to just move the ball down the court, play fast, not having to call out plays as much, and just be more unpredictable on the offensive end.”

Ames, a combo guard likely to be in the starting lineup, played at Virginia last season and at Kansas State the year before that, and says the focus is different from his previous stops.

“Playing free,” Ames said of his adjustment to a new program. “I really didn’t have that at my last two schools, but now coach gives us, everybody, the whole team a lot of freedom to play.”

The biggest improvement from last season, when the Bears went 14-19, including 6-14 in ACC play, must be on the defensive end, where Cal was deficient last season.

“We play fast and our defense will be much improved this season from last,” Madsen said.

It needs to be. Cal allowed 76.8 points per game last season, which ranked 16th in the 18-team ACC. The Bears allowed opponents to shoot 46.9% from the field, which ranked 17th in the ACC and 325th of the 355 Division I schools, and Cal allowed its foes to shoot 37.6% from beyond the three-point line, which ranked 17th in the ACC and 347th in the country.

The addition of Nolan Dorsey, the defensive player of the year in the Colonial Athletic Association last season at Campbell, should help in that respect.

Last season Cal shot just 31.5% on its three-point shots, which ranked 16th in the ACC and 305th in the country, so the Bears added some shooters, most notably John Camden (41.6% three-point shooting last season at Delaware), Ames (39.7% three-point shooting at Virginia) and Chris Bell (44.3% three-point shooting in ACC play at Syracuse).

Developing offensive and defensive chemistry may be a chore with so many new players on the roster.  Cal has nine new transfers and two freshmen on this year’s roster after having most of its players either run out of eligibility or transfer out after last season. 

The most significant departures were Andrej Stojakovic, who was Cal’s leading scorer last season at 17.9 points per game but is now at Illinois, and Jeremiah Wilkinson, who, as a freshman, scored 20 points or more seven times in the Bears final 13 games, including two games of 30 or more, but is now at  Georgia.

But Cal has added Ames (transfer from Virginia),  Camden (Delaware), Milos Ilic (Loyola-Maryland), Justin Pippen (Michigan), DK Manyiel Dut (Georgia State), Mantas Kocanas (Florida Atlantic), Dorsey (Campbell), Bell (Syracuse) and Sammie Yeanay (Grand Canyon).

Madsen is hoping he doesn’t lose as many players through the transfer portal in future years.

“We’re going into Year Three at Cal,” he said. “Retention is an issue for a lot of teams in every sport in the current environment. So from Year 1 to Year 2, unfortunately we were not able to retain anyone with starting experience. Now from last year to this year, we’ve been able to retain three players with starting experience (DJ Campell, Petraitis and Lee Dort), and as we go from this year into next year we anticipate having even more success with retention across the board.”

Madsen admitted there were “growing pains” in Cal’s first season in the ACC, but he has lost none of his trademark optimism, even though Cal is not projected to finish in the top half of the ACC standings.

After noting UC Berkeley's ranking as the No. 1 public institution and that two Cal professors became Nobel laureates this week, Madsen made this statement.:

“It’s our goal with these outstanding players here and the players that are not with us [in Charlotte] today to restore Cal basketball to the national championship level."

Cal's season opener is a November 3 home game against Cal State-Bakersfield.

NOTE: Interestingly, Madsen and Cal players were the first to face the media on Wednesday, starting at 5:15 a.m. West Coast time.