Pac-12 Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2022-23 season

Cal was a frisky team in league play last season and had a solid core of key players at the top in Jordan Sheppard, Andre Kelly, and Grant Anticevich. All three are now gone, leaving no one left that averaged more than 7.5 ppg. Losing Kelly and Anticevich was a big blow to the frontcourt, with the team not adding anyone in the transfer portal to replace them.

The Bears do have a trio of returning frontcourt players in Lars Thiemann, Kuany Kuany, and Sam Alajiki combined for 27 starts last season, while three-star freshman ND Okafor is a newcomer to watch. Speaking of newcomers, it’ll be interesting to see the kind of impact former five-star recruit, Devin Askew will have as the projected lead guard. He didn’t play much as either Kentucky or Texas but the excuse is that it was a crowded backcourt at both places. That won’t be the case at Cal so how well he plays will help determine how competitive the team is this season.

The backcourt of Askew, Joel Brown, Jalen Celestine, Jarred Hyder, and Hartford transfer, DeJaun Clayton will be solid but a couple of guys will have to break out from this group. That goes for the whole roster, as it’s filled with some solid role players but at the moment, definitely lacking some go-to options.