Optimistic Jones carries some regrets

After nearly three weeks of mulling over one of the worst seasons in program history, Cal head coach Wyking Jones shouldered some of the blame for the Bears’ 8-24 record and turned his attention to 2018-19.

“Reflecting on the season, and having had a chance to look at it all objectively, I see some things that I would do a lot differently — some mistakes that I have made,” Jones said in a 40-minute “roundtable” with reporters. “… Ultimately, I’m excited about what the future holds, and I know my players and staff are anxious to get back to playing games after a season we’d like to forget. …

“I want to start the new season now. I want to get to playing some games and getting some wins, so that we can all forget about this past season.”

Cal set a program record for losses, including dropping 19 by double figures. The Bears lost 17 of their final 18 games.

Jones made himself relive all of it.

After taking a week off following the season-ending loss to Stanford in the Pac-12 tournament on March 7, Jones started watching video from his first season as a head coach. Though he eventually wants to develop a team that can play the full-court-pressing brand of defense he promised at his opening news conference, Jones said he wished he would have recognized sooner that the 2017-18 squad wasn’t equipped for that style.

Jones said games when the Bears surprised opponents with spurts of full-court pressure and slowed the tempo on offense, like wins at San Diego State and Seattle, should have been enough for him to back off his preferred style.

“Ultimately, I do want to play a pressing style for the majority of the game — creating havoc for the majority of the game — but I realize now that it’s going to take some time for our guys to be able to get to that point,” he said.

That might not come in 201819, either.

Cal does return Juhwan Harris-Dyson, Darius McNeill and Justice Sueing, each of whom proved to be solid Pac-12 players as freshmen, and has a prized recruiting class coming to Berkeley with Matt Bradley, Jacobi Gordon and Andre Kelly.

That group should be helped by Paris Austin, who averaged 8.4 points per game in two seasons at Boise State before transferring to Cal and could be the true point guard the Bears desperately missed after Charlie Moore left for Kansas.

“If we have Charlie, we win six, seven, eight more games,” Jones said. “Nothing against Darius. Darius is an off-guard, and he did the best that he could. Charlie would have made Marcus Lee look like a superstar. Marcus Lee would have been a first-team All-Pac-12 player . ...

“Losing Charlie was tough, because we didn’t have a pure point guard with experience. … That’s like being in a football game and not having a quarterback. It’s going to be hard to run an offense.”

Jones said he’d be interested in adding a graduate transfer to the young roster, especially after a scholarship opened when leading scorer Don Coleman announced his intention to transfer last week.

During breaks from daddy duty and lunches with his wife during his reflection time, Jones said he did do a little bit of recruiting.

He also set a benchmark for next season.

“Be better,” he said. “Be a lot better.”