Coach Madsen leads Bears against alma mater Stanford
Mark Madsen, a power forward who averaged 10.9 points and 7.9 rebounds in his career at Stanford, played on the Cardinal’s 1998 Final Four team and was inducted into Stanford’s Athletic Hall of Fame five years ago, expects to experience similar feelings Friday as he did soon after he became Cal’s head coach last spring.
“There’s going to be some emotion there, just like the first two days on the job for me here,” Madsen said during a news conference at Haas Pavilion on Wednesday. “I’m used to seeing red everywhere I go. And so seeing the blue for the first two days, that was an adjustment — but I made the adjustment, and … Go Bears.”
Madsen will lead the Bears (7-12, 3-5 Pac-12) against the Cardinal (10-8, 5-3) for the first time when the teams meet at Haas on Friday night.
“It’s personal in a lot of ways,” Madsen said.
A San Ramon Valley High-Danville alum, Madsen took his first unofficial recruiting trip as a player to Cal during the 1992-93 season that ended with a trip to the Sweet 16 for the Bears. Along with Jason Kidd and Lamond Murray, a freshman guard on that Cal team was current Stanford head coach Jerod Haase.
“Things have a way of coming full circle,” Madsen said.
Madsen bleeds blue and gold now, but he remains staunchly proud of his Cardinal roots.
“My alma mater will always be my alma mater. I love Stanford,” Madsen said. “We had a lot of winning there.” The Cardinal went 105-24 in Madsen’s four seasons, including 7-1 against the Bears.
Guard Jalen Cone, who’s from North Carolina and spent two seasons each at Virginia Tech and Northern Arizona before coming to Berkeley, followed Madsen at Wednesday’s news conference. Cone got into the rivalry spirit by needling a reporter for wearing a red shirt to a Cal event.
Cone said he became fully aware of the depth of the Cal-Stanford rivalry when he and some of his teammates went to the Big Game at Stanford Stadium on Nov. 18, a 27-15 victory for the Bears, their third straight in the series.
“We saw how crazy the atmosphere was, how crazy everyone was in the student section,” Cone said. “It was fun being with my teammates, being with some of the student body, storming the field, taking pictures, dancing, hanging out with some of the Cal football players on the field afterward, just celebrating that win.”
Cone said the fact that Madsen played for Stanford “definitely adds some spice” to Friday’s matchup: “We definitely want to get this win for him and for the university.”
Key Stanford players:
Forward/center Maxime Raynaud averages 14.1 points and 9.7 rebounds. The latter number ranked second in the Pac-12 through Wednesday. … Guard Kanaan Carlyle set the program record for points in a game by a freshman when he had 31 in an 89-75 loss to Washington State on Jan. 18. … Forward Spencer Jones tied the program record for 3-pointers in a game with eight in a 9080 win over Washington on Saturday.
Key Cal players: Swingman Jaylon Tyson leads the Pac-12 in points per game with 21 and averages 7.2 rebounds. He scored 30 points in each of the Bears’ past two wins, 82-78 over Colorado on Jan. 10 and 8175 in overtime over Washington State on Saturday. … Center Fardaws Aimaq averages 15.4 points and a conference-best 10.7 boards. He leads the Pac-12 with a dozen double-doubles; that’s tied for fourth in the nation.
Briefly: Stanford leads the Pac-12 and is seventh in the country in 3-point fieldgoal percentage at 40. … The Bears and Cardinal split their two meetings last season, with Cal rolling 92-70 at Haas on Jan. 6 and Stanford waltzing 75-46 at Maples Pavilion on Jan. 28. The Bears’ win was their last under Mark Fox; they finished the season on a 16game skid.