Inside College Basketball

Golden Trio  

Led by three hungry Bears, Cal has surged to the top of the Pac-10

By Seth Davis

The patrons at the Crepevine, a diner on College Avenue a couple of miles from the Berkeley campus, got an extra treat with their pancakes and bagels on Jan. 4 when Joe Shipp, Amit Tamir and Brian Wethers -- Cal's Big Three -- met for breakfast a few hours before the Bears' win over Stanford. The Big Three have spent countless hours together working out and hanging out, so an occasional breakfast club was a natural extension. "It's important for us to spend time together to talk about how we feel," Wethers says. "We know our team is going to go as we go."

Shipp (34), Tamir (24) and Wethers (25) combined for 60 points in the rout of UCLA. Robert Beck

This season Cal is going much further than anyone expected. The No. 20 Bears improved to 14-2 (7-0 in the Pac-10) with an 80-69 pasting of UCLA last Saturday, giving them their best overall start since 1959-60, when they went 28-2 and lost to Ohio State in the NCAA championship game. The current record is remarkable considering the program's turbulent off-season, during which 6'11" freshman center Jamal Sampson left for the NBA, 5'10" junior point guard Shantay Legans transferred to Fresno State, and Cal's top recruit, 6'7" swingman Kennedy Winston, was released from his letter of intent and signed with Alabama.

Picked to finish fifth in the Pac-10, the Bears were tied with Arizona for first place at week's end, due largely to the performance of the Big Three. Shipp and Wethers, both seniors, and Tamir, a sophomore, had accounted for 68.4% of Cal's scoring, 50.9% of its assists and 49.3% of its rebounding this season, but their contributions go well beyond stats. Says Bears coach Ben Braun, "What I like about them is they've taken on the responsibility of being not just producers but leaders."

A chiseled 6'5", 220 pounds, Shipp, a swingman who through Sunday led the Pac-10 in scoring (20.9 points a game), can muscle his way past smaller defenders or shoot from the outside. In conference play he was hitting 45.3% of his shots from three-point range and 61.9% from the field. Wethers, a 6'5" senior guard, is a slasher on offense and a stopper on defense. Tamir is a 6'11" power forward from Jerusalem who at 23 is Cal's oldest starter. (He played for the Israeli national team and served three years in the Israeli army.) A superb shooter (43.8% from three-point range), Tamir was also the Bears' leading rebounder (6.9 a game) and was second in assists (3.0).

What Shipp, Tamir and Wethers lack is a savvy marketing strategy. Noting that Oregon has gained national visibility with its billboard campaign showcasing Ducks stars Luke Jackson and Luke Ridnour, Tamir recently suggested that he and his mates call themselves the Jab Trio, using an acronym made from the initials of their first names. The three will certainly need their most powerful punch on Saturday when Cal travels to top-ranked Arizona, but they're hardly daunted. "We know Arizona is good, but we're good too," Shipp says. "Our goal is to win the Pac-10 championship, and we're not going to be satisfied until we do that."

Issue date: February 3, 2003

For more Inside College Basketball see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, January 29. Click here to subscribe to SI.

 

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