Cal Basketball is back. With arguably the largest recruit since Jason Kidd, Cuonzo Martin out-did himself with landing McDonald's All-American recruit Ivan Rabb. Rabb lives in the bay area and this is huge for Cal in terms of recruiting and success for the future.
"I am excited to announce that I will be attending the University of California,Berkeley next year!" Ivan Rabb posted on Twitter. ESPN classified Rabb as "one of the most athletic players in the class of 2015." Here's a highlight video, if you needed help getting excited about this player joining Cal.
Rabb impacts the team in multiple ways. First, Rabb can help be an example to Bay Area athletes to choose going to Cal instead of another Pac-12 school like Arizona. Some top talent has come out of the Bay Area but Cal was looked over as players chose Arizona. Rabb can help be an example if Cal has success and bring in more recruits.
Rabb also has some ability to talk to recruits right now that are still on the fence on their schools. Jaylen Brown, small forward All-American, was said to be wanting to team up with Rabb. If Rabb can convince Brown, this Cal team would be really stacked and a huge threat to win the conference.
This Cal basketball team is on the rise, at least for now. Losing Swanigan to Michigan State hurts, but landing Ivan Rabb should make all Cal Bears fans happy. This guy is a really good athlete and a class-act person.