Cal and Stanford did not enter the big ten in the great reshuffle of university sports of 2023, but that does not prevent its athletes from entering a high level league.
Andrej Stojakovic, the Star Gard which was transferred from Stanford to Cal in 2024, left Berkeley for Illinois. He would have considered returning to Stanford in the transfer portal, and North Carolina was also considered as a finalist in his agency without almost in the era of the name, the image and the resemblance.
Stojakovic, a 6 -inch 7 -inch junior rising, raised an average of 17.9 points per game on average for the Bears in his only season as a CAL player under Mark Madsen. He was an All-American from McDonald’s outside the Jesuit high school near Sacramento when he chose Stanford, but his first year on the farm was a little mute, marking 7.8 points per game.
More than minutes (33.4 per game) and a more important role in the attack on the Bears followed his cross-transfer, but Cali disappointed in 2024-25 after being promising in the first season of Madsen. They only finished 14-19 in total and 6-14 in the league in their first season as ACC School, losing against Stanford in the conference tournament.
Stojakovic cited Illinois’ ability to develop large guards under the trainer Brad Underwood as a key to his decision.
“I can’t wait to be part of a team where I can lift the ball and have shooters around,” Stojakovic told Espn. “I can also be a shooter, play on the wing, when someone else brings the ball.”
The Bears also lost the first -year student Jeremiah Wilkinson in Georgia in the transfer portal. The native of the Atlanta region has collected an average of 19.5 points in the last 14 games after having become a starter. Cal brought some reinforcements, including the former striker of the Salle Chris Bell de Syracuse and Justin Pippen, the son of the former star of the NBA Scottie, of Michigan.
CAL has recently lost a number of football stars in the transfer portal to the Big Ten and SEC schools, the two most powerful conferences in sport. The runners Jaydn Ott and Jaivian Thomas go respectively to Oklahoma and the UCLA, while Breakout Tight End Jack Endries signed up in Texas and the quarter-reato Mendoza transferred to Indiana during the winter.
California Daily Newspapers
