While many Cal fans have lost patience with basketball coach Mark Fox after three straight losing seasons and little tangible progress to start his tenure with the Golden Bears, Fox couldn't be more confident about the season ahead.

At least, that's what he projected earlier this week in speaking about his team as preseason practices officially started Monday.

Fox, who is 35-58 so far at Cal, was at times blunt about what the roster has lacked the last few years and where he sees the biggest difference entering his fourth season.

"I would say that outside of the pandemic we anticipated the obstacles that would be in place in a rebuild," said Fox, who took over the program after it had won just 8 games in each of the two prior seasons. "No one saw the pandemic coming, so that added a little bit of extra challenge to it, but I think what we've worked really hard to do is put together a team that has the physical matchups that give you a chance to compete every possession and get depth at each one of those positions, and we finally have that.

"So I think [that] allows us to play a much more aggressive way, and that's how we have always wanted to play. Now we have a roster that will allow us to do that."

Cal went 12-20 overall and 5-15 in the Pac-12 last season and then lost its top three scorers and top two rebounders from that team in Jordan Shepherd (14.6 points per game), Andre Kelly (13.4 PPG, 8.4 rebounds per game) and Grant Anticevich (9.7 PPG, 6.8 RPG).

But the confidence is not just coming from Fox.

"It's been a couple of rough years, but it's not easy to win, especially in the Pac-12. So we put in the work over the summer and started to build this team with us coming as freshmen with a new coaching staff, and I think it's time now that we show what we worked for," senior center Lars Thiemann said. "I think we had a great summer, had a great preparation, so there's nothing stopping us."

Added senior forward Kuany Kuany: "I believe since we've all got better overall and we've added new guys, I believe that the sky's the limit for this team. We can't really measure for this team, but I believe the sky's the limit for us."

Here's a closer look at the roster as the Bears start practice this week.

Despite losing a couple of significant contributors from the Bears' frontcourt (though Kelly missed the last third of the season with injury), Fox feels bullish about that part of his roster, which returns the 7-foot-1 Thiemann (4.7 PPG, 3.4 RPG in 32 games with 11 starts last season), the 6-foot-9 Kuany (4.8 PPG, 2.4 RPG in 30 games with 16 starts), 6-foot-7 sophomore forward Sam Alajiki (3.1 PPG, 1.9 RPG mostly off the bench), 6-foot-7 sophomore forward Obinna Anyanwu (4.9 minutes per game over 24 contests) and 6-foot-7 third-year sophomore forward Monty Bowser, who took a medical redshirt last season.

Thiemann took on a much larger role late last season after Kelly was lost to injury, averaging 7.2 points and 5.7 rebounds over the final 11 games.

"It's going to be my season. It's time now, I'm a senior, so I'm expecting to have a great season and show them," Thiemann said. "Obviously, they're going to need scoring from me, they're going to need defense from me, they're going to need me to be a leader and to lead this team as a senior."

Kuany echoed that sentiment.

"I want to be able to be one of the best defenders in the Pac. I want to help my team with rebounding, scoring, a little bit of everything and just bring energy every day," he said.