It’s every year, these players are going to the NBA, why should they care if they win or lose, as long as they do their jobs individually?
Don’t get me wrong, I'm sure they would rather win, but those massive NBA contracts are more important, that’s life changing money, so why wouldn't they?
Also, Cal breeds that attitude. No other coach would start and play Edwards, Cal does it, because he has NBA potential. Everything is oriented towards NBA draft night and NBA futures. I realized this many years ago and for a while, I was one of very few that called it out, now there's a large portion of the fanbase that sees it.
You can't win at this level when most of your guys are rental players (portal guys, or freshmen) and you damn sure won't win anything big if those rental players have bigger aspirations than college basketball. Why do these guys care aboit defense? The NBA doesn’t care as much about that.