Cal Basketball Report: Thoughts of a Madman

Growing pains. Preaching caution. Forest. Trees.

Trying to remind myself of all the things I said in my previous column, when I basically predicted we would lose this game. This was the one step back, to go along with the two steps forward we witnessed over the weekend when the Arizona schools came to Berkeley. Cal was thoroughly outplayed by Utah in all phases of the game, dropping to 4-4 in Pac12 play and STILL searching for a road win.

Instead of providing my usual “calm and collected” post-game musings, I decided to keep a running diary during the game. We’re gonna see how it plays. If you’ve ever wanted to get a glimpse inside my head during a Cal sporting event, here’s your chance.

I’ll keep it clean, I promise.

PRE GAME

7:35 PM - 25 minutes to tip-off. I’m watching New Girl. Don’t judge me, it’s a great show. I’m excited for the game, but I’m not nervous.

7:59 PM - Flip to ESPNU. Oklahoma State and Baylor still have 3 minutes to play. Scheduling is fun.

8:02 PM - Tip-off has been moved to 8:10 now. Gee, you think 10 extra minutes will be enough when this game invariably goes to overtime?

8:05 PM - ESPNU cuts to our pre-game warm ups for a second. Some studio host points out that Utah has won four of the last five and doesn’t lose at home. Good pep talk guys. Still excited, now nervous.

8:08 PM - Trying to load the game on Watch ESPN, nowhere to be found.

8:10 PM - Game’s over! Switch! SWITCH!

FIRST HALF

19:31 (0-0) - I missed 29 seconds… Anything could have happened.

19:10 (0-0) - Roy Philpott and Adrian Branch with the commentary tonight. Strong start for Roy when he calls Kingsley “Oak-ER-oh” (instead of Oh-KOR-oh). You could tell he didn’t feel good about throwing that pronunciation out there so early in the game.

17:53 (2-5) - Back to back possessions for Utah get extended by weird bounces off of us. Turns into 5 points. Inauspicious start.

16:13 (7-7) - Adrian astutely points out that the Utah D shouldn’t jump out at Jaylen Brown’s shot fakes. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 - Jaylen just blew by someone on his way to a layup AND 1.

16:13 (8-7) - Lane violation on Utah. Lane violations should NEVER happen. That’s one free point for Cal.

15:11 (8-9) - Utah’s passing has been impeccably sharp so far. They are going to FEED Jakob Poeltl tonight.

14:25 (8-14) - I guess if you’re going to leave a shooter open, make it a 17% 3-point shooter. Doesn’t mean he won’t drain it…

12:57 (11-17) - We have to double Poeltl all the time. I want two guys on him when he goes to take a leak at halftime.

12:22 (11-19) - Really bad start. Not surprised.

11:41 (11-19) - Jaylen Brown is missing everything…

11:08 (11-19) - Everybody is missing everything…

11:01 (11-19) - You must be a mind-reader, Philpott. “Cal is 0/6 on it’s last 6 possessions”. Dandy.

10:58 (11-21) - Get Okoroh out of there. Literally stood still while Utah grabbed an offensive rebound, then hacked the guy. The extra possession becomes an easy Utah bucket. Down 10 already…

10:31 (11-24) - Dakarai Tucker drains a 3, and it’s a 17-2 run for Utah.  At least Tucker shoots over 17% from 3.

10:06 (14-24) - FINALLY, Jaylen hits a jumper.

8:48 (16-24) - Ivan Rabb holds onto the ball too long, but gets bailed out by a foul call. Ivan just looks uncomfortable tonight.

7:29 (18-26) - Really ugly shot from Ivan, just beyond the free throw line. Flat and short. I don’t think this is going to be an Ivan game.

6:52 (18-26) - It’s impossible to tell on TV whether or not it was a good call, but it just seems like we get called for offensive fouls off the ball WAY too often. Wondering if there’s a stat that tracks that? Or if I need to invent it?

5:02 (18-28) - Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy basketball

5:02 (18-28) - Camera cuts to the Cal bench. Tyrone Wallace appears to be berating Jabari Bird for driving into two defenders on a fast break, and getting stuffed. Tell him, Ty!

4:29 (18-30) - Ivan is getting manhandled down low when he catches the ball. Cleanly, too. He’s just not used to this level of physicality yet.

3:52 (18-30) - How can we be at the under four timeout already? We only have 18 points…

3:35 (18-30) - Singer picked up his dribble up top and had to wait about 8 seconds for someone to come out to take the hand off… This first half has been a mess in terms of offensive movement.

3:21 (21-30) - Stephen Domingo??? With a huge 3.

2:12 (23-32) - Poeltl creates a textbook AND 1 situation, except the ref calls it a foul on the floor. Which is truly baffling. He puts in one of the two free throws. What could have been 3 points for Utah becomes just 1.

1:56 (26-32) - RABB! A discombobulated, whirling, wrap around lay up. Suddenly down by just 6.

1:24 (29-34) - STEPHEN DOMINGO?!?!?! With a HUUUUUGE 3.

0:50 (32-35) - JABARI BIRD! Another 3! Catching fire everywhere!

0:20 (32-35) - Fortunate roll for Cal there. Looked like Utah had corralled the offensive rebound, but Ivan poked it away from Poeltl and Tucker couldn’t hold on when the ball bounced his way. Chance for the last shot of the half, down just 3.

0:05 (34-35) - Jaylen with one of the more vicious spin moves I’ve seen to draw a foul… Didn’t see the foul on Poeltl honestly, but I’ll take it. Jaylen calmly sinks them both, and it’s a one point game at the break.

HALFTIME THOUGHTS

• Cal was thoroughly outplayed, but trails by just one. Feels like the Arizona game, which I suppose is a good sign. Hoping we keep the hot hand coming out of the break.
• It seems like Poeltl has been a dominating force inside, but he’s only 3/6 from the field. Kam Rooks has done a terrific job guarding him 1-on-1.
• Rabb has not looked good, but I want him to keep shooting.
• No one on our team has four fouls yet, so that’s a nice change.
• Is anyone else weirded out by these commercials where DeAndre Jordan is running around in a dress and wig? He really doesn’t make a pretty girl.
• College halftime breaks are too long, it’s already past my bedtime…

SECOND HALF

19:47 (36-35) - Cal leads.

19:14 (36-35) - First defensive possession of the half is tremendous, forces a shot clock violation.

18:42 (38-35) - More great defense, Okoroh creates the turnover with active hands in the passing lane.

18:19 (40-35) - Cal leads BY FIVE. Game feels like it’s turning...

16:53 (40-40) - Jaylen misses a wide open 3 (we have already established that’s not his game), Utah’s Brandon Taylor responds with a made triple. Feels like we missed a chance to create some separation there.

15:54 (40-45) - Yup, it’s a 10-0 run for the Utes. Infuriating. Missing good looks again, and now turning the ball over carelessly.  Momentum completely gone.

14:41 (42-50) - That’s a bad call on Jaylen. That was a charge by Poeltl. You don’t know anything, Branch!

13:42 (42-50) - Sam Singer with a huge block to save a transition basket. Ball still ends up with Utah, but I appreciate the effort. Effort is about the only thing we’ve done well the last five minutes.

13:23 (42-52) - Now Poeltl is dominating. Too easy for him to score down low. Rabb missed a pretty simple rotation on that one.

12:52 (42-52) - “Another turnover for the Golden Bears”. Five in the last eight possessions. I counted.

12:25 (42-54) - 17-2 run by Utah. Gee, that sounds familiar. How many games in the history of the universe have seen two separate 17-2 runs by the same team? Like… Seven?

11:57 (42-54) - Disappointed in the defense in the second half. The offense isn’t doing itself any favors, but the defense is lazy and uncoordinated. The defense should be keeping us afloat during these rough patches.

11:57 (42-54) - Taking a break until the under 8 timeout. Need to cool off.

7:40 (54-61) - I’m back. We’re at the beginning of a Cal comeback run. Lead is down from 14 to 7. Rabb just put a tasty move on Poeltl to draw the AND 1, and the defense seems to be regaining its form. For those scoring at home, I think the Utah run got all the way up to 23-4.

7:23 (54-61) - Refs steal another AND 1 from Poeltl. Again they call it a foul on the floor. Totally perplexing. And Utah isn’t in the bonus yet, so no foul shots.

7:03 (57-61) - An ugly fade away falls for Jaylen, and the foul! Only down 4, we can do this!

6:38 (57-61) - Poeltl misses the front end of the 1-and-1. The game is turning! We’re only down 4 WITH the ball, we can DO THIS!

5:37 (57-64) - Aaaaaand it’s turning back. Cal misses two good looks. Then stupid Brandon Taylor, who isn’t even looking at the rim, gets the layup to fall. Plus the foul. Total momentum killer. Second time this half it feels like we let an opportunity get away.

4:54 (57-66) - Officially turned. Jaylen misses a front end, and Poeltl ends up with an easy layup on the other end. Suddenly we’re down 9 with under 5 to go. Despair setting in.

3:41 (57-66) - We’re jacking up too many 3s. And none of them have been by Mathews… In fact, where is Mathews? I think I can remember him making one play in this entire half. And that play was a lazy turnover.

3:18 (57-69) - Kyle Kuzma blows by Ivan. Bucket, foul, game.

2:45 (57-70) - “Cal hasn’t scored in 4 minutes”. You say that like it’s a surprise, Philpott.

2:21 (58-70) - Adrian Branch responds to that nugget by saying Cal looks like a Sweet 16 team… Just going to leave that one alone.

0:50 (62-70) - Ivan Rabb has recorded the quietest double-double in the history of college basketball. First insightful thing the announcers have pointed out all night.

0:49 (62-70) - Utah just had their inbounder pass the ball laterally to another player, who was also standing out of bounds, and then THAT guy inbounded the ball. You can’t do that! … Can you do that??

0:16 (64-73) - They did it again!! How have I never seen that before?? You learn something new everyday.

0:00 (64-73) - Utah wins by 9. Sigh. This team can’t quite get it together on the road. Played very poorly for most of the first half… and most of the second half. Never deserved to be ahead by 5 to begin with, then totally collapsed. I did say to proceed with caution - growing pains and all that. There are worse losses than @Utah.

We miss Ty.

Chin up, fellow Bears. We’ll get ‘em next time.

Cal Basketball Report: Beating Arizona

They are trying to kill me.

I figure between Cal Football the last few years and Cal Basketball the last few months, they’ve reduced my life expectancy by what? 30%? I knew even when we got out to a semi-comfortable lead that the game was going to come down to the last few possessions. I knew they were going to make me endure that “heart in your throat” feeling for a few agonizing minutes. I knew I would find myself with my hands on my head, mouth agape, after some play or another (this happened TWICE actually).

7:14 PM - "Still a lot of time left. We haven't closed games well."

I knew, I knew, I knew that they were going to try and kill me. I just didn’t know that they never intended to lose.

What looked like a Virginia-style late game meltdown heading for overtime, turned into a made free throw, an outstanding defensive possession, a runner off the rim, and a euphoric victory for our sturdy golden bear. This 74-73 win over THE premier Pac12 program of the era wasn’t perfect, far from it actually. Both teams had their goods and their bads. Both were missing key players to injury. Both looked like they could run away and win the game by 20 at times. Both also looked totally lost at others.

I felt like it was supremely important for our young team to show that we could run with Arizona (probably the only team in the Pac12 I would admit is all-around better than us). Going against a polished, experienced team like that can have ill-effects on diaper dandies. Win or lose, we needed to prove to our opponents, our critics, and ourselves that we DO have the horses. That’s my narrative. We proved it. We won.   

Here’s the thing that grinds my gears: the assertion from the Arizona fan base that their team played terribly and that it always takes a superhuman, out of their mind performance from their opponent for them to lose a game. This is their narrative. I’ve read first hand accounts from people who were at this game. I’ve seen it written on all their blogs and message boards.  I suppose the folks preaching this nonsense haven’t bothered to look at the box score.

Arizona shot a higher percentage from the field than Cal (51% to 45%). Arizona shot a higher percentage from three point range than Cal (44% to 36%). The two teams shot an almost identical number of free throws (Cal 18, Arizona 17), and Arizona converted at a MUCH better rate (88% to 67%). Arizona outrebounded Cal 32-27. Arizona had more blocks than Cal (5 to 4), and Cal has been a blocking machine this season.

The only statistical category in which Cal held a significant advantage was turnovers (7 to 11), but that entire difference was created in a four minute stretch at the start of the second half when Arizona couldn’t hold on to the ball. Furthermore, it is inarguable that the biggest, most game-changing turnover went Arizona’s way, when Sam Singer did his best Santa Claus impersonation and gift-wrapped a tying layup with 40 seconds left.

I will allow that Arizona DID play poorly coming out of the break, right at the same time Cal started to heat up. Between a combination of tight Cal defense and mind-numbingly bad turnovers, Arizona went scoreless the first 4 minutes and 20 seconds of the second half. Yes, that’s pretty bad. But you cannot point to a period that makes up one-tenth of the game, and use it to describe the team’s overall performance. They had a rough stretch. Cal immediately followed it up with their own rough stretch, which helped Arizona quickly erase a 9-point deficit. Hell, Cal had TWO similar (albeit slightly shorter) scoreless stretches in the first half (3:00 and 3:16). This is college basketball, it happens to everyone.

As for this supposed “superhuman performance”, I’m going to assume they’re referring SOLELY to Jordan Mathews. They must be, because Jaylen Brown shot 4/16 from the field, Ivan Rabb had a pedestrian 10/4/1 statline, neither of our 7-footers were offensively relevant, and no one else on the team contributed more than 4 made buckets. Did Jordan Mathews play a great game? Absolutely, he did. Did he play an “out of his mind, world-beating, night of his life” game? Sorry, but no.

Jordan Mathews is a 45% three-point shooter. If he took 12 three’s on an average night, you would expect him to make 5.4 of them. He made 6 of 12 in this game. Shocking. He otherwise made 4 two-point buckets, which is not generally a large part of his game, but contributed only 3-4 extra points than one would reasonably expect. He also made 2 of 2 free throw attempts. He shoots over 80% from the line.

Furthermore, Mathews jacked up an early airball, then barely drew iron on another long-range shot. He ended multiple possessions with inefficient heaves, and got gun shy for most of the first half. He had just 5 points before he sank a big three heading into the break. I’m not trying to downplay Mathews’ night at all. I’m simply arguing that his overall production was not particularly extraordinary given the amount of clean looks he got and how shaky he was early on. I wouldn’t have been surprised if, on a good night, he made NINE of those threes he shot, he was open so often.

When you get down to it, Cal won because they stuck around when Arizona threatened to pull away early, they made a run when Arizona went cold, and they did juuuuuust enough to hang on at the end. There is no cosmic force working against you Arizona. Don’t hide behind these excuses. You played a hard-fought, competitive game on the road against a talented young team. And you lost. End of story.

This is the part where I’m supposed to say this win is going to be a major turning point in the season; that it’s going to be the spark that ignites a spirited run of wins down the stretch. While I very much hope that’s true, I am going to go against the powerful pull of optimism, and preach some caution here.

First and foremost, Tyrone Wallace is still out for at least a few weeks. Even though we are 2-0 without him, we still miss his presence. Ty is not a true point guard, but he’s the closest thing we’ve got. He’s also the most trusted veteran on our roster. Whether or not we think the offense can run smoothly without him (and I do), that experience is invaluable come crunch time.

Secondly, we still aren’t quite up to snuff offensively. Sam Singer has done a (mostly) admirable job filling in for Wallace, but you could see Cuonzo already starting to move toward “Just let Jaylen Brown handle the ball” territory. Which is fine… unless Jaylen shoots 4/16 from the field. Plus, against teams like Arizona, we are forced to play at least one of Rooks and Okoroh (commonly referred to as “The 7-footers”) at all times to defend opposing bigs. On offense though, they range from “Marginally Impactful” to “Completely Useless” on any given day. It’s just a necessary evil. We continue to improve as a team defensively, and that necessitates taking a little bit off the table offensively. So be it. The problem is that we still haven’t figured out how to use our talented pieces efficiently TOGETHER. Until we do, we are limited on this side of the ball.

Besides our personal struggles, the conference is just ridiculously competitive this year. We are almost halfway through conference play, and we can safely say at this point there are no elite teams (ignore Oregon’s bloated RPI). But there are several really good teams, and no less than 10 teams within shouting distance of the top of the standings right now. Only Arizona State and Washington State have written themselves out of the conversation. The popular preseason picks (Arizona, Cal, Utah) are an uninspiring 12-9 combined. While perennial afterthoughts (Washington, USC) have been amongst the most surprising stories of the unfolding season.

The good news is that Cal is now 13-0 at home, including wins over their two parenthetical neighbors in the previous paragraph. At this point, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they won their remaining five games at Haas Pavilion.

The bad news is that they are 1-6 everywhere else, with the only win coming in overtime against a mediocre Wyoming squad. Even if Cal finishes 18-0 at home, they WILL have to pick up a couple road wins at some point.

Could it be that their first conference road win awaits in a potential sweep-completer at Utah? Sure, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Now more than ever, I feel as though this season is a marathon, not a sprint. Expect this team to follow a “two steps forward, one step back” pattern through the regular season. It’s going to be frustrating my friends, but try to see the forest through the trees. Our most important players are 18 and 19 years old. They have only played 20 college games. There are still growing pains to come.

Of course, growing pains mean growth. And that’s the single most important thing for Cal basketball right now. Grow, and gel, and win as one.  I don’t know if we’ll be fully formed by mid-March, all we can do is cross our fingers and enjoy the ride.