20-point first half leads to ugly defeat
About a quarter of an announced crowd of more than 6,900 stayed at Haas Pavilion until the final horn of Cal’s 80-62 loss to USC on Thursday night.
Maybe the gluttons for punishment just wanted to see how bad it could get.
The Bears (7-8, 1-1 Pac-12) scored a season low in points, dropping their third home game by at least 18 points this season. They also flirted with recording as many turnovers (22) as field goals (23).
It was so awful that two games into the 18-game conference schedule, Cal head coach Wyking Jones started talking about next season.
“It’s frustrating, but our guys aren’t trying to do that. They’re trying to do the right things. They’re young, and it’s a process,” he said of his roster, which has seven freshmen. “You’ve just got to keep focusing on the light at the end of tunnel. These freshmen will be sophomores next year. Then, they’ll be juniors. Then, they’ll be seniors, and they’ll be really good.
“We just have to keep focusing on the light at the end of the tunnel, instead of what’s going on right now.”
Cal took a major step back after a 17-point comeback win against Stanford in the Pac-12 opener Saturday and after having won four of its previous five games. The Bears were beaten 44-28 on points in the paint and 27-6 on points off turnovers.
“That’s a tough one, a really tough one, because I felt like we had a really, really good week of practice,” Jones said. “I felt like our guys gave us everything all week long, and we had some good momentum going. But, once again, we dug ourselves a hole, a veteran team wasn’t going to give it up.”
Even without leading scorer and rebounder Chimezie Metu, who was suspended for the first half because he hit a Washington State player in the groin, USC (11-5, 2-1) managed to lead for 37 minutes and by as many as 30 points.
Nick Rakocevic had 19 points and seven rebounds in place of Metu, Bennie Boatwright added 15 points and seven rebounds, and Jordan Usher came off the bench for 14 points.
Cal had no one as productive, getting 15 points from Justice Sueing on 6-for-16 shooting and 10 points from Juhwan HarrisDyson. Senior forward Marcus Lee had 10 points on 5-for-8 shooting, and the rest of the team combined to go 18-for-50.
“We just really fell apart in the first half, as far as running an offense and trying to get the ball past halfcourt,” Sueing said. “Those turnovers really hurt us and set the tone for the rest of the game.”
Cal scored a season-low 20 points in the first half, falling behind by as many as 26 points and headed into the locker room down 21 against a USC team that couldn’t use its best player in the first half.
The Bears missed 14 of their first 17 shots and didn’t get a field goal from anyone other than Lee until Harris-Dyson scored on a putback 11 minutes into the game to trim the deficit to 21-10.
The sparse crowd managed to force a mock ovation after Kingsley Okoroh’s bucket with 3½ minutes left in the first half stopped a 19-2 run that had extended the Trojans’ lead to 29-10. Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rsimmons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron