Bears hit new lows in rout by Bruins
Give this much to the Cal men’s basketball team: It’s finding ways to make their games memorable.
Just one game after clanking out a season low in points against USC, the Bears feebly allowed a season high in points in a 107-84 loss to UCLA on Saturday afternoon in front of 8,888 fans at Haas Pavilion.
The Bruins (12-4, 3-1 Pac-12) had six double-digit scorers as the Bears (7-9, 1-2) racked up season worsts in field-goal percentage allowed (58.2) and three-pointers allowed (17) and got swept in a home series against the conference’s Los Angeles schools for the first time since 2007.
“Of course, it’s frustrating for all of us on the team,” Cal freshman forward Justice Sueing said. “We’re working to fix that, and we need to fix it sooner than later. It’s becoming kind of repetitive, but we’re going to go into film and try to figure it out.”
UCLA trailed for only seven seconds in the game, led by as many as 26 points and was the fourth team to come into Berkeley and win by at least 18 points. This particular 23-point margin might have been even worse than the final score indicates.
Aaron Holiday had 21 points and Thomas Welsh added 19 to lead the Bruins, who connected on 17 of 30 threes — a 56.7 percentage that was far better than Cal shot from inside the arc (43.1 percent).
UCLA also got 16 points from Kris Wilkes, 15 from Prince Ali, 14 from Alex Olesinski and 11 from Jaylen Hands — four of seven Bruins who made at least one three-pointer. On the other side, Cal had six players who missed at least one three-pointer on an 8-of-22 day.
Cal’s Marcus Lee had 19 points and a career-high 15 rebounds, and Sueing added 22 points in trying to make up for Don Coleman needing 15 shots to score 16 points. The Bears got beaten 17-4 on fastbreak points and 27-5 on points off the bench.
“They showed a lot of toughness, fight and aggressiveness. … Unfortunately, we did (only) when we were down 21,” Cal head coach Wyking Jones said. “We’ve got to be able to put together 40 minutes of that kind of effort and attack, that kind of aggressiveness and fight.”
In the latest edition of Cal’s worst half of the season, the Bears trailed for nearly 19 minutes and by as many as 23 points before going into the halftime break chasing a 54-33 deficit. They shot 25.6 percent from the floor to the Bruins’ 51.4 percent and would have been down by 40 had UCLA connected on all of its uncontested three-pointers.
For most of the half, Cal had fewer two-point field goals than UCLA had three-pointers, and the best of the Bears’ stagnant offense was chucking up shots and hoping Lee would get the rebound. He had 10 offensive rebounds in the first half as the key to the 16 secondchance points that kept the game from becoming completely unwatchable.
“It’s hard to pinpoint. You could say it’s youth, but at the same time, I have older guys in there,” Jones said. “… It’s hard to pinpoint why we come out and wait for the other team to throw the first punch before we react.
“We need a lot of maturity and growth, mentally. I’m looking for the answer for that.”