Center starting to bounce back
Guiding one of the nation’s least experienced rosters, a team without heavy expectations, Cal head coach Wyking Jones consistently has said this season is about learning. That goes for the seniors, too. On Saturday, fans learned how good the Bears can be when Kingsley Okoroh plays with passion, and on Tuesday, Jones said he hopes the senior center will learn how to bring that type of energy on a consistent basis.
“Kingsley Okoroh has always been the guy that I’ve challenged the most,” Jones said before the team began a trip to the mountain schools. “He’s a veteran. He’s been in these games and played in this conference. He knows most of the personnel and how most of these teams are going to play. For him to step up in the last game and play how he did, I’m very happy. But I’m still on him.
“‘OK, what you showed us against Oregon State, I need to you to continue to give us that night in and night out for the remainder of the season.’ He’s a big X-factor for us.”
Okoroh had 14 points, 12 rebounds and five blocked shots to help Cal snap a skid at nine games with a 74-70 victory over the Beavers on Saturday. He made a career-high 12 foul shots on 14 attempts, including going 6-for-6 in the game’s closing six minutes.
The Bears (8-16, 2-9 Pac-12) play at Colorado on Wednesday and at Utah on Saturday.
The 7-footer from England has only four double-digit scoring games this season, and Saturday’s was his second since Nov. 16. After starting the first six games of the season, Okoroh was relegated to the bench for 12 of 13 games before returning to starting lineup for the past five games.
“As long as Kingsley continues to play with that kind of effort and confidence, then the big lineup works,” Jones said.
His most recent performance is closer to what Okoroh had in mind for his senior season. In a 10-week span this summer, he worked to drop his body fat from 18.7 percent to 8.4.
He was on the preseason watch list for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, which is given to the nation’s top center, and recorded a triple-double (14 points, 10 rebounds, 10 blocked shots) in Cal’s exhibition win over Providence (Mont.).
However, after averaging 10 points, 9.3 rebounds and three blocked shots in the Bears’ first three games of the regular season, things started falling apart. Okoroh began getting into early foul trouble, appeared to lose his aggressiveness and confidence, and eventually lost his starting job.
His averages plummeted to 5.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and two blocked shots per game before recording the first double-double of his career Saturday.
“It’s been tough, but we just stayed positive, and we just knew we would change it,” Okoroh said. “I think we showed that we can go on a winning streak and win a couple of games now.”