Senior Day goes freshmen’s way
This wasn’t the Senior Day anybody planned.
Marcus Lee and Kingsley Okoroh, the two tallest players on the court, combined for only six of the game’s 65 rebounds.
Nick Hamilton went scoreless, Cole Welle was posterized, and Derek King didn’t get off the bench until Cal trailed by 17 in the game’s final minute.
The final home game for the Cal men’s basketball team fell in line with the doldrums from so much of the season as the Bears were overmatched by Washington 68-51 on Saturday afternoon at Haas Pavilion.
The Bears (8-21, 2-14 in Pac-12) tied the 6-21 team from 1978-79 for the most losses in school history. The Huskies (19-10, 9-7), once considered a lock for the NCAA Tournament, won for the second time in their past six games.
“It just wasn’t one of our days,” said Lee, who had six points and two rebounds before fouling out.
The other seniors weren’t much better, with Okoroh finishing with two points and four rebounds, and Hamilton, Welle and King combining for zero points, three rebounds and zero assists.
Most of Cal’s production came from the freshmen, though junior guard Don Coleman came off the bench for nine points and six steals. Freshman forward Justice Sueing had 12 points and five rebounds, and freshman guard Darius McNeill had 17 firsthalf points to keep the Bears in the game for a while.
Washington got 23 points from Jaylen Nowell and 16 points and nine rebounds from Noah Dickerson, and the Huskies limited Cal to 16 points on 23.1 percent shooting in the second half.
After going 3-for-4 from three-point range to push his total to 60 for the season, two shy of the school’s freshman mark set by Allen Crabbe in 2011, McNeill was shut out in the second half.
“If I do end up passing it, it would be a great achievement for the team,” said McNeill, who has games at the Arizona schools and at least one conference tournament game left this season. “Right now, I’m just trying to focus on helping the team get better.”
Seemingly nothing worked to make Cal any better after Okoroh went to the bench with four fouls at the 16:25 mark of the second half. Washington responded with 16-2 run that included the play of the day.
After kicking and fumbling the ball around the perimeter for the first 20 seconds of the shot clock, Nahziah Carter decided to take things into his hands. The 6-foot-6 freshman darted in from the right wing and took off about 8 feet from the basket. He rocked the ball behind his body and unleashed a tomahawk dunk while being fouled by Welle.
By the time the dust settled from that dunk and the Huskies’ run, Cal trailed 55-45 with 10 minutes to play. The Bears went nearly nine minutes with only one basket during the stretch — an alley-oop from Coleman to Lee.
“As the game went on, I kind of realized that Senior Day is not for the seniors,” Lee said. “It’s for passing the baton off to the freshmen and understanding that, even though this year didn’t go as well as we planned, we’re building a cathedral.
“We’re building for something greater than us. We’re building for the people coming after us.”