In the wake of a 70-65 comeback win over Seattle, Cal has finished their non-conference schedule. They went 5-2 over the 7 games, losing two conference games to Arizona State and UCLA outside of those, and dropping games to Pepperdine and a rare non-conference matchup against Oregon State. It marks Cal's first winning non-conference record since Cuonzo Martin's final season in Berkeley.

This start to Cal's non-conference season has seen a few key things. There's the issues Cal has had with turnovers in the early going, owing to the Bears' lack of practice. There's a different approach based on personnel, along with Mark Fox allowing more freedom in shot selection. There's the piece where the Bears lost their two leading scorers for the final two games of the non-conference schedule and came away with wins, including their top performance of the year to date.

There are still underlying issues for this Cal team. Turnover numbers, while cleaned up in recent wins over San Francisco and Seattle, are still high. The Bears have had a number of slow starts, namely against Pepperdine and UCLA, that doomed them. Long athletic wings, Warith Alatishe at Oregon State and Riley Grigsby at Seattle, have done damage. Some lineups, due to a lack of practice time, haven't played together, and that shows.

Mark Fox noted in the aftermath of the win over Seattle was that the Bears also missed '8 or 9 practices' due to a COVID-19 related shutdown, further stunting some of the growth they wanted to see in the early portion of the 2020-21 season. As with football, COVID-19 looms over everything, something Fox made sure to mention Tuesday.

"It's a very isolated and difficult existence," Fox said, "It's no fun for them. The fun is that we get to play the game that we love for the school that we love, but the sacrifices they make to do that are immense."

The Bears have the next three days off, with the players unable to go home for the holiday, and they'll get back to work on the 26th to start preparing for the meat of the conference schedule. Here is what the Bears have shown so far.