After riding a three-game winning streak, Cal has come back down to earth as of late. The Bears remain shorthanded without leading scorer Andrej Stojakovic, who continues to work his way back from a hip injury, and it showed in Saturday's contest against Syracuse.
The Orange came into the matchup at Haas Pavilion ranking as one of the worst defensive teams in the ACC this season. However, Adrian Autry's group and it's patented Syracuse zone defense made scoring a challenge for the Bears in what ended as a 75-66 wire-to-wire loss for Mark Madsen's squad.
"Very bad first half by us," Madsen said. "It starts with me as a head coach, I've gotta do better. I've gotta find a way to have a better start than we had tonight. That's unacceptable. We cannot have lapses and lulls like that, we've gotta have more ball movement and you gotta give Syracuse credit.
"They took us out of our actions, their zone forced us into bad shots and we did not execute."
Cal's offense was dismal for most of the night, but it was especially ineffective in the first half when the Bears connected on just 4 of their 23 shot attempts allowing the Orange to take a 40-23 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Things did improve for the Bears (11-11, 4-7 ACC) in the second half as they were able to get into more of a rhythm on the offensive end of the floor, but the initial deficit was too much to overcome. Cal was only able to get as close as 6 points as they continued to go through long stretches without making a field goal.
The longest spanned over 7 minutes in the first half and that was followed up in the second half by a drought from the field that lasted over 5 minutes in the final segment of the game.
Despite the lack of offensive production from the field, the Bears continue to be adept at getting to the free-throw line and their ability to draw fouls certainly helped keep them in the game Saturday night.
The Bears knocked down 24 of their 30 free-throw attempts in the loss to the Orange (10-12, 4-7) highlighted by a 9-for-10 performance for starting forward Rytis Petraitis, who finished the game with 13 points to go along with a team-high 8 rebounds plus 2 assists, 2 steals and a block.
Jeremiah Wilkinson continues to be the guiding force offensively for the Bears in the absence of Stojakovic. The freshman guard scored 20 points, his fifth game with at least 20, in Saturday's loss on a 6-for-21 performance from the field that included two 3-pointers.
The Bears went 6 for 35 from behind the 3-point line and point guard Jovan Blacksher Jr. was responsible for the other four makes from deep. The senior put together his best scoring display of the season, since contributing 19 points against USC back on Nov. 17, with a 20-point showing against the Orange on 6-of-14 shooting.
He also had 4 rebounds and a team-high 3 steals in the loss for the Bears.
Cal generated 13 turnovers, including 10 steals, in Saturday's contest but struggled some on the glass and lost the rebounding battle 42-37.
The Bears had just 4 assists on 18 made baskets in the loss to the Orange.
"We got after the guys at halftime, we came back out and we played with tremendous energy in the second half but no consolation for me here because the play in the first half was very poor," Madsen said. "It was very poor. The players ... they wanted to have a players only meeting. I pointed out to the players, I don't know if I've ever seen a game where collectively we have four assists.
"I saw some selfish play out there tonight. I take responsibility for that. I've gotta police that better. I gotta teach the guys the importance of the extra pass, and ultimately I've gotta curtail minutes of guys if they're not gonna make the extra pass. Some of that's on me, and some of that's on the players. They've gotta be better."
Madsen's group will look to bounce back and make the most of its three-game stretch at home when NC State makes its way to Berkeley on Wednesday for an 8 p.m. matchup with the Bears.
