On Saturday at the Al Attles Classic held at Chase Center in San Francisco, Cal men’s basketball fell to Boston College by a final score of 64-60. Sophomore forward Jairus Hamilton led the way for Boston College with 18 points and 8 rebounds while sophomore guard Matt Bradley was the top performer for Cal with 21 points and 9 rebounds. Boston College improves to 8-5 overall while Cal falls to 6-6.
“Hard fought game,” Cal head coach Mark Fox said after the game. “I thought that in the first half, we started the half well. We had an offensive burp in the first half which allowed them to get back in it. I thought we started the second half very well and then we had a defensive burp that allowed them to get back in it and we just have to play more complete basketball to beat a well-coached team and that’s my thoughts on the game.”
Early on, this game was tight as Cal and Boston College were tied 6-6 with 15:44 to go in the first half. Cal was shooting 3-5 from the field as Kareem South, Matt Bradley, and Andre Kelly were all on the board. With 11:56 to go in the half, Cal was up 14-10 as Lars Thiemann was up to 4 points and 2 rebounds. He had a nice dunk inside that gave Cal a boost. Cal was on an 8-0 run after trailing 10-6.
With 9:43 to go in the half, Cal was now up 18-10 as their 8-0 run turned into a 12-0 run over the last 4:43. Bradley was up to 6 points on 3-5 shooting from the field, playing an efficient game early on. Cal’s lead would expand further still as they would go up 23-12 with 7:11 to go in the half. Bradley was up to 9 points on 4-6 shooting from the field. Cal was now on a 17-2 run over the last 7:15 as Boston College was shooting a paltry 5-15 from the field and 1-7 from 3-point range.
With 5:00 to go in the half, Cal was up 25-16 as Boston College was slowly creeping their way back into the game. Jared Hamilton (not to be confused with Jairus), had 6 points for the Eagles, giving them some much needed life.
With 3:47 to go in the half, Cal was up 25-18, watching their lead shrink to 7 points. The Eagles were playing good defense, pressing and trapping, resulting in a 6-0 run over the last 2:24. The Eagles were also doing a good job at getting to the foul line as all six of their points in that run came at the foul line.
At halftime, Cal held a 29-26 as Matt Bradley and Jarius Hamilton each had 10 points for their respective teams. It was a really ugly ending to the half as Cal had 0 field goals over the last 7:42 while Boston College had 0 over the last 2:33.
“I thought we started the game very well,” Fox said again when asked about what accounted for the early lead and Boston College comeback. “I thought our defense was good, I thought our ability to change defenses was effective, I thought we played very unselfishly offensively, but then we had a burp offensively and we didn’t complete our free throws when we got to the line. We weren’t getting field goals, we got to the line, we didn’t convert. And that opened the window for them to get some things in transition and that really got them back in the game at the half.”
To open up the second half, the game continued to be tight as Cal led 35-33 with 15:23 to go. Jairus Hamilton was up to 13 points and 5 rebounds for Boston College while Matt Bradley was up to 14 points and 4 rebounds for Cal. Both guys were balling out.
With 11:58 to go, Cal was up 46-37, having made four of their last five field goals. Andre Kelly got a pretty bucket inside and was up to 6 points while Kareem South was up to 7 points after having made a corner three. Bradley was leading the charge for Cal with 17 points. At this point, it looked like Cal would cruise to a comfortable win.
But like an erratic ocean, the tides turned and this time it was in favor of Boston College as the Eagles went on a 13-2 run to tie the game up 52-52 with 7:30 to go. Jairus Hamilton (15 points), Jared Hamilton (10 points), and Julian Rishwain (10 points) were all in double figures. Cal was in need of waking up on offense.
With 3:51 to go, Boston College was up 56-54 as the game was going down to the wire. Cal was up to 14 turnovers while Boston College had 15. It was turning into a sloppy game with both teams giving the ball to their opponent. Bradley (19 points) hadn’t scored since the 9:09 mark and others on Cal weren’t doing much to pick up the slack.
With 2:00 to go, Boston College held a 58-56 lead as the game was still tight. One player who was doing his part to pick up the slack for Cal was Lars Thiemann, who was up to 8 points and 9 rebounds. Without his quiet, but sound contributions, Cal wouldn’t have been in the position that they were.
“I thought that Lars, we had some foul trouble in the first half, and I thought Lars came in and did a nice job,” Fox said of the freshman big man. “I thought he was effective and obviously they played a little smaller lineup in the second half, so it was hard to find him a good matchup, but I thought Lars really made a step forward today and this guy here [Matt Bradley] has done an unbelievable job. I mean this guy really cares about Cal and cares about playing the right way and he’s been a great example and he’s frustrated because he didn’t play as well as he wanted to play, but that frustration will allow him to continue to grow and lead our team and I’m proud of Matt.
“And I was proud of Lars today. We just didn’t play a full 40 minutes. Against quality teams, you have to play, you don’t have to play the full 40, but if you can play 38 or 39, you’re going to have a chance to overcome the one or two minutes that you didn’t play well. Today we didn’t get that done. Last game we didn’t get the full 40. And you can’t play 34 or 36 and win. You have to play the greater segment of quality minutes and tonight we didn’t do that.”
With 1:06 to go, Boston College led 61-60 after Jairus Hamilton made a 3-pointer followed by a fadeaway jumper from Paris Austin to cut Boston College’s lead to 1 point. With 28.6 to go, Boston College led 63-60 after two clutch foul shots from Derryck Thornton. South got called for a questionable foul where he nicked Thornton on the elbow. To Thornton’s credit, he made the foul shots, making the most of the opportunity.
In the end, Boston College would escape with a 64-60 win. It wasn’t the prettiest of wins for the Eagles, but given the sluggish season they’ve had, they’ll take all the wins they can get. As for Cal, this lost is pretty disappointing. While not technically the home team, they were playing across the Bay while Boston College was coming all the way across the country with a head coach (Jim Christian) who had microfracture surgery on his ankle on Monday. Cal got out to an early lead and rather than putting the nail in the coffin allowed Boston College to come right back in the game. No matter how you slice it, that’s disappointing.
“Well, me being one of the better players, I should have made sure we finished this game out as one of the captains, as one of the leaders,” Bradley said with disappointment. “And it didn’t happen tonight, so I’m obviously really frustrated in myself. But hats off to Boston College, they played a really competitive game and we didn’t pull it out and come back for the next one.”
Cal does appear to be making strides in some areas, but it’s evident that things aren’t progressing as quickly as Mark Fox and his team would hope. Fox had a rude exchange with a reporter in the post-game presser in which he didn’t want Matt Bradley being asked a question about the game as a whole. This exchange seemed to reflect some of the frustrations that Fox and his team are dealing with.
“Can I just interrupt you for one second?” Fox said rudely to the reporter who was in the middle of asking a question. “How about you let me be the team spokesman and let Matt talk about himself and the game because he’s doing a great job for our school and I’ll answer every question you got about our team, but I think it’s probably most fair for me to address the team things and let him address the game and his own performance…Ok, please. Go ahead.”
On the flip side, you can also tell Fox is very protective of his players and willing to fight for them. As was evident by his technical foul today and his post-game comments, he isn’t going to back down when he feels his players need his back. He wasn’t happy to lose the game and also wasn’t happy to have his star player have to face the media after a painful loss. If there’s one thing you can say about Fox, it’s that he cares about his team.
“I’ll be honest with you, my family’s Christmas is probably ruined unless I leave the house,” Fox said. “I mean, I’ll be honest with you, [losing] that’s not what we came here to do. And I know we’re going to have to go through the fire and I know we have some limitations and I know we have a lot to learn and we’re going to have to go through the fire, and it’s going to take everybody to get us through it. But that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about what happened. Because I’m not! And because we can be better. And I’m going to push them to be better.
“Do I think these kids really have battled and done a lot? And we have six wins already I think, I don’t know what they had last year, but they’ve made some progress. And I think they’re on track. But that doesn’t mean I have to accept where we’re at on that path right now. I want it to always be better. Happy Holidays to everybody.”
Up next for Cal is a home game on Sunday, December 29th against Harvard. That game will tipoff at 3:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks.
Note: Cal women’s basketball had a close loss to #14 Kentucky at Haas Pavilion, losing 63-61. Rhyne Howard led Kentucky with 29 points while Jaelyn Brown led Cal with 18 points. CJ West (illness) returned to the lineup for Cal, finishing with 6 points and 7 rebounds, getting a clutch basket to tie the game up 61-61.
Their next game will also be on Sunday, December 29th against Grand Canyon. That game will follow the men’s game against Harvard.
