Cal Drops Opener to UCSD, 80-67

On a day wrought with struggles for Cal Athletics, Cal men's basketball lost a halftime lead to UC San Diego, falling in their home opener 80-67. Cal lost a four-point halftime lead to the Tritons, who are in their second season as a division 1 program, as they allowed UCSD to shoot 66.7% in the second half, including 7-10 from 3.

Jordan Shepherd led Cal with 27 points, tying a career high set at Charlotte, while Andre Kelly had a double double with 17 points and 12 rebounds, but Cal shot 34.5% in the second half, including 58.3% from the free throw line, as UCSD pulled away. Toni Rocak had 27 for UCSD, with Bryce Pope adding 18 (14 coming in the second half), and all three of Mark Fox, Shepherd, and Kelly noted that the Bears did not practice well in the aftermath of the exhibition game.

"Very disappointed in our team's play today, I obviously did not have them ready to go," Fox said, "we have not practiced well since the exhibition game and I haven't been able to correct course. It showed today, our defense was very poor in the second half. We didn't do the fundamental things on offense, making free throws. Give their team credit, it's my responsibility to get the team cleaned up, we'll work to make sure this doesn't define our season."

Cal started off strong early, with Shepherd scoring 7 of Cal's first 11 points on the afternoon. Sam Alajiki scored his first points in a Cal uniform on a 3, as the Bears ran up an early 18-8 lead. The Cal lead would get up to 11 thanks to a Joel Brown dunk, priot to UCSD cutting that down to a 33-31 deficit right before the half. Shepherd would hit a 3 to close the half, with Cal up 37-33, but the Bears struggled mightily in the second frame.

"We have to play better on the defensive end to give ourselves a chance to win," Fox said. "We have to respond, we have to clean up some errors. Grant didn't shoot the ball well today, but we can't just be jump shot reliant, we've got to do the fundamental things, like making free throws, that if we'd done that tonight, it would've changed some things"

UCSD would come out of the half on a 25-11 run, with Pope hitting two threes, along with a four point play to put the Tritons up 10. Cal did not come any closer that 7 points for the remainder of the game, with the Bears missing a number of free throws and jump shots. Grant Anticevich, who had a strong exhibition game with 23 points, went 2-10 for 4 points as the Bears offense struggled to find any consistent rhythm, which played into more defensive struggles.

"I thought we got really impatient," Fox said, "we took a couple early first-side three point shots, I don't think we played offensively with any authority, you have to do that to give yourself some good looks, but we didn't do that either"

In the end, it added up to a rough loss for a Cal team that hoped to be improved in 2021-22. Cal has a road test Saturday against UNLV

- Monty Bowser, Makale Foreman, DJ Thorpe and Marsalis Roberson were all roster scratches, while Jalen Celestine did not play for undisclosed reasons. Dimitrios Klonoras saw his most minutes as a Cal Bear in their absence.

- Cal only recorded four assists after recording 25 in the exhibition game.

- Shepherd went 4-7 from 3, while the rest of the team went 1-11 from beyond the arc