On Wednesday night, Cal men’s basketball lost to the San Francisco Dons by the final score of 76-64. San Francisco senior Jimbo Lull led the Dons with 20 points and 8 rebounds while Cal senior Kareem South finished with 20 points of his own. San Francisco improves to 8-2 while Cal falls to 5-3.
“I don’t know if I would agree with you that it was inconsistent,” Cal head coach Mark Fox said of his team’s defensive performance. “I thought it was poor consistently in the second half. Let’s give USF credit. They have a battle tested team, a good offensive team, and we didn’t start the game well, but then we finished the first half with about ten minutes of good defense and that was about all that we played to be honest with you. Because in the second half our defense was nowhere near to the level it needs to be to beat a good basketball team.”
San Francisco got off to a 7-1 lead with 15:12 to go in the half. Lull was up to 4 points and 4 rebounds, doing a solid job inside for the Dons from the opening tip. Lars Thiemann was the lone Cal player who had scored, going 1-2 at the foul line. Cal was shooting 0-7 from the field, unable to buy a bucket.
“I think we’re still a young team,” South said of Cal’s sluggish start. “We’ve only played two road games and that was at the Madison Square Garden and this our third road game. Yeah, exactly [first real road game]. So, we’re just learning how to win on the road as a team. We still got a lot of young guys playing a lot of large minutes. And then ultimately, we just gotta bring it. You know, it’s just a mentality that you have on the road. You have your backs against the wall, you just gotta fight. That’s all it is.”
With 11:25 to go in the half, San Francisco was up 15-4 as they were shooting 5-10 from the field and 3-7 from beyond the arc. Cal in contrast was shooting a frigid 1-10 from the field. Their lone field goal so far was a pull up jumper rattled home by sophomore guard Matt Bradley.
“It’s hard to win on the road,” South said. “Give a lot of credit to their team. They’re playing back-to-back games. We just need to come out with the amount of energy and very determined like our coach has been preaching all practice. So, we didn’t have that energy that I feel like we needed on a road game, but we’re just going to have to back to the drawing board and regroup after that.”
With 7:02 to go in the half, San Francisco was now up 25-14 as Cal was starting to wake up thanks to South, who had 6 points on 2-3 shooting from 3-point range. Cal was still in a hole, but they at least at found some sort of semblance on offense. Cal continued to fight back as they would trail 28-20 with 3:55 to go in the half. A put back from junior forward Grant Anticevich and a layup from junior guard Juhwan Harris-Dyson shaved San Francisco’s lead to single digits. San Francisco was also cooling down on offense, now shooting 7-22 (31.8%) from the field in contrast with Cal’s 8-20 (40.0%) shooting.
“Just confidence,” South said of what allowed him to get going on offense. “Trusting the process in practice. My shot was feeling good coming into the game and I was just executing our coaches’ plays for us and luckily I was able to get some open shots.”
Cal’s improved play didn’t go unrewarded in the first half as they trailed by just two points (34-32) at the half. South (12 points) and Bradley (9 points) had Cal right in the game while Lull (7 points & 7 rebounds) was doing his part to keep the Dons in front.
“Our game plan was to key into their shooters,” South said. “They’re a really good shooting team. We just had some mental lapses that we gotta look over in film.”
With 18:06 to go, San Francisco would go up 40-32 after a dunk by Lull that resulted in a three-point play. He was up to 10 points and 7 rebounds, continuing to kill Cal inside. That dunk by Lull prompted Fox to call a timeout, who angrily shooed away ball boys with chairs for the players to sit on. Fox wasn’t happy with how his players were performing and was hoping his timeout could inject some life back into them.
Cal started to settle down a bit as they trailed 45-39 with 15:32 to go. South was up to 15 points, converting a nice three-point play caused by a steal underneath the basket. Cal was still down, but they were in the game. Over the next few minutes, that’s when Cal started to come unglued. With 11:09 to go, San Francisco was now up 55-43 as they were in the midst of a 6-0 run. Lull was up to 16 points and 8 rebounds while Jamaree Bouyea had 10 points of his own. After a solid first half, Bradley had 0 points for Cal in the second half up until this point. If Cal was going to make a run, they would have to get him going.
“We were okay with him getting two point shots,” Fox said of Lull. “It was the 3-point line that was the factor. And they made five of their first seven baskets from three in the first half, they had a big lead, and then we shut the 3-point line down and we were able to get back in the game...We didn’t defend the 3-point line in the second half, which was an emphasis for us. We didn’t get that done, so obviously the fact that we’re not quite battle tested, I thought it showed in the second half. I thought their experience and the fact that they’ve been together so much I thought was an advantage for them and the fact that we’re still trying to figure things out and have a ways to go there was evident.”
With 7:39 to go, San Francisco was up 62-50 as Lull now had 18 points and 8 rebounds after a pretty hook shot inside. He was dominating inside and Cal had no answer for him. With 3:35 to go, Cal trailed 68-56 as they were up to 14 turnovers. Shortly after that, it would be 15 turnovers after Kareem South attempted a routine chest pass to Paris Austin that ended up soaring over Austin’s head and into the media table. It was the kind of turnover you would expect to see at a YMCA youth game. Or a Mormon church ball game. Take your pick, they’re both safe havens for sloppy play.
“We have to make better decisions,” Fox said of the turnovers. “Our young guys, they need to see the consequences of some of the errors that they’re making because most of them have never really had to realize the consequences of some of those plays at the levels that they played before. When you get to college, you know good teams make you pay.”
In the end, San Francisco walked out with a 76-64 win. Lull’s 20 points and 8 rebounds proved to be too much for Cal, whose inexperienced front court got devoured. I said in the preview that Cal wouldn’t win this game if Lull had a game in the 15 points and 10 rebounds zip code. He did just that and as a result, the Dons won the game.
“Well, I do think that as these guys are trying to rebuild this program, that they’re learning how to compete,” Fox said of what he saw good from his team. “Now, did we compete for forty minutes? No. But did we compete for more minutes than I think they’re used to on the road? Certainly. So, I think we made progress there, but you have to play more quality minutes than they played tonight.”
Up next for Cal is another Bay Area road game. On Saturday, they’ll face the Santa Clara Broncos. That game will tipoff at 2:00 PM PST on the WCC Network.
Note: Matt Bradley came off the bench for Cal for disciplinary reasons. Below are Mark Fox’s words on the matter: “Yeah, he just made a minor error that cost him the starting job for tonight.”
