On Saturday at Haas Pavilion, Cal men’s basketball lost to Saint Mary’s by a final score of 89-77. Senior guard Jordan Ford (32 points & 5 rebounds) and redshirt junior forward Malik Fitts (28 points & 5 rebounds) led the way for Saint Mary’s while sophomore forward Andre Kelly (26 points & 4 rebounds) was the top performer for Cal. Saint Mary’s improves to 10-2 on the season while Cal falls to 6-5.
“Disappointing loss for our team,” Cal head coach Mark Fox said after the game. “I felt like we got off to a very good start and then we let some offensive struggles impact our defense in the last half of the first half against a very good offensive team and you obviously can’t do that and Saint Mary’s shot the ball extremely well as we knew they would and we didn’t do the job defensively to slow them down. Give them credit. But, we battled back, but we’re not into moral victories and we’ll never be. So, we leave here with a loss.”
Cal got off to a hot start in the game, leading 10-2 with 15:19 to go in the half. Kareem South got going early for Cal, scoring 8 of their first 10 points. Saint Mary’s didn’t expect Cal to come out guns blazing and hoped that they would cool off a bit.
And cool off Cal did as Saint Mary’s went on a 15-5 run to go up 17-15 with 11:16 to go in the half. Ford was up to 7 points with a free throw attempt to follow after getting the hoop plus the harm inside. During the last 1:18, the Gaels were on a 7-0 run.
With 7:21 to go in the half, Saint Mary’s was up 22-19 as Fitts was up to 10 points for the Gaels. South in turn was the high scorer for Cal at that point with 10 points of his own. Unfortunately for Cal, South would not score again for the rest of the game.
“I think he got off to a great start and then we felt like that throughout the game he ended up playing some point guard, which is not something he does a lot,” Fox said of South’s disappearing act. “And it’s harder maybe to score from that spot, but he was unbelievable out of the gate for sure.”
With 5:24 to go in the half, Saint Mary’s was expanding their lead even more, now up 28-22. Fitts was up to 16 points as the Gaels had made 8 of their last 10 field goal attempts. After a strong start, Cal was now in a hole, fighting to get back in the game.
The Gaels’ sensational shooting wouldn’t stop there. With 4:24 to go in the half, Saint Mary’s was now up 34-24 as they had now made 10 of their last 12 shots after a 3-pointer from Alex Ducas. What was particularly scary was the fact that the Gaels were shooting 8-10 from 3-point range, getting whatever they wanted from beyond the arc.
Saint Mary’s would build on this momentum to take a 45-29 lead into halftime. Fitts was now up to 21 points for the Gaels on 6-8 shooting from the field and 5-6 shooting from 3-point range. As for Cal, no one else was really stepping up as South with his 10 points was still their leading scorer.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Fox said with disgust when asked if he was really upset with his defense. “We made some serious mental errors when we had a hard time scoring in the first half. We let that frustration go to the other end and we made some serious mental errors, which allowed open shots to a great 3-point shooting team and they’ll make you pay. Saint Mary’s did.
“Well, when you give a great shooter a wide open shot, it’s going to go in. Ok? If you give a great shooter a wide open shot, it’s going to go in. And we gave them some wide open shots. He [Fitts] is a very powerful player, he’s a very difficult matchup, and Randy has done a great job with his team. They’re very battle tested. They’re very battle tested, they keep their poise, and I think that showed today. Our lack of poise late in the first half there cost us. Their team is very battle tested and those kids have played a lot of games and their experience shows.”
With 16:57 to go, Saint Mary’s was up 54-37 as Fitts was now up to 26 points. Cal was having a really hard time stopping him and they were paying dearly for it. With 13:40 to go, Saint Mary’s still had a 17 point lead, up 61-44.
“He was being aggressive and hitting a lot of tough shots,” Grant Anticevich said of Fitts. “And a few times made a few defensive mistakes that gave him the advantage. Get a step ahead and it cost us.”
“They did a really good job executing and shooting the ball really well,” Kelly added. “They’re a good team…He [Fitts] is a really good player. He can shoot, he can drive, he’s strong inside. And then there were a few like G [Grant] said, I messed up a few times on defense that allowed some points.”
At this point of the game, Mark Fox picked up his first technical foul of the season. He was griping to the refs all night long and almost seemed to welcome it as a chance to send a message to his players.
“Here’s what I’ll say, we didn’t play well enough to win,” Fox said when asked about his technical foul. “Ok? And I did get assessed a technical foul. I don’t know if there’s fines in the Pac-12, I’ve never studied it. Ok? But I do know this. Ok? If there comes a point where I have to fight for my team, I will. Every. Single. Time.”
Throughout the whole night, the one bright spot for Cal was Kelly, who was up to 17 points and 11 rebounds. Without his stellar performance, Cal would have been in a whole lot worse shape than they already were. He was playing very efficiently, hustling on the boards, and was all-around making winning plays.
“Andre had a heck of a game,” Anticevich said of his teammate. “He played really hard. Finished all of the plays and kept us in it the whole time. Especially down on the offensive end and holding down on the defensive end and rebounding well. As to why [it took us a while to get going], not really sure. I think it just took us a while to get into it. I thought our defense was good and offensively we weren’t starting to hit shots and then it got in our heads a little bit and we slacked off and then we picked it back up again.”
“My teammates did a good job of looking for me,” Kelly said. “I dunno, I was just trying to be aggressive. A lot of them were telling me to keep attacking. I was doing good, so I was looking to be aggressive.”
With 11:34 to go, Saint Mary’s was up 61-46 as Juhwan Harris-Dyson did his best to make the next Shaqtin’ a Fool, missing a wide open layup when he could have easily dunked it. To his credit, he did rebound his miss and drew a foul, resulting in two made free throws. Still, that play seemed to encapsulate what kind of night it had been for Cal. Off to a nice start only to come crashing back to earth.
With 7:57 to go, Saint Mary’s was only up by 11 points as Cal had finally found a way to trim their lead. Kelly was the main reason for this as he was up to 23 points and 4 rebounds, having a career-night.
“We did change a matchup, but essentially we changed our effort in the second half,” Fox said. “I mean, that was probably the biggest key. We did change one matchup in the second half, but I thought we played with a much more focused and determined approach defensively in the second half.”
With 3:35 to go, Cal failed to gain any more ground as they were still down by 11 points. Up 75-64, Saint Mary’s was in prime position to close out the game as Ford and Fitts each had 28 points.
“I think for me, I just have to keep getting into the flow of the game,” Ford said. “Just staying aggressive. I didn’t take too many shots in the first half, but I’m just trying to take good shots for our team, so in the second half it opened up a little bit, because I feel like Malik opened it up for me because he was playing so well.”
“Yeah, we needed him,” Saint Mary’s head coach Randy Bennett said of Fitts. “We thought we had a matchup situation that could benefit us. The way they played and with that matchup, eventually they put Harris-Dyson on him and that changed it a little bit. But, he’s still gotta hit shots and he did. He can get on some big momentum runs. So can this guy [Ford], and they both did tonight. Malik was first half, this guy was second half, but he did, and he had it going, and he just banged threes and that was the key to us getting separation in that first half.”
With 2:36 to go, Saint Mary’s was up 79-69 after Matt Bradley nailed a 3-pointer for Cal. Cal was continuing to fight, but time wasn’t on their side. With 55.0 to go, Saint Mary’s was back up by 12 points after a pretty finish from Ford. He was incredible, getting whatever he wanted, especially around the rim.
“Well, I feel like they don’t really have a real rim protector at the rim,” Ford said of Cal’s lack of an interior defense. “Somebody that can really jump and contest my shots. So, if I was able to get an angle, I felt really comfortable getting to the rim and finishing.”
In the end, Saint Mary’s would walk out with a comfortable 89-77 win on Cal’s home floor. To Cal’s credit, they didn’t roll over and die like wounded sheep, but they also failed to capitalize on their strong opening start.
“Yeah, I think we definitely in the second half we competed and played hard and stuck with it,” Anticevich said. “I think every game play the full forty minutes is our emphasis and I think definitely in the second half we played hard and competed as hard as we could, so that’s definitely a positive to take away from the game.”
From what I saw, Cal played one of their better games of the season, even though they lost. Kelly was amazing and as a whole, they fought and battled until the final whistle blew. Despite this, Fox made it clear in his opening statement that he was not about moral victories. Even with a team that was used to getting crushed like a paper cup last season.
One thing that would help Fox is if he could trust his bench more. Only seven players played double digit minutes with the eighth player in the rotation (Lars Thiemann) playing 6:19. When asked about why he didn’t give his bench more minutes, Fox said bluntly that he can’t trust them yet.
“They have to play the kind of basketball that gives us a chance to win,” Fox said of his bench. “They have to improve. There’s young guys, they have to practice better, they have to learn what they’re doing. This is not where everyone gets equal minutes like biddy basketball. We’re trying to compete. This program needs to learn how to win, we have to learn how to play the right way, and that’s a process. And it’s not their fault that they’re young and that they’re inexperienced and that they don’t have a lot of experiencing winning. That’s not their fault.
“It’s a process and a fire that they’re going to have to go through and part of that is battling in practice and becoming the player that we can trust on the floor. And most of those kids are doing exactly that. They’re just not tonight quite ready for a high level game.”
Another angle to view this game is from the Bay Area rivalry side of it. Approximately eight miles apart, Cal and Saint Mary’s have formed a bit of a rivalry over these last few years with Cal’s most recent win coming in 2015. When asked about what the future of the rivalry holds, both Mark Fox and Randy Bennett had different takes.
“No,” Fox said bluntly about whether or not he wanted to continue this rivalry. “And it’s nothing against Saint Mary’s. It’s nothing against Saint Mary’s. But I feel like this program, we’re adding two league games, I can’t play all the local schools every year and play anybody else. Because we’re adding league games. There’s just not enough of them. So, something has to give.
“And as I said last week when I played on the road at USF and at Santa Clara, we would like to protect some of these Bay Area games, but I can’t protect them all. That’s mathematically going to be impossible if we still want to play other people and grow our program. And so, that’s just my feeling on it and what that formula looks like, we’ll have to see.”
“Well yes, it’s big to beat Cal,” Bennett said. “It’s a little rivalry and 10 miles apart, the two schools. We’ve been playing it for a long time, so anyhow, they gotta do what they gotta do scheduling wise. I think it’s a game that if they’re good and we’re good, it makes sense. If either one of us aren’t good, it probably doesn’t make sense for the others, but I know we’ve played them five times in my nineteen years, four of them have been here. So, we’ve done our part. But I get it. They have to do what’s best. Mark has to do what’s best for his program, and we have to do what’s best for our program. He’s gotta figure it out.
“Obviously we would like to have a home and home series with the Pac-12, but I’m not gonna campaign in front of the media about hey, let’s make this happen. I probably have before. But, he’s gotta figure this thing out.”
Even though his team once again defeated Cal in a convincing manner, Bennett praised what he saw from Cal and the direction that he sees the program going under Fox. He feels that they’re playing better and that the foundation for success is being laid. Unlike the last two years, in which Cal was wandering aimlessly in the woods like a blind squirrel.
“He’s doing a good job,” Bennett said of Fox. “Cal’s good now. They’re good. This year is good. I think they were down the last couple years, but this year they’re playing better defensively, they’re a little older and those guys are growing up. So, it was good win for us. We had to play well. We had two guys that went off and had we not had one of those guys go off, I don’t know if we would have separated like that.
“No question [they’re better]. No question. They were 6-0 here tonight and then losses on the road have been to good teams. Duke, Texas, those are two neutrals. And then they lost at Santa Clara, who’s good this year and at USF, who’s good this year. So, they’re not where they think they need to be, but they’re good. They’re good. They’ll have a decent year and I think Mark’s laying down a foundation that is going to go somewhere.”
While this isn’t the outcome Cal wanted, there are some good things they can take away from this game. Kelly played well, they didn’t give up, and they moved the ball better than they have in past games, finishing with 12 assists and only 8 turnovers.
At the same time, there’s a lot that they need to improve on. The defense is still trash both on the perimeter and inside. Teams are being left wide open from beyond the arc while smaller guards area able to take advantage of Cal’s lack of a rim protector. There’s a lot that this young Cal team needs to work on, but the good news is that everyone seems to understand that this is supposed to be a process. They know Rome wasn’t built in a day and that this will take time.
Up next for Cal will be a neutral site game against Boston College at the Chase Center on Saturday December 21st at 2:30 PM PST. That game will be part of the Al Attles Classic, an event that honors Golden State Warriors legend Al Attles.
