On Sunday, Cal men’s basketball defeated Stanford 52-50. Cal senior guard
Paris Austin led the way for the Golden Bears with 15 points and 4 assists while sophomore guard Matt Bradley (14 points) and grad transfer guard Kareem South (13 points) also finished in double figures. Stanford junior forward Oscar da Silva was the top performer for the Cardinal with 13 points and 7 rebounds. Cal improves to 9-10 overall and 3-3 in the Pac-12 while Stanford falls to 15-4 overall and 4-2 in the Pac-12.
“Today was a great win,” Cal head coach Mark Fox said after the game. “It’s a great win because our team’s fighting to rebuild a program and those kids deserve to be rewarded. It’s a great win because we had great fan support and they were right there with us. It’s a great win because we beat a good Stanford team. It’s a great win for a lot of reasons. But I’ll tell you what: Every win counts the same in the standings and we celebrate every one of them. Certainly tonight, we’ll probably celebrate this one, too. But, it was a great win.”
“Certainly a lot of credit to Coach Fox and the Cal team, having a good game plan and having the players really execute it at a high level,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said after the game. “I thought they valued the basketball. Which is important with our inability to turn them over. I thought that hurt us some, but I thought both teams really competed, but the reality is when it’s a rivalry game like this on the road and it comes down to essentially a free throw shooting contest at the end, anything can happen and that’s why it didn’t go in our favor.”
Cal got off to a hot 7-0 start behind three points from South and four points from Austin within the first minute and a half of the game. Cal came out with a lot of energy and was rewarded for it. With 14:36 to go in the half, Cal still had a lead (9-4), though Stanford had settled in a bit. With 10:59 to go in the half, Cal saw their seven point lead shrink to one point (11-10) as they were starting to cool off. Cal was shooting 4-12 from the field while Stanford was shooting 4-10. Stanford junior guard Daejon Davis led all scorers with 6 points, doing a good job of pacing the Cardinal.
With 7:40 to go in the half, Stanford led 14-13. South had 7 of Cal’s 13 points, doing a great job of giving Cal the scoring that they’ve been needing from him. Stanford was shooting 5-14 from the field while Cal was shooting 5-15. Both teams were really struggling to shoot from beyond the arc as Stanford was shooting 0-4 while Cal was shooting 1-5.
With 4:39 to go in the half, Stanford led 16-15. Stanford hadn’t scored in the last 2:21 while Cal hadn’t scored in the last 2:04. It was rough stretch for both teams.
Shortly thereafter, both teams would wake up a bit as Stanford led 18-17 with 3:20 to go in the half. Stanford freshman guard Tyrell Terry and Cal senior forward Grant Anticevich both traded baskets.
At the half, Stanford would lead 23-21. It was a very low scoring affair in Berkeley, but Cal was sitting in a good spot. Da Silva led the way for the Cardinal with 9 points while South had 7 points for the Golden Bears.
With 18:31 to go, Stanford was up 27-24 after previously being up 27-21 before a 3-pointer from Bradley fell. Bradley was up to 5 points after a quiet first half. Cal really needed him to get going. As for Stanford, Daejon Davis and Bryce Wills each had a couple of buckets inside to help give Stanford that lead.
Up 30-26 with 15:49 to go, Stanford continued to have the lead. Davis was up to 10 points for Stanford after a pretty jam in transition. As for South, he in turn had 9 points for Cal after going 2-3 at the foul line. With 13:14 to go, Stanford would extend their lead to go up 34-26 as they were on a 7-0 run. Davis was up to 12 points while Cal had 0 points in the last 3:32.
After a pretty slam from Cal sophomore forward Andre Kelly and a 3-pointer from Stanford junior guard Isaac White, Stanford was up 39-28 with 11:41 to go. Stanford was on a 12-2 run, outscoring Cal 16-7 in the 2nd half. Rather than letting things get worse, Cal quickly righted the ship, going on a 7-0 run over a 2:14 stretch. 5 quick points from Matt Bradley had the game knotted up 41-41 with 7:17 to go. Bradley was up to 14 points, coming alive for Cal at the right time.
“I think a little bit they started doing a nice job attacking,” Haase said of how Cal got back in the game. “We tried to emphasize not fouling because they got in the bonus pretty early and our help side, I thought was a little bit slow and a little bit late compared to what it’s been to all year. I thought we started hugging our man on the weak side and so we’ll need to address that certainly, but I thought they got going downhill to the basket.
“Got to the free throw line a little bit. More than anything were able to get to the rim more effectively than we’ve had teams do in the past. And I think part of it was our ball screen coverage and part of it was our desire not to foul and then at the end of the day one-on-one defense is a big part of college basketball and that let us down.”
Cal would then take the lead to go up 49-46 with 2:56 to go. South (13 points) was continuing to give Cal the scoring they needed. Cal was outscoring Stanford 28-23 in the 2nd half, doing a great job of adjusting to Stanford’s strong start.
“In practice, coach gave me a lot of good advice,” South said of his improved shooting. “Just stay confident and trust my shot. One thing that he told me was to work on my follow through and hold my follow through and that’s what I practiced on throughout the week and my first shot went in, so I just felt confident after that.”
With 1:30 to go, the game was all tied up 50-50 as Cal junior forward Grant Anticevich committed an offensive foul. Fox was not happy about what Anticevich did, letting him know about it when he went to the bench. Still, Cal was in a position to win if they played well down the stretch.
With 17.7 to go, the game was still tied 50-50 after neither team was able to forge ahead. Fortunately for Cal, they had the ball and a chance to win the game with the final possession. Fox called a play out of a timeout for Austin to go iso one-on-one and it paid off as Austin got fouled with 3.2 to go. Austin made both foul shots, giving Stanford very little time to win. Wills would get the ball and lay it in for Stanford, only to find out that he didn’t get the shot off in time. In the end, Cal would escape with a 52-50 win after a wild finish.
“This win means a lot to us,” Austin said. “We fought back as a team. And just coming off of two losses, our coaches did a great job this week. Just preparing us. So, I think for us to show that fight and just come back and get the win. It was really good for us…Coach trusted me to get the ball. Flatten out and make a play. So, thanks to coach for trusting me. But I just wanted to make a play whether it was for myself or my teammates and it worked.”
“I think it’s just a testament to us trusting the process,” South added. “We just kept on fighting and that was the result of the game. We were down eleven at one point and credit to Stanford’s team. They’re a really good team, but we just kept on being physical. Kept on fighting.”
“He’s practiced unbelievably,” Fox said of Austin. “And he’s had a terrific attitude the last week or ten days. Just felt like he was gonna play super and he did. I’m really happy for Paris. He’s a great kid who has been through a lot. He’s had a lot of different coaches, but he’s always open to coaching and he’s a little stubborn at times. But, that stubbornness can be an advantage in the middle of a game and he just wasn’t going to get beat today and I was really happy for him to play as well as he did…Well everybody thought Matt Bradley was going to be the guy. So, they got smart coaches and they got smart players, you know? We’re in a bonus. So, Paris had a hot hand and I knew he could draw a foul and we could win at the free throw line. And fortunately it worked out for us.”
For Cal, this is a big-time win as they notched a win over their rival Stanford who had soundly beaten them at Maples Pavilion to start Pac-12 play. After having some quiet nights, South really came alive for Cal while Bradley and Austin stepped up as well. Considering the way non-conference went for this Cal team, to be 3-3 in Pac-12 play is a pleasant surprise.
“Not necessarily, I knew they were going to go downhill,” Haase said when asked if he was surprised about Cal’s decision to go to Austin. “I have a ton of confidence in all our guys. Bryce was on Bradley, but all our one-on-one defenders I expected it to be a one-on-one situation. It ended up being a free throw situation like we talked about. I don’t know if I was surprised or not, I think we were prepared for all the different situations.”
As for Stanford, this is a frustrating loss. They came in at 4-1 in the Pac-12, hoping to be 5-1 at the end of the day. Instead, they’re now 4-2, no longer possessing the same cushion they had before. With the Oregon schools coming to town next week, you know Stanford wanted to have this win.
“I thought the start of the second half offensively, I loved what we were doing in terms of attacking and getting downhill and trying to get to the paint instead of settling,” Haase said. “I thought early in the game, I was really disappointed in the execution of the game plan. But in the start of the second half, I thought that was much better.
"And then I thought it was, both ends, led to the comeback for them. I think again, we just talked about their ability to get to the basket on their offensive end and then when we were attacking fifteen turnovers is just going to be too many. There’s a differential of eight with turnovers. That’s going to be a hard thing. Especially in a low scoring game. But they played hard, they executed their game plan and I didn’t think we were strong enough when we drove and strong enough at the rim even though that was our goal was to get downhill.”
Same as Stanford, up next for Cal is the Oregon schools at home. Cal will face Oregon on Thursday at 6:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks. Stanford vs. Oregon State will follow at 8:00 PM PST also on Pac-12 Networks.
