Cal gets much needed win over Fresno State

On Wednesday, Cal men’s basketball defeated Fresno State 69-63. Cal sophomore guard Matt Bradley finished with 24 points and 4 rebounds while graduate transfer guard Kareem South finished with 17 points. Fresno State senior guard New Williams finished with 21 points and 5 rebounds while senior forward Nate Grimes finished with 7 points and 14 rebounds. Cal improves to 6-4 while Fresno State falls to 2-7.

“I thought it was a hard fought game,” Cal head coach Mark Fox said after the game. “And really it was a fun game to coach and hopefully a fun game for everybody to play in. Fresno has a team that’s had some really heartbreaking three games in overtime already this year and a team that once they grow up, I think will find lots of success. So, they could have easily come into the game 6-2 and we have respect for their team and we were disappointed in how we had played over the weekend and we practiced hard for a couple days and we showed some progress tonight in several areas and obviously leave here with a win that we’re really pleased with.

“I thought outside of one foul on an inbounds situation, I thought we managed the last part of the game very much liked we wanted to. We didn’t make all of our free throws, but we made a lot of them. And so, it was a good experience for us. This was a hard game because they’re hard to defend with their speed and their quickness and we kinda had to go play small ball and play some lineups that, we had a late injury with Jacobi Gordon, minor, he’ll be back, but he was unable to play, and so Juhwan Harris-Dyson, who I was really pleased with, ended up playing a lot of minutes at a position at a position he never practices at. And so, I was really proud of his effort and really a lot of our team and the credit should go to those kids.”

Cal got off to a strong start in this game, leading 9-3 with 14:45 to go in the first half. Bradley had 5 points early on, doing a good job to get this young Bears team going. Cal had a few empty possessions that they would have liked to have had back, but overall, it was a good start as they were on a 7-0 run over the last 3:30.

Fresno State would fight back, tying the game up 11-11 with 12:00 to go in the half. The Bulldogs were getting back in the game thanks to some impressive drives. Freshman guard Jarred Hyder had Cal defenders on skates on one drive, resulting in the hoop plus the harm.

With 7:11 to go in the half, Cal was up 17-15 as the game remained tight. Cal was shooting 8-18 (44.4%) from the field while Fresno State was shooting 5-17 (29.4%). It was a choppy game through this point.

With 5:45 to go in the half, Fresno State was up 19-17, doing their best to win with their athleticism. They were doing a lot of lobs and quick cuts to the hole. With 3:34 to go, Fresno State would lead 24-21 after a corner 3-pointer made by junior guard Mustafa Lawrence. Perimeter defense has been an issue of this Cal team and it showed in that particular sequence of events.

At the half, Cal would lead 32-29 as South was up to 9 points for Cal while Lawrence had 10 points for Fresno State. It was a tight game through the first half, but considering the week Cal was coming off of, they really couldn’t have asked to be in a better position.

“I think we did a good job of just trusting our system,” South said. “Last two days preparing for our game, coach had certain things that we wanted to key in on, which was our defensive rebounding and just playing sound and solid on the offensive end, and so we did a good job of taking care of the ball. I think our turnovers were, I think, maybe five or six. So, we took great care of the ball and we shot the ball pretty well.”

Right out of the gates to start the second half, Williams hit back-to-back threes, causing Fox to call for time. Fresno State was up 35-34 with 18:42 to go, hoping to finally gain some momentum in their direction. With 16:00 to go, Fresno State was up 39-36 as Williams was up to 13 points. Cal had 0 points in the last 2:00, struggling to get going on offense.

With 11:31 to go, Cal was up 44-43 as Bradley was starting to come alive with 15 points on 6-11 shooting from the field. If Cal was going to win this game, they were going to need him to continue to heat up.

With 9:46 to go, Cal would extend their lead to go up 52-45 after an acrobatic 3-pointer from South and a pretty finish inside from Juhwan Harris-Dyson. With 7:16 to go, Cal was up 57-50 as Bradley was now up to 20 points on 8-13 shooting from the field and 3-5 shooting from 3-point range. It looked like Cal might finally pull away for good.

Fresno State wasn’t about to go down without a fight and to their own good credit, they were able to cut Cal’s lead to three points. With 3:51 to go, Cal was now up 59-56, having zero made field goals in the last 3:52. Rebounding was also keeping Fresno State in the game. They would end up outrebounding Cal 38-28 in the end, thanks in no small part to the outstanding rebounding of Grimes.

“You know, it’s one area that we didn’t leave here with a great feeling about,” Fox said of the rebounding. “I don’t think our rebounding is where it still needs to be, but tonight we played an elite offensive rebounder. I think Grimes is, he reminds me of a young Paul Millsap. He’s an elite offensive rebounder and I think he had six or seven offensive boards tonight, another six or seven on the defensive end, he’s a handful and we didn’t hit a home run in what we did there, but late in the game we got enough of them to get the win.

“Well, I talked about elite offensive rebounding ability and he’s quick. And he’s a quick jumper and playing against guys like that, obviously, we got these young bigs. Andre’s a sophomore, Lars is a freshman, Grant hasn’t played a lot, and they’ve had to play against Vernon Carey, who is probably a top-five pick and the kid at Texas who could be a top ten pick, and they’re getting indoctrinated pretty good. So, playing against guys like that I think is a great experience.”

Still, despite these rebounding woes, Cal was right where they wanted to be. Up at home with under five minutes to go. The energy from the home crowd was noticeable tonight as Fox did his part to pump up the crowd during a critical possession. Waving his arms and motioning the crowd to get more involved.

“Well, I think that our team has a comfort level at home,” Fox said of the importance of playing at home. “We have not played well outside of this building and part of that is it’s not their fault that they’re inexperienced in our offensive system and inexperienced in our defensive system. You get away from home and those things kinda show up. And so, you can’t blame’em for that, but we haven’t played well. We gotta go through the fire to make some progress where we can play well outside of this building. But at home, we’ve been better and then we’re going to need our fans to stand up and break a sweat and fight with us, because this team is going to have to overachieve. But it was great to be home and get another win.

“Well, if I could have gone up in the stands, I would have. Because we need their energy. We have to create the energy in this building where when teams leave here, they say woah, their people are ready to fight for their team and when you get that, especially on a possession where you need a stop and you get that, it becomes a real advantage for your team and your program. And our fans have been great to me, but we needed them at the moment and so I just tried to rally them a little bit. I don’t do that often.”

“It was a really good feeling to come back home after two losses,” Bradley added. “And I knew our confidence was going to be great and high to get this win and Fresno State is a really good team, but like I said we were locked in all week on this game and it showed. So, this is a good win for us.”

With 1:55 to go, Cal was up 61-58 as Fresno State had the ball. This game was truly going down to the wire and Cal would have to execute in order to come out victorious. In the end, Cal would find a way to pull away to win 69-63 thanks to making some free throws. It wasn’t the prettiest of wins, but after the week they had at San Francisco and Santa Clara, getting a win again is huge.

“I think we had a great week of practice coming up to the game,” Bradley said. “We really locked in on Fresno State on what we needed to do to win and I believe it showed and we closed it out really well, like you said, the last four to five minutes, and our confidence was at an all-time high, so I felt really good about this win.”

“Yeah, I think that overall we did a good job getting out to one of their good rebounders,” South said. “They’re a really good rebounding team, but I think we got the rebounds that were needed to solidify our win.”

Up next for Cal will be a home game on Saturday against Saint Mary’s at 7:30 PM PST. That game will be the second game of a doubleheader at Haas Pavilion. Cal women’s basketball will take on Santa Clara in the first game of the night, tipping off at 4:30 PM PST.