On Saturday night, Cal men’s basketball rolled the Cal Poly Mustangs 81-55, improving to 9-2 on the season. History was made as Cal won their 27th straight game at home, breaking the previous school record for consecutive wins at home dating back to 1958-60. In addition to setting a new school record, Jabari Bird had a career high 25 points on 10-16 shooting from the field to go along with 5 rebounds. Ivan Rabb had a quality game of his own, scoring 18 points and grabbing 6 rebounds on 7-10 shooting from the field.
“I put in a lot of work in my game,” Bird said of his high level performance. “So, why not show’em out there on the court? I feel like it’s a waste of time to do all that work in the summer to get ready for the season and then the lights come on and you don’t show out, so I’ve just been trusting my game this year and just look to keep it going moving forward.”
Jabari Bird has certainly put in a ton of work to improve his game during the course of his career and this season it looks like it is really starting to pay off. While he started a little sluggish, scoring 8 points in the first half, he really stepped up his game in the second half and took over.
“Guys were just finding me,” Bird said of his second half performance. “Charlie with the extra pass in the corner, Rabb found me on the back door, teammates put me in good spots to score and I just finished.”
In regards to setting the school record for consecutive home victories, Jabari Bird said that he takes great pride in accomplishing something that has never been done in school history before. “It’s a historic moment,” he said. “27 straight, nobody’s done it, we’re the first to do it, and we look to extend that streak, we don’t want to stop it at 27.”
As far as how this game played out in full, Cal got off to a sluggish start early, allowing Cal Poly to go up 19-13 with 8:10 to go in the half. Cal wasn’t playing very good defense along the perimeter, allowing the Mustangs to shoot 5-10 from 3-point range during those first 12 minutes. What got Cal to wake up was a 30 second segment in which Stephen Domingo blocked a shot on one end of the floor and then nailed a corner 3 on the other end. Cal ended up finishing the half on a 21-3 run, taking a 34-22 lead into the half.
During the second half of the game, Cal outscored Cal Poly 47-33, never allowing them to get back in the game. Cal shot 18-30 (60.0%) from the field and 7-12 (58.3%) from 3-point range, overwhelming the Mustangs with excellent shooting while also holding them to just 12-30 (40%) shooting from the field (2-10 from 3-point range).
For the whole game, Cal shot 31-58 (53.4%) from the field and 10-18 (55.6%) from 3-point range, while holding Cal Poly to 20-62 (32.3%) shooting from the field and 7-25 (28.0%) shooting from 3-point range. Cal also had 19 assists and only 9 turnovers while Cal Poly had 3 assists and 11 turnovers. The only areas where Cal struggled in this game were on the glass (39-38 edge) and at the foul line, where they shot 9-18 (50%). Outside of that, they played a very sound game.
Cuonzo Martin was very pleased with his team’s quality all-around performance. He was obviously pleased with getting the 27th straight win at home, but he was also pleased with how well his team shot the ball and made good plays.
“Great team win,” Martin said after the game. “To get number 27 is exciting for our guys because obviously there's a lot of tradition and history here at Cal. All the great players that have come through this program…We have to continue to protect our home court, fight for our home court…The great thing about this of course it’s 27, but just to see the guys shoot the ball well, 3-point shooters making shots, so that part was fun to see.”
As far as Jabari Bird’s historic performance is concerned, Cuonzo Martin felt like it’s just a case of Jabari Bird’s talent and hard work paying off.
“Jabari’s a talented basketball player,” Martin said. “I thought he was our best player before he got injured. I don’t think that was even close, the way he was playing on both ends of the floor, not only his play but how he’s leading, defending, rebounding, he was playing really well. To see him play well tonight is just, I mean I’m not surprised by, you see 25 points I think it’s a career high for him, but he was playing really well. Just his overall game, he was playing strong, he was attacking the rim, shooting the ball, and he was really leading, so it’s fun for me to see him play well.”
Going forward, Cal will need to continue to have big nights from both Jabari Bird and Ivan Rabb. Jabari Bird is the senior leader on this team and tonight he played like it. When Jabari Bird and Ivan Rabb are playing like this, Cal is an elite team. Plain and simple. When they are either injured or not playing up to their best level, that is when Cal starts to struggle. Cal will certainly need the very best from them when #13 Virginia comes to town on Wednesday night. That game will start at 7:00 PM PST and it airs on ESPN 2.
