On Thursday night, Cal men’s basketball fell to Colorado in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 tournament by a final score of 61-58 after 5th year senior Makale Foreman’s game tying 3-point attempt rattled in and out. Colorado escapes with the victory and advances to the semifinals where they’ll face the USC Trojans. Colorado junior forward Evan Battey led the way for the Buffaloes with 15 points and 5 rebounds while Cal senior forward Grant Anticevich led the Golden Bears with 11 points and 6 rebounds.
“I thought that our team played super hard and really gave an effort to compete,” Cal head coach Mark Fox said after the game. “I thought the fatigue of back-to-back games showed a little bit in our offense. I thought our defense was very good and it’s disappointing when the last shot goes in and out like it did tonight against a very good Colorado team who we wish well in the NCAA tournament. Under the circumstances of the season and all that these players have had to endure, which I don’t think people have any idea. It was an effort that I was proud of, but we came up short.”
Cal got off a to a solid start in this game, leading 10-6 with 12:42 to go in the first half. Anticevich had the hot hand early for Cal has he had 6 points. Battey had 4 points for Colorado, doing his part for his team. Cal was shooting 3-9 from the field while Colorado was shooting 3-12. Both teams needed to get going on offense.
With 7:12 to go in the half, it was a football score of 14-10 with Cal leading. It was an ugly game so far as Cal was shooting 5-17 (29.4%) from the field while Colorado was shooting 4-19 (21.2%). Colorado hadn’t scored in the last 3:39 and was really in a funk.
Colorado would start to wake up a little bit as the game was tied 16-16 with 3:39 to go until halftime. It was still an ugly, choppy game as Cal was shooting 6-22 (27.3%) from the field while Colorado was shooting 6-25 (24.0%). Both teams had to be kicking themselves for missing some easy looks.
With 1:24 to go in the half, Colorado was up 24-18. The Bears really needed to get Matt Bradley going as he 0 points and had only taken three shots. His quiet performance was noticeable at this point.
At the half, Colorado led 24-20. D.J. Thorpe got a bucket inside to close the gap for the Bears and was up to 4 points on 2-2 shooting from the field. He was having a solid night. Dallas Walton led the Buffaloes with 9 points and 3 rebounds while Grant Anticevich’s 6 points and 5 rebounds led the Bears.
Coming out of halftime, Cal continued to fight hard as Colorado led 28-27 with 15:48 to go. The game continued to be choppy, which actually seemed to be in Cal’s favor. Bradley was still scoreless on 0-5 shooting from the field with three fouls. One had to think that Cal needed him to get going, yet it was only a one point game.
With 14:19 to go, Colorado finally started to separate themselves a bit as they led 34-28. Battey was up to 8 points inside. Bradley still hadn’t scored. His lack of production was starting to catch up for the Bears.
Colorado’s lead would balloon to 11 points (41-30) with 11:34 to go after a triple from Jabari Walker. He was up to 6 points and was finally starting to get into a groove of his own. Unless Bradley could wake up for Cal, it was clear how this game was going to end.
“I gotta give some credit to their defense,” Anticevich said. “They’re a really good defensive team and I think especially in the first half, I think both teams were playing really good defense.”
With 7:52 to go, Colorado was up 50-39. Cal still had a chance, but midnight was fast approaching. Both metaphorically and literally as the game didn’t tipoff until 9:30 PM due to the Utah-USC game going to double overtime. If Cal was going to get back in this game, they were going to need something from Bradley.
“Well, I don’t think you’re accurate in that it was only at the top of the key, they trapped him on ball screens on the wings as well,” Fox said of how Colorado defended Bradley. “And so we went to some isolations for him and I thought that a couple times we didn’t come on the pass out. We didn’t come meet the ball; I think he finally got a little bit of a rhythm in the second half. I probably played Matt 38 minutes last night, which was a lot and in hindsight, I probably shoulda tried to save a couple of minutes on him last night because I thought he looked a little fatigued today. But, I won’t be critical of our players. Execution in that situation wasn’t as clean as we wanted, but I thought our intent and our decision was the right way.”
Bradley finally got on the board thanks to three foul shots and that seemed to wake him up as he was up to 7 points with 4:51 to go in the game. Colorado now led 53-46 after Ryan Betley nailed a triple of his own to get Cal within single digits.
Cal continued to fight hard as Bradley was now up to 10 points following a huge triple. With 3:41 to go, Colorado led 53-49, but Cal had all the momentum as they were on an 8-0 run over the last 2:02. Shortly thereafter, D’Shawn Schwartz got a huge hoop plus the harm for the Buffaloes and converted the free throw, giving Colorado a 56-49 lead with 3:28 to go. Even more critically, Bradley was called for his 5th foul and would have to watch the rest of the game from the bench. It looked like Cal’s run was coming to a definitive close.
But alas, Cal had one final burst in them. With 32.1 to go, Colorado had the ball up by just three points (61-58). After forcing a five-second violation on an inbound attempt, Cal got the ball back and Jalen Celestine hit a huge corner 3-pointer, giving the Bears new life. After failing to score on their possession, Colorado gave the ball back to Cal, who had 11 seconds to work with to tie up the game. It was at this point that Makale Foreman hoisted up a prayer for Cal only for the shot to rattle in and out of the rim. Had it fallen, the game in all likelihood would have been heading to overtime. Instead, Colorado escaped with the 61-58 win.
For Cal, this loss is heartbreaking in that they came so close without getting the cigar. They battled hard and competed for the full 40 minutes, coming up just a bit short. Cal can hold their heads high about their effort. At the same time, they have to be disappointed that they didn’t win this one. They had beaten this Colorado team in their previous meeting in Berkeley and had they gotten anything close to a normal Matt Bradley, they would have won this game.
“I thought our defense was terrific,” Fox said. “The foul situations was frustrating, but we hold them to 61 points and 38 percent from the field. I have little complaint with our defense…The difference in the first half is they had seven free throw makes and we had one. So that essentially was the difference in the game.
“Obviously in the second half usually the scoring is a little higher in the second half than the first and the difference in the game was the free throw differential in the first half. Both teams shot 38 percent. Both teams played terrific defense. But that was the difference in the game.”
Looking ahead to next season, Cal has given themselves a bit of hope to have an improved 2021-22 season after an abysmal 3-17 regular season league record this season. The Pac-12 tournament showed what they’re capable of looking like and with a normal offseason, virtually everyone coming back (still waiting on Ryan Betley), and some more freshmen coming in, we should see a better looking Cal team next year.
“I think the COVID season has definitely been hard and taken a toll,” Anticevich said. “It’s been taxing on a lot of people. A lot of people have had to go through and it’s been tough, but I’m proud of the way we got through it. I think we’ve done a good job for the most part and we’ve kept working and not let it affect us as much as possible, which I’m proud of how we did as a team. Yeah, I’m extremely excited about next year that we’re going to have a really good team. I think we have a good team this year. We’re playing good basketball in the last couple weeks. I think if we keep playing like that and just keep building on the way we played these last couple weeks next season, I think we’ll be a tough team to beat.”
As for Colorado, while this win wasn’t as pretty as they wanted it to be, at the end of the day, all that matters in March is that you win and they did that. They’re projected to get a 6-5 seed in their NCAA tournament region and if they win the Pac-12 tournament, they could be looking at a 4 seed. So for them, this game was a net positive even though Cal made them work harder for the win than they would have liked.
Up next for Colorado is the USC Trojans on Friday night in the Pac-12 tournament semifinals. That game will tipoff at 8:30 PM PST on ESPN. Up next for Cal is the offseason. Something that they’ll be grateful to have after not really having one last year.
