On Sunday, Cal men’s basketball fell to Stanford on the road by a final score of 76-70. Stanford senior forward Oscar da Silva led the way for the Cardinal with 23 points and 6 rebounds while Cal junior guard Matt Bradley was the top performer for the Golden Bears with 15 points. Stanford improves to 12-7 overall and 8-5 in the Pac-12, while Cal falls to 7-14 overall and 2-12 in the Pac-12.
“Well I thought our team played really hard,” Cal head coach Mark Fox said after the game. “Both teams played hard. It’s interesting with no fans to really evaluate every night how hard the teams are playing. We didn’t finish the first half well and didn’t start the second half the way we wanted. At the end of the day our defense is not at the level we need it to. The percentage we allowed was too high.
“Well, we moved Joel back in the starting lineup. The only reason we didn’t start him the last game was because he was held out due to COVID protocols. I thought that Joel and Jarred both were playing well at that position. Makale, if we’re trying to sneak him on the court at the same time with one of those guys he has to guard a 6’7” player and he’s just a little small.”
Early on, Stanford jumped out to a 6-4 lead with 14:36 to go in the first half. Michael O’Connell, Jaiden Delaire, and Oscar da Silva each had 2 points for the Cardinal. Ryan Betley and Joel Brown each had 2 points for the Bears. Stanford was shooting 3-6 from the field while Cal was shooting 2-7. The game continued to remain close as Stanford led 12-9 with 11:24 to go in the half. Delaire led the Cardinal with 5 points while Grant Anticevich was leading the Bears with 3 points. Cal needed to get Bradley rolling as he was yet to score.
With 7:11 to go in the half, Stanford was up 18-17. da Silva was getting rolling for the Cardinal with 8 points while Bradley was starting to wake up for the Bears with 5 points. It was a tight game at Maples Pavilion. Cal would tie the game up 22-22 after a layup from Brown with 4:24 to go in the half. Michael O’Connell responded for Stanford with a jumper to make it 24-22 and then Lukas Kisunas made it a 26-22 game after a bucket inside with 3:33 to go until halftime.
During the final minutes of the half, Cal fell apart like a badly glued house made of popsicle sticks. Stanford would close the half out on a 13-2 run to lead 35-24 at halftime. Noah Taitz made a nice shot at the buzzer for Stanford following a timeout from Jerod Haase. Taitz’s five points to close the half were crucial. At the break, da Silva was pacing the Cardinal with 12 points and 4 rebounds while Brown was the leading scorer for the Bears with 7 points.
“The frustrating thing is we talked about hey we need to finish the half the right way,” Fox said. “We’re in a good position. Let’s make sure we finish the half the right way and then we went out and did the exact opposite thing. They have to understand that segment of the game is important to the final score. It’s about developing the basketball IQ and the discipline to play well throughout the entire 40 minutes.”
With 15:50 to go, Stanford was up 46-30. da Silva was up to 17 points and 5 rebounds for the Cardinal, eating the Bears inside. No one for Cal was in double figures yet, though Brown was knocking on the door with 9 points. Cal was in need of waking up quickly if they were going to bounce back.
“Well, we have no one that matches up with him on our roster,” Fox said about da Silva. “He’s long and he’s quick and I think he uses his quickness and speed really more so than a year ago when he was trying to play more as a power player. He’s gone to using his speed and quickness and he’s been a tough matchup for us. He’s just really a hard matchup. We made an attempt to take him off his spot a bit, take away a couple angles. But we didn’t do a good enough job and I think we have to give him credit and he’s the player of the year in the Pac-12 right now and a hard matchup for our team.”
With 11:54 to go, Stanford was up 52-38. da Silva was putting on a clinic inside with 19 points and 6 rebounds. Bradley was up to 11 points, becoming the first Cal player to score in double figures. It was rough night for the Bears so far. Especially Andre Kelly, who missed an easy dunk inside followed by an easy bucket for da Silva. It was just that kind of night.
With 7:29 to go, Cal was finally starting to show some signs of life as Stanford led 58-48. Cal was starting to creep back thanks to Jarred Hyder making some free throws and Andre Kelly getting a hoop inside. Stanford was still in a good position, but they needed to close it out.
“Well, I was really happy to see Jarred play well,” Fox said of Hyder. “It’s been hard for him to join the team a little over a month after we started. So for him to get off to a little slower start than he wanted was to be expected under the circumstances. I think in the second half he finally relaxed, he played with confidence. I thought he really played well. Hopefully he can build on that. It was nice to see.”
With 5:59 to go, Stanford was up 62-48. da Silva was up to 19 points for Stanford while Bradley had 15 points for Cal. No one else had really shown up for the Bears up until this point. With 3:47 to go, Stanford’s lead ballooned up to 18 points (68-50). Up through this point, Cal had been thoroughly outplayed. It was really a weak sauce performance on their end once again.
“It’s obviously a deficiency in our team,” Fox said of his team’s lack of size. “You go back to last weekend and Arizona was so big, they dominated the paint. Their starting two guard is as big as our power forward. We’re small. A year ago we were better defensively. We have to play smarter. We need to be a little more physical than we’re being and develop the ability to do so without fouling. This group offensively is going to be challenged for a while. But while you build that end of the floor, you have to have more stability on defense.”
To Cal’s credit, they didn’t let Stanford’s lead grow anymore and thanks to some good foul shooting on their end and some poor foul shooting on Stanford’s end, Cal was able to go on a nice 11-2 run of their own to make it a 70-61 game with 1:15 to go. Betley was starting to heat up for Cal a bit and was up to 12 points. But it was likely too little too late.
In the end, after a little more seesawing back and forth, Stanford walked out with a 76-70 victory. Cal didn’t quit and made it much closer than expected. So, they definitely deserve some credit for playing all the way until the very end. That said, a loss is still a loss and for the first 37 minutes of the game, they got outplayed, outhustled, and outcoached. When you get down like they did, it’s really tough to come all the way back to win.
Looking big picture for both teams, this was once again a must win game for Stanford and to their credit, they accomplished what they set out to this week, which was to sweep Cal. The first time they’ve done so since the 2014-15 season. They were projected as one of the last four teams in the tourney going into this week and they didn’t do anything this week to hurt their NCAA tournament resume.
As for Cal, this week was very disappointing. They laid an egg at home against Stanford on Thursday and while they did better on the scoreboard on Sunday, they still lost rather convincingly when you look at the game as a whole. The games against Stanford are always important. To get swept by them is always bad, but what makes this week particularly bad is the fact that Stanford was not at full strength missing Bryce Wills, Daejon Davis, and Ziaire Williams on Thursday and only having Wills available for Sunday. Cal’s inability to at least get a split is pretty weak.
Up next for Cal is a home game on Thursday against Utah. That game is scheduled to tipoff at 3:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks and KGO 810 AM. So a bit of an early tipoff time there.
