On Thursday night, Cal men’s basketball fell to Arizona State in Tempe by a final score of 72-68. Arizona State senior guard Remy Martin led the Sun Devils with 19 points while Cal junior guard Matt Bradley finished with a game high 26 points and 10 rebounds for the Golden Bears. Cal junior forward Andre Kelly also had a double-double, finishing with 16 points and 13 rebounds. Arizona State improves to 5-8 overall and 2-5 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 7-11 overall and 2-9 in the Pac-12.
“I thought that tonight we tested the theory of little things and when you understand the consequences of little things, you understand there are no such things as little things,” Cal head coach Mark Fox said dejectedly after the game. “Because the little things were really costly…The little things add up and are extremely costly…But the little things and mistakes what we made at the end of the contest got us beat.”
Early on, Arizona State got out to a 7-3 lead with 14:41 to go in the half. It was a sluggish start for both teams. Marcus Bagley had 3 points early for Arizona State while Grant Anticevich had 3 points for Cal. Arizona State was shooting 3-9 from the field while Cal was shooting 1-9. Lots of missed layups for Cal.
Arizona State would then go on to lead 15-5 with 11:26 to go in the half. Remy Martin was up to 6 points on some nice pull up jumpers. Arizona State was shooting 7-14 (50.0%) from the field while Cal was shooting 2-13 (15.4%). Mark Fox called for time, hoping to get the Bears back on track. It was another slow start for Cal.
With 8:14 to go in the half, Arizona State led 21-13. Bagley was up to 7 points for Arizona State while Bradley was up to 5 points for Cal. The Bears had woken up a bit, but still found themselves in a hole.
With 3:54 to go in the half, Cal continued to close the gap, trailing by just three points (25-22). For as bad as Cal had looked, they were very much in this game and currently on a 9-0 run. Arizona State was shooting 11-23 (47.8%) from the field while Cal was shooting 9-30 (30.0%).
At halftime, Cal found themselves up 30-29 as they closed out the half on a 17-4 run. Andre Kelly (8 points) and Matt Bradley (7 points) led the Bears while Marcus Bagley (7 points) and Remy Martin (6 points) led the Sun Devils. Freshman guard Jalen Celestine, who finished with 3 points on 1-1 shooting from 3-point range made some nice passes and gave the Bears a bit of a spark. After a really rough start, Cal had found a way to take a lead into the half.
“Well Jalen continues to get more and more comfortable on the floor,” Fox said of Celestine. “I thought he was good for us defensively. I thought he finished the first half well. I thought he passed for us well. He’s getting valuable minutes and making the most of them.”
With 16:00 to go, Arizona State was up 43-38 as Martin was up to 10 points. Arizona State was waking up a bit, but Cal of course was still within striking distance. Cal would shortly take the lead again 48-47 with 11:16 to go. Bradley (16 points) and Kelly (10 points) were carrying Cal. Nobody else for the Bears had more than 4 points. Jalen Graham also joined Remy Martin in the double digit department with 10 points of his own.
The game continued to remain tight as Arizona State led 58-56 with 7:39 to go. Martin was up to 16 points for Arizona State while Bradley and Kelly now each had 16 points for Cal. Arizona State was trying to finish off Cal, but the Bears continued to fight.
“Matt is not the Matt Bradley that everyone saw a year ago,” Fox said of Bradley. “He’s had injury to both legs. He just doesn’t have the same legs he had a year ago. I thought he played super hard…He’s a little bit out of rhythm and he still has to get some conditioning back, but his spirit to compete, I love it.”
With 5:00 to go, Arizona State led 62-59. Shortly thereafter, Josh Christopher hit a three-pointer to make it a 65-59 Sun Devils lead. It looked like Arizona State might finally pull away.
With 52.1 to go, Arizona State had the ball up 69-64 after Bradley went 1-2 at the foul line. In a rather bizarre coaching decision, Mark Fox elected to not have his team foul and that ended up coming back to bite the Bears between their two back pockets as Jaelen House made a layup to make it a 71-64 lead for Arizona State with 36 seconds to go. Matt Bradley quickly responded on the other end, making it a 71-66 game with 30.9 to go.
“Well, we had two timeouts and we felt like if we got a missed free throw we’d get a timeout,” Fox explained about the decision to not foul. “We felt like we were trying to get a stop first. But they kept the ball in the hands of the right shooters, too.”
In the end, that was all she wrote. A late bucket from Matt Bradley inside made it a four point 68-72 loss for Cal instead of a six point loss, but the end result wasn’t affected. Arizona State picked up their second win of Pac-12 play (both of which have been against Cal) while Cal fell to the bottom of the Pac-12 standings due to their winning percentage.
Touching quickly on the Arizona State side, this was a much-needed win for the Sun Devils. They were desperate to get a win and to their credit, they got it done. It wasn’t the prettiest of wins, but given all that they’ve been through, they’ll take it. Stanford on Saturday will be a much more rigorous test for them and will be a real gut check for how close they are to being the ranked team they were at the beginning of the year.
As for Cal, this loss really stings. They played like hot garbage for much of the first half and still went into halftime with a lead thanks to Arizona State’s lousy play. In the second half, more opportunities arose, but they weren’t able to capitalize. Tonight was a painful reminder of the importance of layups, free throws, and ball security. The basic, little things that nobody spends enough time thinking about.
Up next for Cal will be a road game at Arizona on Saturday. That game will tipoff at 2:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks and KGO 810 AM.
