Cal suffers stinging loss at home to Oregon
On Wednesday, Cal men’s basketball suffered a painful 68-65 loss at home to #6 Oregon. Oregon forward Dillon Brooks hit the game winning three to silence the Haas Pavilion crowd. Oregon improves to 25-4 overall and 14-2 in the Pac-12. Cal falls to 18-9 overall and 9-6 in the Pac-12.
“I thought it was a hard fought game,” Cal head coach Cuonzo Martin said after the game. “Resulted in a really emotional locker room—tough one for us. They did a better job scoring the ball, attacking the rim in the second half. I thought we broke down defensively in the second half quite a few times—I think they had two open threes that really came from breakdowns in our defensive assignments. Key turnovers for us really changed the game.”
Cal held the lead for much of the game, leading 30-16 at the half; the lowest Cal had held any team to at the half all season. Cal held Oregon to 7-24 shooting from the field in the first half and 0-7 from three-point range. The Ducks had no answer for the Golden Bears’ stifling defense.
“Yeah everyone was upset,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said of the first half. “We didn’t hit our shots, kind of thought we were just standing around and not really getting set. I didn’t recognize our team, no energy 0-7 from three and shot 29% and gave them a chance in the first half and gave up five threes. We weren’t aggressive, down big on the boards and just had to realize it was a long game and we couldn’t exchange baskets.”
In the second half, Oregon started to wake up. Chris Boucher, in particular, who scored all 18 of his points in the second half. Boucher accounted for all of Oregon’s points off the bench, giving his team a much-needed boost. Cal’s offense actually produced more points in the second half (35), but they turned the ball over 8 times while Oregon committed just one turnover. Off of those 8 turnovers, Oregon scored 13 of their 52 second half points. The bottom line is that in the second half, Cal started to play more sloppy and tight basketball while Oregon did just the opposite.
Cal has lost three close games this year at home to Virginia, Arizona, and now Oregon. They’ve come close to beating all three teams, but haven’t been able to close it out. “Take care of the ball,” Cal senior Jabari Bird simply stated about those three losses. “We can’t have turnovers and we have to get stops, I think those are the two main things.”
The turnovers have been a problem for Cal. Late in the game, Charlie Moore and Sam Singer both had costly turnovers that really hurt. What’s worse is that when you turn the ball over to a team like Oregon, it really becomes ammunition against you since Oregon feeds off of those turnovers by getting baskets in transition.
“Points off turnovers were definitely the difference in the game going nineteen and six,” Altman said. “I think the increasing pace helped a lot and took them out of their rhythm.”
There are two ways you can look at this game. You can either say Cal lost this game and booted away a golden opportunity at a signature win or you can say Oregon won this game and showed us why they are the #6 team in the country. I think both can be true at the same time. On the one hand, you simply cannot afford to give up a 30-16 halftime lead. You have to win when you put yourself in such a position. On the other side of the coin, in order to come back like Oregon did, you have to make winning plays and Oregon certainly did that. Dillon Brooks hit a tough shot for the win and Chris Boucher awoke from his first half slumber. I think that while this loss rightfully stings for Cal, we do have to remember that many people see Oregon as a potential Final Four team and they backed up that talk that tonight.
Going forward, Cal has to put this loss behind them and take care of business on Friday against Oregon State, who is at the bottom of the Pac-12 at 1-15. Cal has to come out with a "win or go home" mentality. They cannot afford to lose to Oregon State.