On Saturday, Cal men’s basketball fell to Washington by a final score of 68-51. Cal freshman Darius McNeill was the top performer for the Golden Bears, finishing with 17 points and 4 rebounds on 6-12 shooting from the field. Washington freshman Jaylen Nowell was the top performer for the Huskies, finishing with 23 points and 4 rebounds on 13-14 shooting from the foul line. Washington improves to 19-10 overall and 9-7 in the Pac-12. Cal falls to 8-21 overall and 2-14 in the Pac-12.
“I was happy with how we played in the first half”, Cal head coach Wyking Jones said after the game. “I thought that defensively we were solid. We did some good things. Offensively there was flow, there was pace. We wanted to work inside out, I felt like we were able to do that. Happy with the first half. The second half felt like foul trouble completely took away our flow. Had some lineups out there that I never thought that I’d have to play together because of foul trouble.
“And ultimately, that along with 50/50 balls, loose balls, who’s going to come up with it, everybody, we have as much opportunity to get it as they do. I thought that they beat us to a lot of 50/50 balls. But at the end of the day we lost to a very good basketball team. Washington’s good and Mike’s doing a great job and they’re a very good basketball team.”
During the first half, Cal and Washington were in a dead heat, tied 35-35 at halftime. Darius McNeill was the main catalyst to Cal’s early success, scoring all 17 of his points in the first half on 6-8 shooting from the field and 3-4 shooting from 3-point range.
“ I was being aggressive and then everything opened up”, McNeill said of his strong first half. “I was doing what the defense was giving to me.”
McNeill needs only two 3-pointers to tie Allen Crabbe’s freshmen record (62) for most 3-pointers in a season. McNeill admitted that he’s not too worried about that right now, focusing squarely on making his team better.
“I wasn’t really aware of that,” McNeill said of how close he is to breaking the record. “But if I do end up passing it, it would be a great achievement for the team. Right now, I’m just focusing on helping the team get better for the rest of the season.”
Unfortunately for Cal, the second half did not yield the same type of fruit for McNeill. McNeill shot 0-4 from the field in the second half and 0-1 from the foul line, unable to get into the same type of flow that he was in during the first half.
“Once Marcus and King got into foul trouble I felt like their defensive focus was on Darius and Don and Justice”, Wyking Jones said of McNeill’s second half struggles. “The two guys that could hurt us inside are out of the game, so now let’s just focus on making sure the perimeter’s tight. Taking away driving lanes, getting over ball screens; half of our attack was gone at that point. So they were able to focus in on those guys.”
One of the major keys coming into this game for Cal was to take advantage of their size down low and control the paint. After getting off to a 14-8 advantage in the paint, Cal ended up getting outscored in the paint 26-24. The Huskies also won the rebounding battle 34-31 with Noah Dickerson finishing with 16 points and 9 rebounds. Marcus Lee in contrast had only 6 points and 2 rebounds for Cal while Kingsley Okoroh finished with 2 points and 4 rebounds.
“Dickerson is a really good post player”, Marcus Lee said of their inability to dominate the paint. “Tremendous, actually and he kinda just went at us and it just wasn’t one of our days.”
For Cal, this was a game filled with missed opportunities, especially during the second half. Cal had many looks at the basket that they just weren’t able to convert. Don Coleman in particular was unable to capitalize on the looks he got, shooting 1-9 from the field. That said, Wyking Jones was pleased with Coleman’s effort and toughness, especially on the defensive end.
“I was very happy with what Don did tonight”, Jones said. “Particularly on the defensive end. I felt like he had an unbelievable amount of energy, toughness, grit. Six steals, you know that’s not easy against a very good basketball team. Six steals is phenomenal. Dove on the floor. You know, he’s one of those guys that you talk about 50/50 balls and he comes up with 70 percent of those. He sacrifices his body and so I was very happy to see his level of toughness first and foremost and energy tonight for us on the defensive end.”
Given that it was Senior Day, this was an emotional day for the entire team and especially the seniors, who played in their final game at Haas Pavilion. Marcus Lee admitted that this was an emotional day and that it was tough to channel those emotions while playing.
“I felt a lot of things,” Lee said of what he was feeling. “Especially walking out with my family. I tried to be strong, you see the tears flowing. But, as the game went on you realize that senior night is not for the seniors. It’s for passing the baton on to the freshmen. Understanding that even though this year didn’t go as well as we planned, understand that ‘We’re building a cathedral,’ in Coach O’Toole’s words. We’re building for something greater than just us, we’re building for people that are coming after us, and that’s what you have to keep in mind and that’s what really got to me today, and that’s what really stayed on my mind and got me pretty emotional. It was knowing that my job is to make sure they (the freshmen) are alright, make sure our freshmen are alright, making sure the freshmen keep pushing and keep getting better.”
While Cal missed a lot of opportunities, Washington deserves a lot of credit for playing the way that they did. Jaylen Nowell in particular. He’s established himself as one of the top freshmen in the conference and lived up to his billing in this game.
“We recruited Jaylen out of high school and Jaylen is just a talented young man”, Wyking Jones said of Nowell’s performance. “He’s talented. I’m not surprised that he’s having the type of season that he’s having. He has a lot of confidence and Mike has entrusted in him to be their go-to guy and so he’s talented. He’s talented.”
Up next for Cal is a trip to the desert to face Arizona State and Arizona. Cal will first travel to Tempe to face Arizona State on Thursday, March 1st before heading to Tucson to face Arizona on Saturday, March 3rd.
