Perspective on Cal's first Pac-12 win of the Mark Madsen Era

After unsuccessfully trying to play catchup all night a few days ago in a loss to USC, the Cal basketball team took a different approach Saturday.

With an old-fashioned three-point play from Fardaws Aimaq in the paint, a 3-pointer from Jaylon Tyson and another from Jalen Cone, the Bears scored the first 9 points against UCLA and never let go of that lead, on the way to a much-needed 66-57 victory on the road at Pauley Pavilion for the first Pac-12 win of the Mark Madsen Era.

Tyson scored a game-high 22 points with 6 rebounds, Aimaq added 13 points and 14 rebounds and Cone scored 12 as the Bears (5-10, 1-3 Pac-12) never let it get closer than 6 points the rest of the way after that initial burst.

No, this isn't the UCLA team most are accustomed to -- the Bruins (6-9, 1-3), who have now lost three straight games and got swept on this homestand by Stanford and the Bears.

But for a Cal team that has been competitively close in a number of losses, this was a big moment regardless for the turnaround Madsen is trying to engineer within this team and program. It was the Bears' first win in Pauley Pavilion since 2010.

"With this team, we've been through adversity. We haven't won those close games, but we're learning each and every game, and I feel this game was a good game for us to get over that hump and help build momentum into the next 16, 17 games," Tyson said.

Tyson, the Texas Tech transfer, was a big reason for the Bears simply wouldn't relent this time. He scored 17 of his 22 points in the second half, consistently delivering clutch baskets anytime UCLA tried to make a dent in its deficit.

When Adem Bona made it a 36-29 game for UCLA on a dunk in the opening minutes of the second half, Tyson threw down a dunk of its own moments later. It was again a 7-point game midway through the second half when Bona made two free throws to make it 49-42, but Tyson drilled a 3-pointer on the ensuing Cal possession. He again traded baskets with Bona a couple minutes later.

That came during a stretch when he scored 9 of Cal's 10 points over a key stretch that saw the lead grow back to 13 points, 59-46, with less than 5 minutes to play.

"I told Jaylon Tyson right now, about 2 minutes ago, the way he controlled the tempo down the stretch reminded me of an NBA point guard. He was fantastic," Madsen said. "He had some key attacks to the rim, he had some phenomenal passes when he drew a double-team and his composure was so strong."

Said Tyson, when told of his coach's comments: "That means the world. This staff has the most confidence in me I've ever had in my life, and that just shows. I told him, I'm going to get this for him and we're going to win a lot of games. I told him that coming here, and he has trust in me and I have trust in him. ...

"I work on those shots every day. I'm in the gym 24-7, and that goes back to the confidence they have in me. Every time when it comes down to the last 10 minutes, they tell me 'You're the guy. You're the best player on the court.' So I go out there and act like I'm the best player on the court."

Tyson certainly has been consistently the best player for the Bears, averaging a team-high 20.1 points along with 7.3 rebounds.

Meanwhile, it was a good sign to see Cone hit some big shots despite shooting just 4 of 13 overall (2 of 9 from 3-point range). When he did connect, it was in key moments. His second 3 of the game came with 1:17 left after UCLA had again gotten as close it would all half, trimming its deficit to 6 before Cone's dagger and had been in a particularly rough drought, making just 6 of 27 shots over the last three games (including 5 of 23 on 3-pointers).

Cone is shooting just 34.2 percent from the field this season, but Madsen remains unrelentingly confident in the veteran guard.

"Oh, 100 percent. 100 percent. Jalen Cone puts the work in, and so, it's a situation where we know we can always go to Jalen Cone because of the work he puts in and the performance he's always going to have," Madsen said.

Coming off a breakout game at USC (13 points, 3 of 6 on 3s), freshman Rodney Brown Jr. was effectively efficient again Saturday with 6 points (hitting 2 of his 3 3-point attempts).

Just as important as the offensive contributors, though, was the defensive performance as the Bears made an emphasis to clog the interior and force the Bruins to make shots from the outside. UCLA shot just 42.9 percent overall while making just 2 of 10 3s.

"Defense has been a huge focus for us. We've had some games where we've had a great first half of defense -- not a great second half. We've had games of vice versa. Tonight, we're starting to put together the defense for the whole game," Madsen said.

"We really tried to pack the paint knowing that they haven't shot it as well yet this year. Of course, I'm sure they're going to have some games where they come out and shoot the lights out, but we kind of said hey, let's take one thing away -- we decided to take the paint away -- and our guys were scrambling."

Said Tyson: "We just came out with the mentality that we weren't going to get punked -- that was the biggest thing. For USC, we gave up a lot of points in the paint, so a big emphasis that we had is we weren't going to give up points in the paint and that helped us win this game."