On Saturday, Cal men’s basketball got lit up by USC in an 89-66 blowout. USC forward Bennie Boatwright went off for 36 points on 10-13 shooting from 3-point range, breaking USC’s record for most threes in a game. Justice Sueing was the top performer for Cal with 17 points and 5 rebounds. USC improves to 14-12 overall and 7-6 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 5-20 overall and 0-13 in the Pac-12.
“Well after showing improvement in the last five or six games, we took a major step back today,” Cal head coach Wyking Jones said after the game. “Yesterday in practice during our shell segment, a 15 minute segment with two minutes to go in the segment, I said to the guys if we play the way we’re playing in this zone segment, we’re going to lose by 30 tomorrow. So, I told Chris Oakes, I said restart the clock. We’re gonna redo this segment because this is unacceptable. We’re not locked in, we’re a step too slow in rotations, we’re not communicating with each other, and we started the segment and it was better. It was better, but it wasn’t what it needed to be for us to be effective tonight. That practice, that segment, it carried over until today.
“I don’t know if it’s fatigue. I don’t know what it is, but we were just a step slow on every rotation and our communication wasn’t there. So, we took a step back. We took a step back after taking steps in the right direction in the last couple games. So, we just gotta get back to it and get back on track because right now, we’re just in a funk right now and the defensive woes carried over into offense and we just couldn’t find a rhythm offensively, either. But, it’s a lot easier to play defense when you’re hitting shots the way they were hitting shots.”
USC got off to a strong start early in this game, leading 8-0 within the first couple of minutes. Jonah Mathews and Bennie Boatwright each hit a pair of threes while Cal had some hideous possessions to start the game. USC would continue to build on their lead to go up 13-3 with 15:40 to go in the 1st half as Boatwright was up to 8 points, already giving Cal serious trouble.
“USC got on to a great start,” Sueing said. “I think they hit their first three threes. So, I mean, we don’t have that margin of error. Especially our team to start off that way. Especially against a talented team like USC, so they got started early and it just carried on throughout the game and it ultimately led to us losing by double digits, so that’s the main thing, I think.”
With 11:55 to go in the half, Boatwright was up to 11 points, leading a USC attack that was shooting 7-10 from the field and 5-6 from 3-point range. Cal’s zone wasn’t performing the way Wyking Jones wanted it to and they paid dearly for it early on. Cal would start to settle in a bit over the next few minutes, in part due to their offense getting a little better and USC starting to cool off a bit as they would miss four straight 3-pointers. USC was still ahead 23-16 with 7:43 to go in the half, but at least it looked like Cal might make a game of it.
“He was hitting some threes at the top of the key over my guards and when I walked past him in the line to shake his hand, 6’8”, 6’9”, he’s got great size, but he found a rhythm,” Jones said of Boatwright. “They did a great job feeding him. Did a really good job finding him. You could see that it was almost like a team effort to get him looks. They knocked down shots. Typically against a zone you want teams to take threes, you want them to. Tonight was one of those nights where they capitalized on that.”
Hopes of a Cal comeback started to look seriously questionable after USC went on a 7-0 run to go up 30-16 with 5:31 to go in the half. In addition to Boatwright going off, Nick Rakocevic was starting to get things going for USC with 10 points, doing a good job of providing a sound interior presence. With 0 points over the last 2:33, Cal was heading in the wrong direction fast.
At the end of the 1st half, USC would lead 41-26 behind 19 points from Boatwright on 6-9 shooting from the field and 5-6 shooting from 3-point range. Matt Bradley, Connor Vanover, and Justice Sueing each had 7 points for Cal, doing a solid job offensively. The issue was their defense, which has plagued them all season long.
During the second half, any hopes of a Cal comeback were quickly dashed after Mathews drilled a 3-pointer to give USC a 49-26 lead with 16:57 to go. That lead would shortly expand to a 63-39 lead with 11:58 to go. Boatwright was up to 33 points on 11-17 shooting from the field and 9-11 shooting from 3-point range, just one 3-pointer shy of breaking USC’s single game record. Boatwright would go on to break the record with 4:04 to go, giving USC an 87-56 lead.
In the end, Cal would make a few more buckets, including a 3-pointer by Jacob Orender to the delight of the Cal faithful that were still in attendance. In the end it was an 89-66 win for USC, handing Cal their worst loss of Pac-12 play since the 82-59 beatdown in Pullman earlier this year.
“This was tough,” Jones admitted. “This was tough. This one’s tough for them. It’s tough for the staff because we just didn’t have the fight that we normally have. So, it’s my job to make sure that we get back on the right track. I said to them before the game, I said continue to love. That was one of the keys. Continue to love. I said guys, what we’re going through right now, the fact that we all, my staff and myself we all come to work eager to be with these guys. Eager to teach them, eager to get into practice and continue to improve and the fact that they continue to come to practice with the right attitude wanting to be around to each other, wanting to practice, wanting to be around us, means that we love each other.
“One of the keys before the game was continue to love and we’re going to see what that looks like on Tuesday. We have tomorrow off. We have Monday off and we’re getting after it on Tuesday. So, we’re gonna see what that looks like. I anticipate our guys are going to be fine. They’re a close group. I’m sure they’re embarrassed, and they have pride. So, I’m sure they’ll be fine. And maybe it’s good to go up to a hostile environment like McKale and go play a game right now. Maybe it’ll be good for them.”
“We have to keep pushing,” Sueing added. “We were supposed to come into this game with a certain game plan and I feel like we didn’t contribute as far as what Coach Wy wanted, but besides the point we still had to defend, and we didn’t come up today. We didn’t come strong enough and that’s the results we get because of that.”
For Cal, this loss was beyond disappointing. To their credit, they’ve put together a string of competitive games, unable to get over the hump in the final minutes. It looked like their spirits had been broken a bit today after an emotional overtime loss to UCLA. Hopefully for them, they’ll be able to shake this one off and get ready for Arizona on Thursday, which will tipoff at 6:00 PM PST on FS1.
