On Saturday, Cal men’s basketball fell to Seattle by a final score of 82-73. Myles Carter (26 points & 13 rebounds) and Morgan Means (24 points & 6 rebounds) led the way for Seattle while Paris Austin (20 points & 5 rebounds) and Darius McNeill (19 points) were the top scorers for Cal. Cal falls to 5-7 on the season while Seattle improves to 12-3. Seattle is off to their best start since the 1963-64 season in which they started 13-2 and made the NCAA Tournament.
“Well to start, we came out flat and we weren’t ready to play to start the game,” Cal head coach Wyking Jones said after the game. “I don’t know why, but I have to do a better job of making sure that we’re ready to play. Because today I could see it in shootaround. The energy level wasn’t there for whatever reason, but we can’t dig ourselves a hole. Typically, we start games well, but we weren’t ready to play today and so we fought back and had some energy in spurts, but you can’t dig yourself an 18 point hole and expect to win.”
Cal got off to a really slow start in this game, going down 8-2 with 16:38 to go in the half. Morgan Means got going early with 6 of those 8 points while Darius McNeill was the lone Cal player on the board. After Roman Davis knocked down a jumper to put Cal down 8-4, Seattle went on a 13-0 run to go up 21-4 with 11:45 to go in the half. In addition to Means, Myles Carter also got into a nice groove, scoring 8 points during that stretch. Seattle was shooting a really nice 9-12 (75%) from the field while Cal was shooting an abysmal 2-9 (22.2%). Seattle did a really good job of getting to the rim during this stretch while Cal settled for too many mid-range jumpers.
“We came out flat offensively,” Darius McNeill said. “They just outrebounded us, really. They outrebounded us the entire time.”
“Us being guards, we need to rebound more,” Paris Austin added. “We’re not going to put it on our bigs. They have their own load down there and we gotta do our jobs, too. So, getting in there and rebounding and helping them out. We gotta do the same.”
To wake themselves up, Justice Sueing scored 5 quick points, doing a good job of getting to the foul line. Down 23-9 with 10:30 to go in the half, Cal was still in a major hole and to make matters worse, they were in serious foul trouble already having 7 personal fouls. Cal continued to chip away at Seattle’s lead, trailing 29-14 with 6:52 to go in the half. Justice Sueing had 8 points up to this point and was doing his part to get his team back in the game. Cal would soon go on a 7-0 run to get within 10 points with 3:56 to go in the half. Darius McNeill started to heat up a bit and Cal as a whole started to show some life.
During the rest of the half, Cal was able to chip away at Seattle’s lead a little bit more, going down 40-31 at halftime. Myles Carter and Morgan Means were the top performers for Seattle up to this point with 12 points each while Justice Sueing (12 points) and Darius McNeill (10 points) were the ones leading Cal. While the 21-4 deficit speaks for itself, a major problem for Cal in this half was the way in which they were getting worked inside. Seattle dominated the boards 19-7 during the first half and Carter was a major reason for that, grabbing 8 rebounds to go along with his 12 points. Cal’s lack of size hurt them, but it was really their lack of physicality and willingness to battle that was the issue.
In the second half, Cal started to wake up, going down 45-42 with 14:48 to go. Justice Sueing (15 points) and Darius McNeill (14 points), started to find their mojo and Cal was doing a much better job of attacking the rim and getting good looks. Cal was able to cut the Seattle lead down to one (47-46) with 13:03 to go as Paris Austin and Andre Kelly started to get involved in the offense.
“The message was we had to continue to attack and get into the lane and not settle,” Wyking Jones said of what he told his team at halftime. “Continue to try to get the rim to get fouled, which we did, and we had to rebound. You’re down 12 on the boards at halftime, we had to rebound. So, that was the message.”
“Executing,” Darius McNeil simply stated about what changed in the second half. “We started being more tougher, like getting more rebounds. We started getting like one stop and going. But we lost focus and they took the lead right back.”
Despite Cal’s second half surge, Seattle didn’t waver. Myles Carter converted a 3-point play to put Seattle up 50-48 with 11:10 to go in the half, allowing the Redhawks to calm down a bit. During the next few minutes, Seattle would expand their lead by a little bit, going up 56-51 with 6:58 to go. With 3:30 to go, Seattle had a 61-55 lead and it became clear that time was running short for Cal.
“You give Seattle a lot of credit, they played hard,” Wyking Jones said. “They competed, they were physical. I challenged our guys before the game to rebound the basketball. All five guys rebound, and we go in at halftime down 19-7 on the boards, so right there something’s not right. It’s not how it’s supposed to look. I know we’re undersized, we’re an undersized team, but we shouldn’t go down. It shouldn’t be 19-7 on the boards in the first half.
"They get 14 offensive rebounds, 19 points on second chance baskets. We’re a team that doesn’t turn the ball over at a high rate and we turn it over 13 times. So, those are things that we can control. Their offensive rebounds and our turnovers and we didn’t do a great job with that today. So, we have to get better.”
During the next minute, Seattle would basically seal the deal, going up 67-56 with 2:16 to go. Cal stayed alive a little bit longer thanks to some fouls, but the damage had been done. Seattle walked out with an 82-73 win, picking up their second win over a Pac-12 team this season.
While rebounding and poor shot selection was the major issue for Cal in the first half, the major issue in the second half was their inability to capitalize off of Seattle’s missed shots. Seattle shot 10-29 (34.5%) from the field in the second half, giving Cal plenty of opportunities to score. Cal unfortunately shot 13-33 (39.4%) from the field in the second half, not doing nearly enough to make Seattle pay for their missed shots.
“We can’t dig ourselves a hole like that at home,” Wyking Jones said of what he told his team post-game. “We just can’t do that. That was the message. If we don’t dig ourselves a hole, then we’re fine. You exert so much energy trying to get back, so the main message was just we can’t come out flat. It just can’t happen. If you want to win a game, you gotta come out ready to play.”
“The coaches definitely weren’t happy with us,” Paris Austin added. “We weren’t happy, and we just talked about some stuff that we need to get better at.”
Up next for Cal is a road game at USC to open up Pac-12 play. That game will tipoff on Thursday, January 3rd at 7:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks.
