Coaches can generally live with a loss in which their team is simply overmatched, but self-inflicted mistakes will always draw their ire. Cal wasn't dominated by Vanderbilt in Wednesday night's game, but it certainly felt like it in stretches.
The Bears turned the ball over 20 times leading to a lopsided 32-7 disparity in points off turnovers in favor of the Commodores, and that ultimately proved to be too big of a hurdle to overcome at Memorial Gym in Nashville as Cal dropped its first game of the season, 85-69.
"They did a great job heating us up, pressing the ball, getting in passing lanes," acting head coach Adam Mazarei said in his postgame radio interview with Justin Allegri. "They just really pressured. They forced, what, 18 steals, 20 turnovers? We couldn't handle the heat.
"I thought they punched us, and we made a little bit more adjustments in the second half. We did a good job of getting in the paint, getting into quicker stuff, but I thought they dictated everything today on the defensive end. You gotta give them credit, they had that urgency, the energy, the effort, the speed, the physicality. You know, that's an SEC team, and they played like it today."
Cal (2-1) outscored Vanderbilt, 38-36, in the second half of Wednesday night's nonconference clash, the Bears' first game away from Haas Pavilion this season, but a halftime deficit of 18 points was too big of a hole to climb out of by the end of the night.
Vanderbilt dictated the pace quite a bit through the first 20 minutes thanks to their stingy defense the forced 18 steals in the game, which was just two shy of the program record, Cal eventually adjusted leading to more offensive success in the second half.
"We just got to quicker actions, just trying to get in the paint earlier," Mazarei said. "Simplify the offense. Just run really quick, misdirection trying to get our guard Jovan Blacksher in the paint to make decisions. I thought in the second half, when we did that, we collapsed the defense a little bit.
"... When they had us going east and west the whole game, we couldn't really break the line of defense. They did a great job of really just being physical and being vertical at the rim."
Blacksher erased a forgettable first half with an impressive showing in the second as he ultimately led the team with 9 points in that period to finish the game with 11 points. He was one of four Cal players to score in double figures alongside Andrej Stojakovic (17), BJ Omot (15) and DJ Campbell (12).
Stojakovic and Omot carried the Bears early in the game as the rest of the team searched for rhythm on offense. Omot had 11 points off the bench through the first 20 minutes while Stojakovic was efficient with 10 points on six shot attempts in the opening half.
"After we got punched a little bit, BJ came off the bench and immediately made an impact," Mazarei said. "He was fearless getting into the paint, getting to the rim and scoring, finishing. ... I thought Andrej was Andrej.
"He was aggressive. There was that spurt in the first half where the guys got a little tired and they were in the game for a while. I thought we had some good opportunities to maybe get back and cut into that lead, but I thought Dre was good, man. I thought he was under control."
Cal's defense held Vanderbilt (3-0) scoreless over the final 4:56 of the game, but the damage was done early as the Commodores had several big scoring runs, coupled with scoring droughts from the field for the Bears, that led to the wide margin.
The turning point of the game took place in the middle of the first half as Vanderbilt went on an 18-4 run that began at the 10:20 mark putting the Bears in a 16-point hole over a span of just 3:35.
That run ultimately flipped the game in the wire-to-wire loss for Cal.
The Bears had been balanced on offense through their first two games, but outside the top four scorers only four other players contributed on offense in Wednesday's game. None of the other four players scored more than 5 points.
Like Omot, big man Lee Dort provided some production off the bench for the Bears in Wednesday's game. The Vanderbilt transfer center returned to his former school and contributed with a game-high 10 rebounds to go along with 4 points.
Wednesday's game was also a homecoming of sorts for Mazarei who was previously on staff with the Commodores prior to his arrival in Berkeley. The Cal associate head coach stepped in for Mark Madsen Wednesday night as the Bears' head coach stayed back in the Bay Area to be with his wife after the birth of their fifth child earlier in the week.
Cal will be back on the floor Sunday when the travel down south to Los Angeles to square off with former Pac-12 foe USC at Galen Center.
