Takeaways from Cal's basketball exhibition win over Chico State

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Published Nov 3, 2022

Takeaways from Cal's basketball exhibition win over Chico State

Ryan Young • GoldenBearReport

Pac-12 Publisher

With the season opener less than a week away, Cal basketball coach Mark Fox got to see his retooled roster in action against a Chico State team that went 22-5 last year and reached the Division II Elite Eight.

The Golden Bears posted a 62-55 win in the exhibition game at Haas Pavilion on Wednesday night, but it wasn't really about the final score as much as the details within the game and the takeaways that can be applied to the final practices before the Nov. 7 opener against UC Davis.

"It was really good to be back in Haas playing against somebody else, playing against a good team. Chico obviously advanced deep in the tournament last year -- very well coached and a very good shooting team. So it was good to play a very good basketball team and have to battle," Cal coach Mark Fox said. "I thought our defense for the most part forced a lot of misses. I was disappointed in our defensive rebounding. We didn't do a very good job on the glass, which we'll have to work on. And then I felt like offensively, we were running so many guys in and out, we never really found a great rhythm offensively, but that will come in time, I think.

"But good to be back and did a lot of good things, have a lot of things to clean up and learn from and we're excited to start doing that."

The offense indeed never found a rhythm in part because the shooting was so erratic across the board.

Transfer newcomer Devin Askew tied for the team lead with 11 points, but it came on 4-of-14 shooting (1 of 6 from 3-point range). As a team, the Bears shot just 38.2 percent overall, just 2 of 18 from 3-point range and 58.1 percent from the foul line (18 of 31).

Askew, who was ranked the No. 33 national prospect in the 2020 recruiting class coming out of Mater Dei HS in Southern California, joins the Bears after one-season stops at Kentucky and Texas. He averaged just 2.1 points and 1.3 assists in 14.9 minutes over 34 games played for the Longhorns last season, but he'll get every opportunity at Cal to deliver on his potential as a former top national prospect.