Cal Basketball: Assessing Bears' Performance in the Win Over Pepperdine
It's always a bad a idea to draw conclusions from just one game, but that's not going to stop us from trying. Let's look at what we saw in Tuesday's season-opening 87-71 victory pver Pepperdine.
--Mark Fox may shuffle the lineup slightly from game to game. He started freshman Joel Brown at point guard and had senior Paris Austin come off the bench. Brown and Austin were on the court together much of the game, and Cal used a three-guard lineup that also included Kareem South for long stretches.
--Three freshmen played on Tuesday, but it appears Brown and Lars Thiemann are the only two who will get extended playing time, at least for the time being.
Kuany Kuany and D.J. Thorpe did not play at all. Kuany has a leg injury, but it is not clear whether Thorpe's absence was related to injury or that he just does not figure in the roation at this point.
Freshman guard Dimitrios Klonaras only played three minutes and did not take a shot, so it appears his minutes will be minimal.
--Thiemann has a ways to go to be a factor. The 7-foot freshman from Germany started Tuesday's game but he played only 12 minutes, took just one shot, did not score, had two rebounds and no blocks. Andre Kelly came off the bench to get most of the playing time at that position, and he was effective, scoring 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting to go along with 10 rebounds in 23 minutes.
--Matt Bradley can shoot, even from the new three-point distance. He led the Pac-12 in three-point shooting percentage last year and he was 5-for-7 from behind the line, which is now 22 feet, 1¾ inches away. He had a career-high 25 points despite playing just 30 minutes.
--Bradley and Kareem South will be the Bears' chief scoring threats. This is what we expected and it became more apparent Tuesday. South was 5-for-10 from the field, including 2-of-4 from three-point distance, and scored 14 points in 36 minutes. He was on the court more than any other Cal player. Both Bradley and South showed an ability to create their own shots off the dribble, although South does not typically take it all the way to the basket like Bradley can.
--Paris Austin may benefit more than anyone from having Mark Fox as his coach. Austin did not start, but played 28 minutes and was the main catalyst in the Bears' 17-0 run in the second half that put them in control. He was able to beat his defender off the dribble a number of times, and fed Cal big men for layups when he did not finish on his own.
Austin's play was one of the main reasons Cal shot 71.4 percent from the field in the second half.
"I thought Paris in the second half was terrific," Fox said in the video.
--Cal's defense seemed solid, although more will be learned about that in future games. Pepperdine was limited to 37.1 percent shooting, and Waves star Colbey Ross was just 5-for-17 from the floor and scored just two of his 19 points in the second half.
--The three-point shot could be Cal's friend. This is another aspect that will be more accurately determined as the season goes on, as Pepperdine is not an outstanding defensive team. But the Bears' 10-of-19 shooting from long range has to be encouraging. Besides Bradley and South, Jacobi Gordon made both of his three-point attempts during his 12 minutes on the floor.
--Next Tuesday's home game against UNLV, which knocked off Purdue-Fort Wayne 86-71 on Tuesday, will tell us a lot more about Cal. The Rebels were picked to finish seventh in the Mountain West Conference in the preseason poll.
Here are highlights of the game:
