Cal Clinches Spot in ACC Tourney With 82-71 Win Over Boston College

Cal’s two seniors made sure the Bears will play in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in their first season in the league.

Center Mady Sissoko had career-high totals of 21 points and 15 rebounds and guard Jovan Blacksher Jr. scored 18 points and dished four assists as the Bears finally pulled away for an 82-71 victory over Boston College in front of 5,020 fans at Haas Pavilion on Saturday night.

In their final home game of the season, the Bears (13-16, 6-12 ACC) snapped a five-game losing streak and locked up at least 15th place in the 18-team conference. Only the top 15 teams qualify for the ACC tourney.

“I feel like we all came here to do that,” Blacksher said of qualifying for the ACC tournament. “To get that means a lot to us.”

“From the beginning of the season that’s what we’ve talked about,” Sissoko added. “We’ll start with the ACC tournament, worry about that. Now we have a great chance to go do something.”

The ACC tournament runs March 11-15 at Charlotte, NC and the Bears’ seeding remains up for grabs. But they’re in after a couple weeks where that was not a sure thing.

“Boston College and us were fighting for that spot to go to the conference tournament,” second-year Cal coach Mark Madsen said. “We’re still fighting. We’ve got two games left and we’re now trying to improve our seed."

Cal, which plays on the road next week at Louisville and Notre Dame, has a two-game lead lead over both BC (12-17, 4-14) and North Carolina State (11-18, 4-14) and owns the tiebreaker against both.

Cal is tied for 13th place with Syracuse and Notre Dame, just one game back of three others who share 10th. Boston College (2-17, 4-14) was swept on its trip to the Bay Area after winning twice last week. The Eagles fell to 0-9 on the road.

The Bears, who had dropped seven of their previous eight games, matched their win total of all last season and improved their home record to 11-6.

Sophomore Andrej Stojakovic added 15 points, five rebounds and four blocked shots for Cal and freshman Jeremiah Wilkinson scored 14 points. Wilkinson moved past Ivan Rabb into sixth place on Cal’s freshman scoring list with 429 points.

Rytis Petraitis contributed nine points, nine rebounds, four assists, two steals and a blocked shot and was a team-best plus-18 in the plus-minus column.

Donald Hand Jr., BC’s leading scorer, played just 8 scoreless minutes in the first half before picking up two fouls and going to the bench. He scored all 19 of his points in the second half, helping to rally the Eagles into leads several times.

Cal led just 61-60 before Stojakovic hit a 3-pointer with 6:08 left. Wilkinson made one with 5:34 to play, pushing the lead to 67-60, and Sissoko scored nine points in the final 4:29 as the Bears took command.

A 6-foot-9 transfer from Michigan State who grew up in the African nation of Mali, Sissoko delivered his big game while fasting in observance of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“For him to have such a focused game in such a spiritual time for him, where he’s fasting, that was so great to see and so impressive to see.”

Sissoko talks about his game in the video above.

Blacksher, an Oakland native and transfer from Grand Canyon University, had averaged just 2.5 points while shooting under 17 percent the past four games. He made 6 of 13 attempts against the Eagles, including a 3-pointer just 20 seconds into the game after leaving his defender on the floor with a fake.

“Four assists, no turnovers,” Madsen said, “and he got us off to a great start.”

Blacksher talks about snapping out of that slump in the video above.

The Bears led by as many as 13 points on the way to a 42-31 halftime advantage.