Cal Comeback Bid Falls Short in a Loss to Stanford in ACC Basketball Opener

The Golden Bears cut a 20-point deficit to six points but came up short against archrival Stanford

Cal guard Andrej Stojakovic / D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

The 6,089 people who showed up at Haas Pavilion for Cal's first ACC basketball game were treated to some late-game excitement, but ultimately the home fans went home disappointed.

Despite a strong comeback bid by Cal in the closing moments, Stanford beat Cal 89-81 in both teams' conference opener on Saturday afternoon.

Cal trailed by 20 points with 5:36 remaining in the game, but got the deficit down to seven points when Joshua Ola-Joseph hit a three-point shot with 2:13 remaining. Cal then reduced the deficit to six points on Andrej Stojakovic's banked-in three pointer at the 1:20 mark. That was as close as Cal got, though.

"That was our best game of the year by far," said first-year Sanford coach Kyle Smith, whose team improved to 8-2.

He did get a little nervous when Cal mounted its late-game charge.

"Hold on, Mad Dog's coming," Smith said of Cal coach Mark Madsen, who played his college ball at Stanford.

However, the Bears' struggles through portions of the game made the deficit too difficult to overcome.

"We have to be more consistent on both sides of the ball," said Madsen, whose team slipped to 6-3. "It was a disappointing loss, [but] our players played very, very hard."

Cal sophomore Andrej Stokakovic played at Stanford last season as a freshman, and he scored a game-high 25 points on Saturday. He called playing against his former team "bittersweet." He was 11-for-25 from the field, but had seven of his shots blocked.

That was one of several noteworthy statistics in this game. Stanford's Maxime Raynaud shared team scoring honors with Jaylen Blakes as each scored 20 points. But what made Raynaud's scoring particularly significant is that the 7-foot-1 center was 4-for-6 on three-pointers. Raynaud also blocked five shots, and Stanford collected 13 blocks as a team.

Stanford shot 52.6 percent from the field, but Cal stayed in the game by collecting 19 offensive rebounds, leading to 23 second-chance points. Stanford had just seven offensive boards.

The assist totals were a different matter. Sanford had 19 assists, and Cal had just five assists, incuding none in the first half when Stanford took control.

"Zero assists in the first half is absolutely unacceptable," Madsen said. "I don't know that I've ever been at a game where you have zero assists in any half."

Stanford took command in the final 4:37 of the first half. Three-pointers by Stanford on three consecutive possessions late in the first half enabled the Cardinal to pull away after Cal had tied the game with 4:53 remaining before halftime.

Stanford finished the first half on an 18-2 run that gave the Cardinal to take a 47-31 lead at halftime.

"That can't happen," Madsen said of that Stanford run.

"That was the game," said Stojakovic said of that 18-2 Cardinal run.

Blakes led Stanford with 14 first-half points, and his scoring in the late stages of the first half helped give Stanford the big lead.

Stanford has a strong start to the game, hitting six of its first seven shots to take a 14-4 lead over Cal, which begain the game 1-for-8 from the field.

Stanford stretched its lead to 11 points before the Bears surged and tied the score at 29-29 with 4:53 left in the first half when Stanford was called for goal-tending on a layup attempt by Stojakovic.

But Stanford then hit three-pointers on each of its next three possessions – the first two by Blakes – to open a nine-point advantage. Blakes scored his final bucket of the half with one second left, pushing the Cardinal’s lead to 16 points at the break. Cal was 0-for-6 on three-pointers in the first half.

NOTES: Cal’s DJ Campbell returned to action after missing four games with an injury, but BJ Omot missed his fifth straight game with an injury.

Raynaud entered the game ranked eighth in the country in scoring, averaging 22.3 points, and he was third in rebounding at 12.2 a game.

Stanford won two of the three games against Cal last season although the Bears won the matchup in Berkeley. The last three seasons, each team won the game on its home court,but Stanford broke through in Berkeley this time.

The Cardinal had lost two of its previous three games this season, falling to Grand Canyon and Cal Poly before getting past Utah Valley,

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