Cal Basketball: Short-Handed Bears Impressive in Rout of Northridge

Focused and motivated with its two most experienced players unavailable, Cal delivered an impressive 87-56 victory over Cal State Northridge on Saturday afternoon at Haas Pavilion.

The Bears played without senior forward Grant Anticevich, who underwent an emergency appendectomy early Friday morning, and top scorer Matt Bradley, still recovering from an ankle injury he sustained last Sunday against USF.

Fox said afterward he has no timetable on when Anticevich might return. He called Bradley day-to-day, suggesting he might play Tuesday afternoon against Seattle.

Grad transfers Makale Foreman and Ryan Betley posted their biggest games since arriving in Berkeley, scoring 23 and 19 points, respectively, to make up for the absence of Bradley (19.1 points) and Anticevich (10.3).

Despite losing that firepower, the Bears (4-4) played efficient, organized basketball to overwhelm the Matadors (3-3) of the Big West Conference. They shared the ball and created good shots, converting a season-best 61 percent from the field.

Cal scored a season-best first-half total for a 43-25 lead at the break and it only got more lopsided from there. The Bears led by as many as 40 points in the second half as Northridge never made a game of it.

The Bears won the rebounding battle 35-25 and dished a total of 19 assists. They had just three first-half-turnovers.

Former Cal coach Mike Montgomery, working the game as TV analyst for the Pac-12 Networks, was impressed with the Bears’ aggressive, confident approach. “I think this is going to help them in the long run,” he said.

Filling the scoring void were Foreman and Betley, the senior transfers. Foreman, formerly of Stony Brook, picked up where he left off while making the game-winning 3-pointer against USF. He scored 15 of his Cal-best 23 points in the first half. Foreman shot 4-for-8 from the 3-point arc.

Betley, who came to Cal from Penn, had 13 points in the first half when he was 4-for-4 from the field, including a trio of 3-pointers. He was 5-for-6 from beyond the arc for the afternoon.

Sophomore point guard Joel Brown also delivered a nice performance with a season-best 10 points to go with six rebounds and a career-high eight assists.

Fox gave Brown more credit for his defensive work against the Matadors' top player, junior point guard TJ Starks. A one-time Texas A&M player, Starks entered the game averaging 19.2 points but scored just 13 and was no factor at all when the game was on the line.

Nice spin move by Brown:

Spin cycle! 🔄 pic.twitter.com/M6FbWYWxMD
— Cal Basketball (@CalMBBall) December 19, 2020

Transfer Jarred Hyder, who was made eligible to play this week, saw his first action with the Bears and had six points and one assist in 18 minutes.

Others contributed as well. Center Lars Thiemann had eight points and six rebounds and Andre Kelly had seven points and seven rebounds.

A dunk by Thiemann:

LARS SLAM. pic.twitter.com/gX8w9rHB7m
— Cal Basketball (@CalMBBall) December 19, 2020

The Matadors, who own a win over Pepperdine and played Stanford tight for 30 minutes, dropped to 0-8 all-time vs. Cal. Northridge has not beaten a Pac-12 opponent since winning at Utah in December 2012.

Northridge shot just 35 percent from the field and had 17 turnovers. Earlier this season, the Matadors beat the same Pepperdine team that knocked off Cal.

Fox cuts Northridge some slack, explaining in the video below how the Matadors traveled by bus from Southern California due to COVID-19 factors, just as the Bears did for their game against UCLA earlier this season.

Cover photo of graduate senior Ryan Betley by Neville E. Guard, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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