Cal Plays Without Devin Askew and Falls to 0-10
Cal’s difficult basketball season got more difficult Wednesday night, as the Bears had to play without their best player, Devin Askew, and ended up losing a heartbreaker to Eastern Washington 50-48 at Haas Pavilion.
Cal had just eight scholarship players in uniform Wednesday and is now 0-10, one of three winless Division I teams, along with Louisville and Central Connecticut. At this point coach Mark Fox is banking on the fact that this early-season adversity may build strength eventually.
“I think adversity in the long run is good for these guys,” Fox said in the video atop the story. “Now, they can crumble and people around them can crumble, and I said to them again, ‘Everyone can blame me.’ I’ll take all the responsibility. I can deal with it.
“I think on the other side of this there will be a lot of positives. We have to battle through to the other side.”
“But somebody has to maintain the belief that this is good and we can get through it,” Fox said, “and I may stand alone, and I’m good with that. I can stand alone and deal with it.
“But eventually we have to get healthy and we have to eliminate some of the errors that we made tonight that health didn’t impact.”
The biggest health issue involves Askew, who is averaging 18.3 points per game, which ranks third in the Pac-12. Fox said he found out on Monday that Askew has COVID and would not be available Wednesday. He's not sure whether Askew will be available for Saturday’s home game against Butler either. Cal was also without freshman ND Okaford (COVID) as well as DeJaun Clayton and Jalen Celestine, both of whom might be starters but have not played at all this season because of injuries.
Fox pointed out that Askew’s absence affected Cal at a number of positions in a trickle-down effect.
“It has a massive impact obviously, but you still have to overcome your circumstances, and we didn’t do that,” Fox said.
Eastern Washington was picked to finish fifth in the Big Sky Conference and came to Cal with a 3-5 record, including a 26-point loss to Washington State and a 4-51 record against current members of the Pac-12.
The Eagles led nearly the entire game until Cal made a late charge that almost brought the Bears their first win.
Lars Thiemann again showed promise with 16 points on 6-for-11 shooting and six rebounds, but he had little offensive support as the rest of the Cal team was 11-for-33. That was the main reason Eastern Washington led by 12 points early in the second half and by nine with 5:22 left. That’s when Cal produced a late charge, as it has in several games this season.
The Bears tied the game 48-48 when Joel Brown made the second of two free throws with 33.9 seconds left, but Eastern Washington’s Tyreese Davis bulled his way to a contested layup that put the Eagles up by two with 24.1 seconds remaining.
Fox said the Bears got the shot they wanted on their ensuing possession against EWU’s zone defense, but Kuany Kuany’s three-point shot from the corner under pressure with five seconds left did not go down.
The Eagles’ Casey Jones missed the front end of a 1-and-1 situation with 3.4 seconds to go, but Brown’s desperation heave from beyond halfcourt was not close.
Cal shot 32% from the floor, including 2-for-15 on three-point shots, and turned the ball over 17 times. It leaves the Bears to ponder their situation.
“I feel sad because of the result,” Brown, a senior, said in the video below, “but what I’ve learned since I’ve been here as a freshman is, you can’t really dwell on the losses. You’ve got to learn from it and move on.”
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Cover photo of Tyreese Davis shooting over Lars Thiemann is by Kyle Terada, USA TODAY Sports
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