Cal Loses to Notre Dame in 4 OTs in Last Regular-Season Game

Cal tied the second longest game in school history, but it ended up in defeat for the Bears, who lost to Notre Dame 112-110 in four overtimes on Saturday afternoon in South Bend, Indiana.

The four overtimes match Cal’s four-overtime game in 1960 as the second-longest game in Cal history. The Bears lost that one too, falling to Iowa 83-80 in four extra periods on December 28, 1960. The longest Cal game was a five-overtime contest on February 10,1977, when the Bears beat Oregon 107-102.

Cal (13-18, 6-14 ACC) will advance to the ACC tournament as the No. 15 seed and play in the 1:30 p.m. game on Tuesday against No. 10 seed Virginia Tech in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Saturday’s game was a wild one, and it ended with Notre Dame improving its record to 14-17 overall and 8-12 in the ACC.

"I don't think I've ever been a part of game with so many overtime periods," Madse said. "We fought, we battled. Just a couple of execution things down the stretch."

Notre Dame’s Markus Burton scored 43 points, the most by an ACC player this season, and 21 of those points came in the overtime periods.

Cal freshman Jeremiah Wilkinson had a career-high 36 points, the second-most by a Bears freshman ever. Charlie Moore scored 38 for the Bears during the 2016-17 season.

"Jeremiah Wilkinson is one of the top frehmen, one of the top players in the country, and you can see that," Madsen said. "He's an unbelievable point guard. He's an explosive scorer, but also does a really good job of looking for his teammates. He's growing into one of the top point guards in the country."

Wilkinson is now No. 5 on Cal’s alltime freshman season scoring list with 476 points, and he is averaging 20.4 points since being moved into the starting lineup 13 games ago.

Wilkinson played 52 minutes Saturday and was involved in key plays in the fourth overtime. His three-pointer with 1:34 left gave the Bears a two-point lead, and Cal regained that two-point lead with 35.4 seconds remaining on a Lee Dort dunk.

But Notre Dame’s Matt Allocco nailed a three-point shot 15 seconds to go to put the Irish ahead 109-108.

Wilkinson then lost the ball out of bounds with 5.6 seconds left.

Cole Certa made two free throws with 4.5 seconds left to make it a three-point game, and Cal’s Spencer Mahoney opted to make both free throws with 4.0 seconds left to close the deficit to one point, rather than intentionally miss the second and hope for an offensive rebound and a chance to tie it.

Notre Dame’s Garrett Sundra made the first of two free throws with 3.2 seconds to go to make the lead two, and after he missed the second Rytis Petraitis heave from beyond halfcourt failed to go in.

There was plenty of suspense before that point.

Cal never led in the second half, and Allocco missed a shot at the end of regulation to send the game into overtime.

Andrej Stojakovic, who played 50 minutes and scored 21 points for Cal, missed a fallaway 12-footer at the buzzer of the first overtime to push the game to a second extra period.

Cal trailed by six points with 1:37 left in the second overtime but a three-pointer by Wilkinson and a three-point play by Mady Sissoko with 29 seconds left were enough to force a third overtime.

In the third extra period, after Allocco scored with 11.8 seconds left to give Notre Dame a two-point lead, Wilkinson powered his way for a layup with 5.6 seconds remaining to tie the score at 97-97 and send the game to a fourth overtime.

Stojakovic had fouled out during that third overtime.

The game went into overtime after a wild final minute of regulation time.

With 30 seconds left and Cal trailing by a point, Burton had the ball and swing around causing his elbow to smack Stojakovic in the jaw and sending him to the floor.

A foul was called on Burton, and the officials got together to see whether a flagrant foul should be called. But when they emerged they changed the call to a technical foul on Stojakovic because he was inside the ball-handler’s legal cylinder.

Then, just as Burton went to the line, the ACC Network, which was televising the game, inadvertently switched to a different game.

Viewers did not see Burton make one of two free throws nor did they see Cal’s Javon Blacksher Jr. make two free throws with 17 seconds left to tie the game.

The TV broadcast returned to the Cal-Notre Dame game with 14 seconds remaning to see Allocco miss a shot with five seconds left and send the game into overtime.

Notre Dame shot 50% from the field for the game, and Cal shot 45.9% while making 9-of-27 three-pointers.

Burton scored 18 points in the first half but had just four points and no field goals in the second half with Stojakovic as his primary defender. Stojakovic finished the game with six blocked shots and four of them were blocks of Burton field-goal attempts in the second half.

Burton ended up playing 53 minutes and did a lot of damage in the overtimes before fouling out

NOTES Cal finished 1-9 in ACC road games, and 2-12 away from home overall.

Wilkinson averaging 20.4 points per game since being moved to the starting lineup 13 games ago.

Markus Burton entered Saturday’s game as the ACC’s leading scorer, averaging 22.5 points per game.