Cal Loses to Washington, Sets School Record for Defeats

In a game filled with technical fouls, Cal set a school record for most losses in a season with its 65-56.loss to Washington Thursday night at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley.

The Bears (3-25, 2-15 Pac-12) have lost 12 games in a row, and their 25th defeat of the season broke a tie for most losses with Cal’s 2017-18 team, which finished 8-24. Cal has three regular-season games left, plus at least one in the Pac-12 tournament.

Thursday's game featured eight technical fouls, which led to a bunch of technical free throws.

Cal again was without DeJuan Clayton, who continues to be sidelined with illness.

Cal shot just 31.3% from the field and missed its first 14 three-point attempts before finishing 2-for-16 from long range against the Huskies, who improved to 16-13 overall and 8-10 in the conference with their third straight win.

"Playing against a zone for basically 40 minutes, you've got to make more threes than we did today," Cal coach Mark Fox said.

Kuany Kuany had been productive in recent games, but he was 0-for-8 from the field on Thursday and finished with five points.

Sam Alajiki led Cal with 13 points and make both of the Bears' three-point shots, but he recognized that was not enough.

"We missed seven free throws [14-for-21] and 2-for-16 on threes," he said. "Things like that leave a gap in the game and allow teams to get away from us."

The teams shared the eight technical fouls with four called against each team. Fox picked up one near the end of the game, and Monty Bowser was hit with two technical fouls and ejected from the game early in the second half.

"I think it was, um . . .," Alajiki said of the technical fouls before pausing and chuckling. "I don't want to say anything. The atmosphere was tense between the two teams, because we went to overtime at their place. Things were definitely tense between us and I think it probably showed."

Fox was perplexed by a ruling that led to his technical foul, but he explained the high rate of technicals.

"Obviously it's late in the year," he said, "and [the officials] had a quick trigger on both side. I'm not saying they were wrong, but there was certainly a lot of them."

Keion Brooks Jr. led Washington with 24 points. Freshman Grant Newell had 12 points for Cal along with Alajiki's 13.

Cal mounted a comeback in the second half that got the Bears back in the game. Cal trailed by 18 points with 12:03 left in the second half, but the Bears rallied to reduce the deficit to six points on a Joel Brown bucket with 5:41 to go. But the Bears could get no closer as the Huskies did just enough to stay in front.

Cal shot poorly in the first half. The Bears made just four of their first 24 shots from the floor and finished the first half shooting 23.3%, which included going 0-for-7 on three-pointers. That’s the chief reason the Bears scored just 24 points in the first half and trailed 32-24 at halftime.

Washington shot 50% in the first half, but the Bears stayed in contention by outscoring the Huskies 10-3 from the foul line.

Newell had 10 first-half points for Cal while Brooks Jr. led Washington with 12.

Cal had 15 more field-goal attempts than Washington to for the game, but the Huskies made 46.9% of their shots while Cal was under 30% for most of the game before hitting a couple buckets in the closing minutes.

Alajiki dunk:

SAM.
ALAJIKI.@SamAlajiki x @Pac12Network #GoBears pic.twitter.com/MDXaBYdcr3
— Cal Basketball (@CalMBBall) February 24, 2023

Cover photo of ND Okafor is by D. Ross Cameron, USA TODAY Sports