Cal Basketball Drops to 0-5 for First Time in School History
Cal has been playing men’s basketball since the 1907-08 school year, and it had never started a season 0-5. Until now.
Cal’s 59-55 loss to Texas State on Monday night in Berkeley makes the Bears 0-5 for the first time in school history, and the difficult part of the schedules lies ahead.
Cal played one game in the 1907-08 season, beating Nevada 40-9 even though the Bears did not have a coach. Then, over the next 114 years, Cal never lost the first five games of a season.
But here we are.
Obviously injuries are an issue. Jarred Hyder is out for the season. Jalen Celestine, the team’s top returning scorer, and transfer DeJuan Clayton have yet to play this season, and it’s unclear when they will return. And Marsalis Roberson missed Monday’s game and it’s uncertain when he will be back.
“Obviously we’re a wounded team right now,” Cal coach Mark Fox said, “and we’ve had a miserable start to the season.”
Monday’s loss was another example of a frustrating habit the Bears have developed. They start slowly, make a charge late in the second half, but can never get over the hump to offset the slow start.
“We’re always this close,” said Cal center Lars Thiemann, who finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds, “and we keep putting ourselves in a bad situation before we come to that point.”
Cal trailed Kansas State by 20 points early in the second half, got to within a point but never took the lead in an 11-point loss.
The Bears trailed UC San Diego by 14 points with 13 minutes left, again rallied to within one point, never took the lead and lost by two.
On Monday against a Texas State team that was 2-2 and picked to finish second in the Sun Belt Conference, Cal trailed by 11 points with 11:33 to go. The Bears got within one point twice in the final minute but never took the lead and lost by four.
The Bears outscored each of their first four opponents in the second half, and it appeared they would do that again Monday. The Bobcats made some clutch free throws in the closing seconds to assure the win and outscore the Bears by one point in the second half. But the Bears lost all five of those games.
Cal played pretty good defense, limiting Texas State to 33.9% shooting for the game. The Bears used a zone defense against a Texas State team that is one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the country, hitting just 23.6% of their attempts from beyond the arc coming in.
However, after making only 1-of-10 three-point shots in the first half, the Bobcats were 3-for-3 on three-pointers in the first two minutes of the second half, increasing a three-point halftime to seven points and putting Cal in catchup mode once again.
A major problem for the Bears was rebounding. Although they had a size advantage on Texas State, the Bobcats collected 10 offensive rebounds in the first half.
“We failed to keep them off the offensive glass and we gave them a lot of second-chance points and a lot of fouls,” said Cal’s Sam Alajiki, who had nine points and nine rebounds.
“We were much bigger than them, so in theory we should have grabbed every one, but when it played out it didn’t go that way.”
The Bobcats' work on offensive boards as well as committing just seven turnovers compared to Cal’s 16 helped Texas State attempt 10 more field goals than Cal.
The Bears got the deficit down to one point when Devin Agnew hit two free throws with 19.7 seconds left. But Texas State’s Brandon Davis matched that with two free throws at the 19.2-second mark.
Mason Harrell, a preseason all-Sun Belt pick who finished with 21 points, made two more foul shots with 7.8 second to go. Cal then committed a turnover on its ensuing possession and loss No. 5 was reality.
The one bright spot for Cal has been Askew, the transfer from Texas by way of Kentucky. He was responsible for most of the ballhandling chores against a Texas State defense that pressed most of the game.
He still managed 17 points, six rebounds and four assists although he was just 5-for-15 from the floor. He's been Cal's leading scorer in all five games, and Fox went out of his way to praise Askew after the game.
The other bright spot was provided by Monty Bowser, who hit his first three three-point shots he attempted and was one of the reasons Cal was able to hang around.
However, the bottom line is that Cal is 0-5 for the first time ever, with a game against TCU in Florida up next on Friday and the start of Pac-12 play arriving on November 30.
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Cover photo of Kuany Kuany is by Kelley Cox, klcfotos
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