Cal Basketball: Utah Blows Out the Bears in Salt Lake City
Cal's chance of finishing with a winning conference record was erased by Utah, which rolled to an 88-59 victory over the Bears on Saturday night in Salt Lake City.
The final 29-point margin represented Cal's most lopsided loss of the season.
Cal (13-17, 9-10 Pac-12) is still hoping to finish with a .500 Pac-12 record by beating Stanford in its final regular-season game on Thursday, and a 10-10 conference record would end a streak of six straight Cal seasons with losing Pac-12 marks.
"There's still a ton on the line," said Cal coach Mark Madsen after the Bears' disappointing performance. "We're going to bounce back from this, definitely bounce back from this, I have no doubt about that. This was not our best game, but we're going to flush this and have a great week of practice and be ready to go."
To do that Cal will have to perform better than it did on Saturday, when Utah's dominance on the boards and Branden Carlson's 30 points doomed Cal. The 7-foot Carlson hit 12-of-17 shots, including 4-for-6 on three-pointers, and added 10 rebounds and four blocks.
"They were more physical than us tonight; we had no physicality," Madsen said. "They destroyed us on the boards. That had been our point of emphasis the last two days. And when it came down to execution we did not do a good enough job."
Utah (18-11, 9-9 Pac-12) outrebounded Cal 47-29 and outscored Cal 15-2 on second-chance points.
"They were just tougher than we were," Madsen said. "Our box-outs were nonexistent. We were relying on outjumping people, and you're not going to win a rebounding battle by doing that."
Bears guard Jalen Cone finished with 19 points while going 4-for-12 on three-pointers, but Cal standout Jaylon Tyson, who began the game averaging 20.3 points, had just seven points on 2-for-11 shooting.
Cal shot 34.4% from the field and was 7-for-29 from three-points range, while Utah shot 50.8% from the field, including 58.6% in the second half.
The Bears were short-handed in the second half because Keonte Kennedy was ejected with 5:12 left in the opening half for committing a flagrant 2 foul. It occurred when Kennedy extended his left arm while driving with the ball and hit Utah defender Hunter Erickson in the groin.
"The officials came over and they said that Keonte's play was an intentional hit, and I said, 'How do you judge intent, when the ball is loose, when the defender is in somebody's grill,'" Madsen said. "In my opinion Keonte made a basketball play."
Utah's Deivon Smith added 18 points and 10 assists, as the Utes recorded one-sided wins over Stanford and Cal this week.
The past two games were critical for the Utes, who are on the fringe of getting an NCAA tournament berth. And they were impressive on Saturday as they built a 20-point lead with nine minutes left and pushed the margin to 27 points with 5:44 to go.
Not much went right for Cal in the first half, which ended with Utah holding s 42-32 lead.
Carlson led Utah in the first half, hitting 3-of-4 three-point shots and scoring 17 points. However, Utah domination of the boards was the biggest difference in the first half. The Utes picked up 10 offensive rebounds and outscored Cal 11-0 on second-chance points.
Utah scored the first three points of the game and held the lead throughout the game.
Cone had 10 first-half points for Cal, but the Bears were just 4-for-16 on three-point shots in the first 20 minutes.
Saturday's contest was the Bears’ only game against Utah this season. Cal played the Utes and Oregon State just once this season, but will have faced every other Pac-12 opponent twice after the Bears play Stanford next Thursday in their final regular-season game.
Cover photo of Jalen Cone by Darren Yamashita, USA TODAY Sports
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