Cold-Shooting Cal Blasted by No. 23 Virginia

No. 23 Virginia outscored Cal 20-4 over the first 10-plus minutes of the second half and went on to a decisive 84-60 victory on Wednesday night at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville.

The Bears trailed by 10 points at halftime and the Cavaliers ended any remaining drama by dashing to leads of 57-35 and 63-37.

Cal (13-3, 1-2 ACC) was held to a season-low point total, 21 points below its scoring average of 81.5. The Bears are winless in two road games this season.

Virginia (13-2, 2-1) stayed unbeaten through nine home games.

The Bears jump back into ACC play on Saturday with its first-ever trip to Virginia Tech (12-4, 1-2), which blew a 12-point lead with barely 2 minutes left and lost 69-68 to Stanford on Wednesday night. The defeat was the Hokies’ first in 10 home games this season.

Tech beat Cal 71-68 last season and owns a 95-85 triple-overtime victory over Virginia on New Year’s Eve in Blacksburg. The Bears and Hokies tip off at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Cal coach Mark Madsen wasn’t happy with any aspect of the Bears’ performance.

“We didn’t make the open shots and we didn’t play defense at a high enough level,” he said on his post-game radio show. “We’re going to watch the film, we’re going to attack the film, we’re going to address the issues and we’re going to come back ready to play on Saturday.”

Cal made just one of its first 14 shots in the second half as Virginia pushed the margin to 26 points. Dating back to the final 5 minutes of the first half, the Bears converted just 2 for 21 over a span of more than 15 minutes.

Dai Dai Ames, fresh off last-second heroics in Cal’s win over Notre Dame last Saturday, scored 18 points in his return to Virginia, where he played last season. Justin Pippen contributed 17 points and four steals.

John Camden added 15 points, but the rest of Cal’s players combined for just 10 points. Starters Chris Bell and Lee Dort each went scoreless, shooting a combined 0 for 9.

Cal shot 35 percent from the field including 15.8 percent (3 for 19) on 3’s. The Bears converted just 26 percent in the second half, misfiring on all 10 of their 3-point tries. It marked the second time in three games Cal has shot under 36 percent after making at least 40 percent in its first 13 games.

Virginia dominated the boards, outrebounding the Bears 45-26, and outscoring them 10-0 in second-chance points. Cal turned the ball over just nine times, but the Cavaliers converted those into 17 points.

“We did a poor job tonight rebounding the ball and because of that they were able to rack up almost 35 points in the paint,” Madsen said. “Then they started scoring off our turnovers. We didn’t rebound and we didn’t take care of the ball. I take responsibility for that. I didn’t have the guys ready to compete at a high enough level.”

Five players scored in double digits for the Cavaliers, led by Malik Thomas, the former San Francisco standout, who had 20 points.

Thomas hit a 3-pointer with 3 seconds left in the first half as Virginia stretched out to a 43-33 lead at the break.

It was the third 3-pointer of the half for Thomas, the West Coast Conference scoring leader a year ago. Virginia made six 3’s in the period while Cal was just 3 for 9.

The Bears stayed in the game early thanks to converting 11 of their first 20 field goal attempts. But they made just one of their final seven shots in the half and Virginia took advantage to build the double-digit advantage.

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