Is There Any Way Cal Can Beat No. 3 Duke at Cameron?

Cal will play by far the best team it has faced this season at by far the most intimidating venue it has played in this season. That’s what awaits Cal when the Bears play No. 3 Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Wednesday night.

Can the Bears possibly win? Can the Bears cover the point spread, which is 23.5 points in favor of Duke, according to DraftKings and FanDuel?

The last time Cal played a top-three team was March 5, 2022 when it lost to No. 2 Arizona by 28 points at the McKale Center in Tucson, Arizona.

The last time Cal beat a top-three team was 2014, when the Bears upset No. 1 Arizona 60-58 in Berkeley.

The last time Cal beat a top-three team on the opponent's home court was . . . well, it has never happened since the AP began ranking teams in the 1948-49 season.

So Cal will be trying to achieve something it has never done. And the Bears will try to do it at Cal's first-ever visit to Cameron.

This season, the only team that was ranked when Cal faced it was San Diego State, which was No. 23 when it handed the Bears a 21-point loss.

So now Cal will go into compact, loud Cameron Indoor Stadium with a 12-12 record, including 5-8 in the ACC, hoping to knock off Duke, which is 13-0 at home, including a victory over current No. 1 Auburn, while winning those 13 home games by an average margin of 24.9 points.

Clemson beat Duke on Saturday to drop the Blue Devils’ record to 20-3, but that was on the Tigers’ home court, when Clemson came in with an 18-5 record and shot 58.8% from the floor. And Clemson still won by just six points.

Duke's talent is overwhelming. Freshman Cooper Flagg is expected to be the first overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft, but two other Blue Devils players – Kon Knueppell and Khaman Maluach – are likely to first-round picks as well.

What are Cal’s chances of pulling off the upset at a venue Cal coach Mark Madsen called “one of the epicenters of the basketball world”?

Madsen was unwilling to speculate on the odds, but said this.

“I know this: If we don’t come ready to go, I can tell you what will happen: Duke will run us out of the gym,” he said Monday.

So what would the Bears need to do to have any chance?

“When we have great ball movement we are unbelievable,” Madsen said. “When the ball is moving, when we’re making the extra pass, when we’re having the pass that leads to the assist we’ve been very difficult to beat.

“We need to have tremendous 1-on-1 defense. That’s been an area of growth, and again there have been games individually and collectively that our defense has been very strong. We had some lapses against Wake Forest [in a loss on Saturday]; we tried to gamble too much. Playing a team like Duke if you gamble, they make you pay. If you lose sight of the ball, they make you pay. If you relax for a minute, they make you pay. We’ve got to be on alert and we’ve got to be focused and locked in and not have those lapses.”

And the Bears, who rank last in the ACC in shooting percentage at 42.2%, will need to have their best shooting game of the season, while Duke, which shoots at 47.9%, second-best in the conference, must have an off night.

Cal freshman Jeremiah Wilkinson must continue to put up big numbers; he is averaging 19.8 points in his six starts, which have come in the past six games. Andrej Stojakovic, who averaged 8.0 points on 25% shooting over his past four games, must figure out how to deal with the extra defensive pressure he’s receiving now and regain his offensive rhythm after missing four games.

And they must do it at Cameron.

“Our goal is the same as it would be for any road game: Play well enough to be in a position to win a game in the last three-to-five minutes of a game,” Madsen said. “And to do that we’re going to need to have better 1-on-1 defense, we’re going to have to have much better communication, and we’re going to have to shoot the ball better than we shot it.

“We have been preparing from Day 1 for hostile environments like this. And it’s going to be a great basketball game. And I’ll tell you this, our guys are very hungry . . . We’re going to come in there and play extremely hard.”

Madsen, like any coach, notes that the game starts with the score tied 0-0, so you cannot beat yourself before the game starts.

“There’s never a winner before a jump ball,” Madsen said. “Obviously Duke is one of the top teams in the country, and they are doing some things at an extremely high level that makes them unique.

“They have a tremendous team. We have a tremendous team. We have a group of competitors. Games are played for a reason. We have huge respect for Duke.

“So our job is to come ready, play a full 40-minute game, to be alert, to be connected as teammates and to have an opportunity to be in the game in the last three-to-five minutes of the game.”

History awaits.

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