Cal Basketball: Coach Mark Fox Can't Hide His Disappointment After Bears' Collapse

Cal made just two of 20 shots to open the second half in 70-62 loss to Colorado.

Cal senior Grant Anticevich put into words what everyone saw: The Bears lost their fight in the second half against Colorado on Thursday night, and an 11-point lead became a 70-62 loss.

There were a lot of reasons the Bears (11-16, 4-12 Pac-12) could not build on their two road wins in Oregon last weekend that snapped a 10-game losing streak. Starting the second half 2 for 20 from the field was a big one.

But coach Mark Fox wasn’t focused on the details after what he called the season’s most disappointing loss.

“It’s really hard for someone to understand why you wouldn’t have that drive and fight,” he said. “It’s a long year, it’s emotionally draining — I get all that.

“But you’re only young once and you get a chance to play and you should play with your hair on fire and tonight we didn’t do that.”

Fox makes his introductory remarks in the video above:

Up 11 points with 3 minutes left in the first half, the Bears suddenly went cold. As in pass the mittens. They made only one of five shots to close the half, then things got even worse.

“This is as disappointed as I’ve been in our players, our coaches and myself all season. We had a lead, and we handled it very immaturely,” Fox said. “We had some success last weekend and I thought we opened the game and played pretty well.

“But as soon as adversity hit, we didn’t respond the right way and I was certainly very disappointed in all of us tonight.”

Cal led 33-22 with 3 minutes in first half, then found itself trailing 58-43 with just under 7 minutes to play in the second half. In other words, the Bears were outscored 38-10 over a span of 16 minutes. During that stretch, they made just 3 of 25 shots — 12 percent, for crying out loud! — and allowed the Buffaloes to attack their defense.

“We just started the second half off terribly,” Anticevich said. “We didn’t have any energy and weren’t competing on defense and weren’t playing with purpose on offense. We didn’t ramp up the intensity like we needed to.”

Cal shot 52 percent in the first half, just 25 percent over the final 20 minutes.

Sophomore Jabari Walker had 19 points and a career-best 15 rebounds for his conference-best 14th double-double, and senior Evan Battey scored 18 as the Buffaloes (27-9, 10-7) won their fourth straight game. Freshman guard K.J. Simpson came off the bench to score 19 points.

Jalen Celestine and Anticevich scored 11 points each to lead the Bears, although Anticevich didn’t score in the second half until 1:15 to play. Kuany Kuany had 10 points.

Senior guard Jordan Shepherd, who scored a career-high 33 points at Oregon on Saturday, was held to seven points on 2-for-7 shooting.

Fox was especially unhappy with the Bears’ willingness to foul when Colorado became aggressive offensively. He points out in the video above that Cal made more field goals than the Buffaloes (23-22) and had had more 3-point baskets (10-5).

But they were outscored 21-6 at the free throw line because they fouled 18 times.

Cal also was manhandled on the boards in the second half, outrebounded 29-11 after forging a 17-14 first-half edge.

Cover photo of Cal's Lars Thiemann blocking shot by Tristan da Silva by D. Ross Cameron, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo