Cal Basketball: Three Takeaways From Bears' Latest Loss to Stanford
With its 76-70 defeat at Stanford on Sunday night, Cal (7-14, 2-12 Pac-12) has dropped six in a row and now is 1-9 on the road this season.
Three takeaways from this one:
— The Bears’ defense — especially around the basket — just isn’t good enough. Cal was outscored 44-22 in the paint and over the past three games, against Arizona and two vs. Stanford, has been outscored 118 to 62 around the hoop.
“Our defense is not at the level it needs to be to win, especially on the road,” coach Mark Fox said, repeating a recent theme. "We can’t get enough stops to get over the hump and that was by far the biggest issue tonight.”
Stanford shot 58 percent from the field, making five more baskets even though Cal attempted 13 more shots. In particular, the Bears had no answer for senior forward Oscar da Silva, who scored 23 points against them four days after netting 24.
But da Silva might be the Pac-12 Player of the Year and has had success against most opponents. Cal was equally vulnerable to Lukas Kisunas, a 6-foot-10, 260-pound junior, who entered the game averaging 2.0 points. He made 5 of 6 shots and scored 12 points, his career high.
“It’s obviously a deficiency in our team,” Fox said of trying to defend the paint. “We’re small and until we can get bigger we’re going to have to be really disciplined as to how we box out.
“But I go back to a year ago and we were better defensively and we weren’t any bigger. We’ve got the same guys. We have to play smarter, a little more physical than we’re being and develop the ability to do that without fouling.”
— Cal cannot seem to generate consistency of performance, even within the same game. Fox was pleased with the team’s effort, but said on his postgame radio show, “It’s the intelligence we have to attach to that effort.”
The Bears battled back from a 19-point deficit six minutes into the second half and got within five points before Stanford secured the win. Fox was more concerned about the final four minutes of the first half and opening three-plus minutes of the second period.
Cal was even at 22-all after a basket by Joel Brown with 4:19 left in the first half. Stanford then outscored the Bears 13-2 to forge a 35-24 halftime advantage before going 9-2 right after the break for a 44-26 lead. Those seven minutes accounted for a 22-4 surge by the Cardinal.
“The frustrating thing is we talked at the last timeout of the first half about, `Hey, we need to finish this half the right way.’ Then we went out and did the exact opposite thing,” he said.
“They have to understand that segment of the game is critically important to the final score. Everybody wants to look at the final minutes of the game. It’s those two- or three-minute stretches throughout the first 36 minutes that are just so critical.”
— Sophomore guard Jarred Hyder, the transfer from Fresno State, had his best game with the Bears. He scored a Cal career-high 13 points, including a 3-pointer that brought the Bears within 73-68 with 20 seconds left.
“I was really happy to see Jarred play well. It’s really been hard for him to join the team basically a little over a month after we started,” said Fox referring to the fact that Hyder’s eligibility wasn’t approved by the NCAA until December. “I thought tonight in the second half he finally relaxed. He played with confidence. I thought he really played well. Hopefully he can build on that.”
Hyder scored 12 points against Oregon State early last month, but shot 0 for 6 in 35 minutes over the past three games, managing only two free throws.
His play combined with Joel Brown’s solid performance — 12 points, four rebounds, four assists — limited senior transfer Makale Foreman’s time on the floor to two scoreless minutes.
Foreman, a big scorer at Stony Brook last season, averaged 10.4 points and shot 36 percent from the 3-point arc in his first 16 games with the Bears this season. But he averaged 3.0 points and made just 2 of 14 from deep over four games prior to Sunday.
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Cover photo of Jarred Hyder by Darren Yamashita, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
