Cal can't hit shots in loss to Syracuse
The Bears fall 75-66 amidst a flurry of missed jumpers.
photo via @calmbball twitter
Maybe the impressive thing about this game is that Cal made only 4 shots in the first half and the game was kinda close at points in the 2nd half?
There are two stories that explain Cal’s loss to Syracuse, and for a change they all have to do with Cal’s offense rather than Cal’s defense.
1: Cal was largely unable to get to the rim against Syracuse’s zone. Cal went 9-19 on shots at the rim, but seven of those nine made baskets were either in transition off of Syracuse turnovers, or offensive rebound put-backs. By my count, Cal had two made baskets at the rim when Syracuse was defending in the half court set.
So Cal settled for jumpers. 44 in total, the majority of which came from three.
And Cal made nine of those jumpers.
To be fair, Cal’s strategy did change as the game wore on. The first half was pretty much entirely jumpers. At some point in the second half, Cal realized that the shots weren’t falling, so they changed to headlong basket attacks anyway, largely against set interior defenders, and the result was a whole ton of foul calls and a whole ton of free throws. Cal went a whopping 24-30 from the free throw line, and it kept the game close.
The biggest Syracuse lead was 18 points at two different junctures of the game. The first came just after halftime, and was immediately followed by an 11-0 Cal run highlighted by maybe the dunk of the year from Jeremiah Wilkinson:
The run was almost entirely fueled by Syracuse turnovers that led to Cal transition buckets.
The second time was late in the second half, when Cal cut the lead to as little as six points thanks largely to an aggressive trapping full court press that forced a bunch of turnovers and led to more easy buckets.
This was an interesting development, because Cal has not been a high turnover forcing defense all season long, and Mark Madsen has never produced a team that has made forcing turnovers a focal point of the defensive scheme. But in this particular game, against a turnover-prone opponent, it was absolutely the right move. Who knows exactly how long Cal might have been able to maintain the effort required to run a full court press, but in retrospect if Cal had used it more frequently or earlier, perhaps Cal might have been able to somehow steal this win.
I don’t tend to talk about the psychology of sports much because I don’t spend a lot of time working through something that is ultimately unknowable. But I do find it fascinating. What was it that caused Syracuse, a team going nowhere on a challenging road trip off a humiliating performance, to come out so sharp today? What was it that caused Cal to come out so dull? Is it something explicable, like the entire team getting over the flu, or the coaching staff doing a bad job preparing the team for a unique defense? Or something ineffable?
Regardless of the exact nature of Cal’s first half underperformance, evidently it was bad enough to justify a players only meeting, per comments from Mark Madsen after the game. Another interesting comment:
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a game where, collectively, we have four assists,” Madsen said. “I saw some selfish play out there tonight. I take responsibility for that. … I’ve got to teach the guys the importance of the extra pass, and ultimately, I’ve got to curtail minutes of guys that are not making the extra pass.”
I don’t know if I viewed it quite the same way - it’s not like Cal had clearly open dudes that should be receiving passes but didn’t. It’s more like Cal didn’t know how to drive or pass the ball through or around the zone and took jumpers instead. But the larger point - that this team isn’t able to create assists - is obviously true. The Bears are now 358th out of 364 teams in the country in assist percentage.
Game Notes
Andrej Stojakovic didn’t play again, but per the broadcast he was a game time decision and is expected to be in action when Cal is next on the court this Wednesday against NC State.
Cal has an offense that is almost exactly ACC average, despite the fact that the Bears are also dead last in shooting percentage, which is frankly kind of incredible. They score because they are 1st, 1st, and 3rd respectively in turnover percentage, offensive rebounding, and free throw percentage. Basically, the Bears are sheer-efforting their way to points. But as Justin Wilcox is fond of saying, effort by itself is not enough.
Mady Sissoko returned from concussion protocol and played 29 minutes, but he was unusually quiet as a rebounder and largely isolated in the middle of the Syracuse zone.
The seven year dream of a .500 or better Cal men’s basketball season took a big hit today. The Bears are now 11-11 with nine regular season games remaining. Unfortunately, two of those remaining nine games are very tough road games against Duke and Louisville. Unless Cal pulls a major upset it would require the Bears to go 5-2 in their remaining seven games or make an improbable ACC tournament run. And losing at home to Syracuse isn’t exactly something that would make you confident that this team is capable of reeling off a bunch of wins.
Maybe getting Andrej Stojakovic back will help. Maybe the players only meeting will pay dividends. But it sure would be nice to carry some positive momentum into next season, and to keep alive the idea that Cal men’s basketball might just be good again, someday.
Another factor that might have been at play in terms of how the teams looked: Syracuse had been in the Bay Area since Monday. Cal meanwhile was traveling. They had just been in Dallas for their game on Wednesday. Though Syracuse also played midweek, while the Orange were here they did some enjoyable sightseeing, attended a Warriors game and, vs. the Bears last night, appeared to have a better hop in their step in the early going. Cal had some open threes that normally would fall at much better percentage. Tired legs often show themselves in poor jump shooting, and Cal’s shooting ills in the first half were uncharacteristically very bad. While the Orange zone was, yes, characteristically good, it wasn’t the ‘Cuse defense causing those misses of wide open threes. Cal looked tired.
I watched first half and fast forwarded through the second mercifully. When we went on an 8-0 run and got to within 7 points I thought the lads might be able to come all the way back but Cuse hit back to back threes and that was the end of us. After that it was academic