Cal Men's Basketball Rallies in Spirited Effort at Kansas State, but Falls 96-99

A roller coaster ride in Manhattan for the Bears

Credit: Cal Athletics

Facing its first significant test of the season at Kansas State, Cal Men’s Basketball had a good opportunity to let people know that team has meaningfully improved.

Through one half of basketball, Cal looked as hapless as ever as the Wildcats put up 55 points on 68% shooting from the floor and 75% from 3. Mark Madsen picked up a technical as the Bears kept turning the ball over, putting the cap on a half to forget. After what seemed like an academic half from there, the Bears furiously rallied but didn’t generate enough stops en route to a 99-96 loss at the hands of the Wildcats.

Madsen played all of his available bigs in the opening 20 minutes for Cal, from Lee Dort to Milos Ilic to DK Dut and eventually Montas Kocanas with the third year head coach unable to find the right combination. Dut would ultimately provide the most stability down the stretch as Dort fouled out, but Madsen was searching for answers against an offense that at times looked like an avalanche.

After the first five minutes…..Cal loses the rope

Cal kept a lead for the first few minutes of the game, taking a 9-5 advantage over Kansas State.

Then everything changed.

The Wildcats entered tonight’s contest shooting 56% from three point range as a team and didn’t slow down as they launched repeatedly in transition. Cal could not force a stop once Kansas State decided to pound the ball inside, putting together the aforementioned numbers at the top.

Those lack of stops led to runs that the Bears could not hold off, leading to several Mark Madsen timeouts. K-State put up runs of 13-0 and 14-2 respectively in that half, going for the killshot early in a game where Cal provided little resistance.

Defensively, it goes without saying that Cal has to be better. Additionally, on offense, the process was way too out of control. To the tune of 11 first half giveaways, when the ball it wasn’t in the hands of Dai Dai Ames, things did not go well for the Bears.

Which is the symbol of things to come?

One of the discouraging parts of tonight’s game was that Cal didn’t make all that difficult in general for Kansas State for the first 35 minutes. 99 points goes without saying but the path to resistance was not a long winding road for the Wildcats.

Going forward, what does that say about what Cal will see from UCLA and then in ACC play? Early returns signal that things can get rough against athletic teams. Outside of Dai Dai Ames’ shooting and TT Carr’s poise, there was not a lot to like from Cal’s output through the first 30 minutes in America’s heartland.

Then Chris Bell welcomed himself to the party. The Bay Area native fired off five three pointers in less than five minutes of play, trying to will the Bears back in it alongside Ames. It didn’t end up being enough but it was an encouraging sign that Cal picked themselves up off the mat after being down 25.

The second half provided a lot better efficiency offensively, as Cal shot over 63% from 2 and 3 point range respectively, but which Cal team will show up? It’s hard to ignore that the first three opponents didn’t tell us much about what we needed to know from this team. Alternatively, this is also just a one game sample size where a lot went wrong both in terms of the process and execution.

Mark Madsen toted better defense as one of the most improved parts of this team, from communication to schematic execution. They have a long way to go before that moniker can meaningfully be thrown Cal’s way. For now, its a loss that looks “good” in the metrics with lots of room for improvement.

The Bears return home against Presbyterian this coming Tuesday. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. PT.