Men's Basketball: Cal Bombs 3s to Beat Boston College

The Bears shoot 14-29 from deep for routine road win

photo via @calmbball twitter

If the dominant story line of this Cal basketball season is “will the Bears shoot well enough to overcome any problem?” then recapping their 86-75 win over Boston College is easy. Cal started the game hot, stayed hot, and finished hot. Led by Chris Bell (6-10) and John Camden (4-7), the Bears sank 14 threes, just two short of the team record. Pair that with excellent efficiency on their two point shots, and Cal actually had their 2nd most efficient offensive performance of the season. Considering that the other was against Morgan State at home, against a BC team that’s solid defensively, it was pretty impressive.

Shooting really is a cure to all ills. No Lee Dort? Just make every shot. Foul trouble for Pippen and Ilic? Just make every shot. BC surprisingly hot on offense? Just make every shot.

I had a plan to use this recap as a sort of alternate-universe/sliding-doors comparison. BC this year has been terrible this year in a very specific, Mark-Foxian kind of way, and I wanted to use this game as a reminder of how far the Bears have come under Mark Madsen, even if this season doesn’t end up with an NCAA tournament bid. BC is also something of a thought experiment, because in many ways their offensive footprint (lots of 3 point attempts, lots of 2 point jumpers, low turnover rate, not many offensive rebounds) is similar to Cal . . . except with waaaaaaay worse shooting.

But then BC came out and posted their 3rd most efficient offensive performance of the season, which kinda blew up my taking point. Thankfully, Cal shot so well that they won comfortably despite letting BC score a bit too easily.

Boston College was without wing Donald Hand, and I’m honestly trying to decide how much that actually hurt BC. On one hand, I’m guessing he’s a pretty good defender because he plays heavy minutes and BC has been a slightly above average ACC defense. On the other hand, he’s their go-to offensive guy and it just hasn’t worked at all. 42% on his 2s, 23% on his 3s, and no real creation for his teammates to go along with all of those shots. I’m guessing he’s the guy that’s force to heave up ugly prayers when BC gets into late shot clock possessions, but still. I suspect it might not be entirely a coincidence that BC had one of their best offensive performances of the season (but also literally their worst defensive performance) with Hand out injured.

Lee Dort remains out for Cal, and you can still see the evidence of his absence all over the box score. BC shoots 48% on their 2s in ACC play but put up 55% against Cal. The Golden Eagles aren’t really a big offensive rebounding team but still pulled down 43% of their missed shots, and 2nd chance points were a major reason that this game wasn’t a complete blowout. As noted above, Cal again shot well enough that they overcame the absence of their primary rebounder and rim protector, but I suspect that Cal won’t be able to win enough games to make the tournament unless their center returns from his injury soon. I know there was some talk of Stanford next week as a target date for Dort’s return, which would be an interesting bookend after Dort got hurt against Stanford in the first place.

Meanwhile, Cal got a different injury return from Sammie Yeanay. The 2nd year transfer and former top 100 recruit has been injured all year but came back for 4 minutes, missing a 3 but altering a shot inside for a stop. If Dort is out long term, his 6’9’’ size could be valuable, though it’s not entirely clear how quickly Yeanay can get back into game shape after a long injury layoff.

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This win, a Quad 3 per the NET rankings, will not change Cal’s status on the NCAA tournament bubble. Here’s what’s left:

I continue to see 10-8 in the ACC as a minimum record to stay on the bubble, but that would still probably require wins in the ACC tournament. Based on the win% numbers above from Kenpom, Cal has a ~5% chance to win out the rest of the way to finish 11-7, which would probably put Cal in a pretty good spot entering the ACC tournament.

Next up is Stanford, who is still maybe-kinda-sorta on the fringes of the bubble discussion themselves. Next Saturday’s game is all but an elimination game of sorts, as the loser will see their tournament chances rely almost entirely on the ACC tournament.

Few things bring me more joy than the thought of striking the killing blow to Stanford’s season. Few things chill my blood more than the thought of Stanford dealing Cal a mortal wound.

Meaningful February basketball is back, for better or for worse. Pack your heart medication, spend the rest of the week rooting against every team on Bubble Watch listed under the “work left to do” header, and pray that a decade of basketball pain might end in March nirvana.