Men's Basketball: Cal Survives Georgia Tech's Second-Half Surge
The Bears ride their luck to set up a huge game against Clemson on Saturday
photo via @calmbball twitter
In many ways, this was not a particularly strong performance from the Bears. Cal’s defense, maybe their biggest strength over the last few weeks, was off. Georgia Tech is probably the 2nd worst offensive team in the ACC, but the Bears let the Yellow Jackets shoot 57% on their 2 point shots en route to their most efficient offensive night in ACC play. Cal narrowly lost the rebounding battle, and turned the ball over six more times than Tech.
But sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, and luck can come in many forms.
Sometimes it’s funny, like your opponent slipping on a banana peel. Georgia Tech is not a great free throw shooting team, but they’re not terrible. They were terrible against Cal, going 7-14 and missing the front end of a 1-and-1 three different times, costing themselves up to ten total points in a five point loss.
Sometimes it’s cruel and unusual, like when Georgia Tech’s best player, Baye Ndongo, suffered a non-contact injury while playing defense on a critical late game possession, and intentionally committed his 5th foul on Dai Dai Ames out of desperation.
Sometimes it’s circumstantial and random. The refs probably gave Cal the better whistle, calling Georgia Tech for 10 more fouls than Cal. Some of that was legit - Tech came out for the 2nd half with their hair on fire after (probably) getting chewed out by Damon Stoudamire after a lackluster 1st half, and Tech committed a lot of touch fouls in their overexuberance. But regardless, the result was Cal shooting TWENTY-FIVE more free throws than Georgia Tech, an absolutely critical source of points when Cal’s shooting cooled off in the 2nd half.
In short, Cal was perilously close to suffering a devastating home loss that would have seriously damaged any NCAA tournament hopes. Instead, thanks to more than a little good fortune, the Bears held off Georgia Tech and got a necessary win to preserve their position on the bubble.
Of course, this win wasn’t entirely luck. Cal won this game mostly because they just shoot the ball really well.
12-23 from three point range, 7-17 on long 2s, and 28-39 on free throws. Admittedly, those latter two splits aren’t amazing, either compared to Cal’s ability level or the national average, but it’s still solid production on a high volume, particularly when it’s paired with scorching three point shooting. All of this overcame Georgia Tech outscoring Cal at the rim, 42-12.
And it was the shooting of Dai Dai Ames that particularly stood out. Ames attempted 23 shots for the game. One of those shots was a layup attempt that missed. The other 22 were all jumpers or free throws, and Ames hit 17 of those 22 distance shots on his way to a career high 29 points. The picture used in this article is the midrange fadeaway shot that is a terrible shot in the hands of the vast majority of players, but a decent shot for Dai Dai Ames.
Cal’s shooting, particularly from three, was lights out against Miami last Saturday and again against Georgia Tech. It will likely need to be lights out for as long as Lee Dort remains unable to play. Despite chatter that he might return from an ankle injury suffered against Stanford as soon as last Saturday, he missed his 3rd straight game. There is no official timetable for a return.
Until Cal’s best rebounder and rim protector is back, it’s going to be on Cal’s guards and wings to shoot the Bears past opponents who can control the paint and win the rebounding battle.
BUBBLE WATCH
The Write for California update sent out Wednesday morning noted that Cal is, per the Bracket Matrix consensus, juuuuust barely in the field, and a win over Georgia Tech is going to preserve that status quo. More relevantly, here are some results from Wednesday that positively impacted Cal:
Clemson 66, Stanford 64 - this is an excellent result because 1) it keeps Stanford behind Cal in the bubble pecking order and 2) it increases the chances that Cal’s game Saturday vs. Clemson could represent a chance at a Quad 1 win.
Villanova 72, Seton Hall 60 - a good result, as Seton Hall is another team right on the cut line that falls further behind Cal, while Villanova is probably more safely in the field.
Duquesne 71, George Mason 65 - another good result, as George Mason is another edge-of-the-bubble chaser.
Utah St 86, New Mexico 66 - Both of these teams are in the bubble conversation, but New Mexico is in more danger than Utah St. of missing the tourney so this is, on net, probably better for Cal.
Really, the only bad result of the night was Oklahoma State’s upset over BYU.
Is it too soon to start actively rooting against an amorphous smattering of bubble rivals with more than a month left before Selection Sunday? Maybe for a less starved fan base, but we are fans of a team who hasn’t sniffed the tournament for nine long, cruel years. I, for one, will be obsessively scoreboard watching until March 15.
The biggest Cal MBB game in a decade
In early February of 2017, Cal crushed a bad Arizona State team to improve to 18-6, and the Bears seemed on track for a 6th tournament bid in nine seasons. But Cal lost five of their final six regular season games, mostly by narrow margins, and mostly on the road. Then the Bears fell in the semi-finals of the Pac-12 tournament, and ‘earned’ an NIT 1 seed.
Then Mike Williams and Jim Knowlton made the inexplicable decision to cancel the men’s basketball program for six years.
Cal’s home game against Clemson is the most important game since then.
Clemson will enter Haas Pavilion this Saturday at 19-4 (9-1) with dark horse aspirations for a regular season ACC title. They are close to lock status for the NCAA tournament, and fighting for a protected seed.
Clemson is the best team left on Cal’s regular season schedule, so losing to the Tigers would be no shame. They’ve won 12 straight ACC road games and all four of their losses have been competitive games down the stretch.
But if the Bears win, it would go a long way towards solidifying NCAA tournament hopes. And it would represent the highest point Cal basketball has reached since Ivan Rabb and Jaylen Brown led the Bears to a 4 seed in 2016.
So if you’re in the Bay Area on Saturday, may I suggest that you show out on Saturday at 5:00 and make some noise for the long-awaited return of Cal men’s basketball? I’ll plan to see you there.
Then Mike Williams and Jim Knowlton made the inexplicable decision to cancel the men’s basketball program for six years
Loved this article. Well done, Nick!