Men's Basketball: Overtime Scoring Drought Sinks Cal, Bears Lose to Arizona State 62-70
The Golden Bears shocked by keeping the game close, but missed the last four shots to drop in overtime
Monty Bowser and Grant Newell each scored 14 points, but it was not enough to lead the California Golden Bears (3-22, 2-12 Pac-12) against the Arizona State Sun Devils (18-8, 9-6 Pac-12).
In the only game between the two sides this season, the Golden Bears fell 62-70 in overtime Saturday evening. The match-up was only the Golden Bears' second overtime contest this season.
"Credit ASU for making a couple [of] big shots in the overtime [period]," California head coach Mark Fox said in the post-game press conference.
Arizona State led most of the extra period, collecting the first four points in overtime and ending with a perfect five-for-five in its last field goal attempts. The visiting team took advantage of California's lack of depth, pressing hard in the second half and overtime, as the Golden Bears roster has been hit hard by injuries. In contrast, California connected on only two of its 10 shots attempted and gave up too many rebounds.
A bright side until the end of the game: California's defense.
"I was proud of how hard our players competed. I felt like, defensively, we were terrific," Coach Fox told reporters.
California has struggled defensively, allowing opponents to score 70 or more points in more than half of its games this season. But the Golden Bears kept the Sun Devils to just one in three field goal attempts. Better still, at one point, California suffocated Arizona State to shooting just 1-for-20 for 12 minutes in the second half.
In the close game, the difference proved to be the rebounds. Arizona State collected 56 rebounds, including 20 offensive rebounds, which they converted into 17 second-chance points.
6 games left. Let him go. Start the search early and let the assistants also use this as an opportunity for their next job.
Great game. and I thought Cal was going to pull off the upset. Disturbing shot of the game was about 2/3 thru the 2nd half when the shot of the street outside had more people in it than the crowd shot in Haas. I get the W-L records caused that, but a lot of people didn't see a much more competitive game than they expected.