Cal men's basketball treks upwards for crucial Washington trip
Can the Bears stay on track?
Bad news: Cal currently stands at 6-7 in the Pac-12, with seven games left to play. They will play five road games, making their path toward an improbable winning conference record difficult. The Bears are likely to be decided underdogs in nearly all of them.
Washington State, Colorado and Utah are all vying for March Madness bids, and Washington has already beaten Cal once.
Good news: Cal is 3-1 against those five teams, and the one loss came oon a buzzer beating three. While the caveat is that all of those games went down to the wire, the Bears should have confidence that they will be able to compete in all of these games.
Cal will start their Northwest road trip in Pullman tonight, where they take on a Washington State team surging toward the tournament. The Cougars have not lost since playing the Bears, putting up five wins in a row, sweeping March Madness contenders Colorado and Utah and besting Oregon in Eugene. The Cougars have moved off the bubble and feel like the second best bet to make the NCAA tournament out of the Pac-12.
How Cal beat Washington State last time:
Cal won this game by shot volume, which is to say that they turned the ball over less often, pulled down more rebounds, and as a result took way more shots than Washington State. In this particular game, Cal was plus 6 on turnovers and plus 8 on offensive rebounds, totaling to +14 shot equivalents. Cal has been pretty consistently at least even in shot equivalents and often ahead in conference play - it was the primary driver in wins over UCLA and Colorado.
The optimist would say that this is a very good base to build on, as rebounding and turnovers tend to be more consistent skills. A pessimist might say that Cal’s struggles to hit shots and stop opponents from hitting shots is a bigger concern.
Cal definitely was the superior ball-handling and rebounding team in their first matchup, but the Bears have struggled here in recent games. Washington State is unlikely to allow such a massive disparity this time around, and the Cougars will be playing their hardest at home to avoid a series sweep that could damage their tournament resume.
Cal then heads to Washington Saturday night. This feels like the more winnable game, with the Huskies firmly out of tournament consideration, and unable to string together more than two wins in a row. The turnaround will be tough (the Pullman to Seattle trip in under 48 hours isn’t easy), but it is doable.
In the postgame comments, Coach Madsen pinned the loss on only shooting 13-of-22 from the free throw line for the game. In the second half, Cal was only 5-of-9 from the free throw line.
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On a personal note, the outcome tonight is more absurd than disappointing. It was a tight game all the way. While Cal shot better and had fewer turnovers, UW had more rebounds and was able to convert them into 26 second-chance points. Keion Brooks was the best player on the court tonight.
Cal blew this game due to poor free throw shooting and bad rebounding, but for the most part controlled every other element. If the Bears play a normal game, this feels like the one they can steal and avoid the road sweep.
Ideally, Cal can get a split and come home for their final games at Haas with a chance to go over .500 in Pac-12 play. Let’s keep the momentum going.
How do you feel about this weekend’s games?
I am optimistic about both games. WSU is a good matchup for Cal, and we've already beaten them once.
UW doesn't not scare us. Newell had 21 points in Seattle last year (a career high).
My benchmark coming into this year was 14 wins. To get there, I want the next three wins (WSU, UW, OSU). Then get one of the last 4 from UO,@Utah, @Colorado, @Stanford. That puts us at 10-10 in conference, probably 6 or 7 seed at conference tourney time.
If you had told me at the end of last season that we would be even considering the possibility of having a winning conference record, I’d have told you you were insane. The fact that we are having this discussion shows how far we have come. I’m really optimistic about the future.