Cal throttled by SDSU defense in ugly loss

The Aztecs hold Cal to 50 points in the close out to non-conference play

photo via @calmbball twitter

Earlier, Cal played a Vanderbilt team built on forcing turnovers. Cal turned the ball over 20 times in a not-close loss.

Earlier, Cal played a Cornell team that speeds you up and kills you with off ball cuts. Cal let the Big Red run and gave up 1.21 points/possession.

On Saturday night in San Jose, Cal played an SDSU team that plays rugged, slow down man-to-man defense, and scored 16 points in the first half en route to a .75 points/possession performance in a 71-50 defeat. It’s Cal’s worst offensive performance of the season and the most inefficient a D1 team has been against the Aztecs this year.

Maybe I’m making too much of a few games against weird teams, but I’ll be honest: I’m concerned at how unprepared Cal has looked for multiple games this year.

It’s not a secret what San Diego State does. They’ve been playing the exact same brand of defense for two decades. And to SDSU’s credit, they’re really good at it. They contest everything, there are no open shots, they clog up passing lanes and aggressively attack screens . . . they’re miserable to try to play against. There’s a reason they are perennially a top 25 defense.

But Cal has, at least to this point, been a pretty good offense this year. They looked completely unprepared to deal with what SDSU brings to the court. And Cal subsequently put up worse offensive numbers against the Aztecs than UC San Diego or Fresno State or Cal Baptist or the University of San Diego, currently ranked 349th on offense per Kenpom.

Perhaps there were some mitigating factors. Cal had an awful shooting night from 3, going 5-24 on the night. Sure, some of that was because of SDSU’s defense. There were a few desperation heaves in late shot clock situations. But Cal bricked a bunch of open looks too.

Cal wasn’t helped by the fact that the refs called the game very loosely, which played right into SDSU’s physical style. Madsen got mad enough in the first half to get T’d up, and he was as mad as I’ve ever seen him where he was halfway restrained by Cal players and assistant coaches. I don’t think that the refs were unfair in this game - there were more than a few physical contests that Cal got away with too - but it certainly was a reffing style that ended up favoring one team’s brand of basketball over the other team’s preferences.

But those factors only explain so much of a 50 point performance in a 67 possession game. They don’t fully explain why Cal only collected 4 assists to 18 turnovers, don’t fully explain why Cal shot 9-31 on 2 point shots. They don’t fully explain how Cal allowed SDSU to go on a 35-8 run across 16 minutes of game action. Cal right now appears to be less than the sum of their parts, and conference play starts in 10 days with a road trip that makes up two of Cal’s four toughest games in conference play. There’s precious little time to figure out what is ailing this team.

If you’re scraping for reasons to be optimistic, you could perhaps point towards Cal’s defensive performance. SDSU took a LONG time to get any semblance of offense going, and finished the first half with 25 points in 35 possessions. Frustratingly, that anemic offensive performance was somehow good for a nine point halftime lead because Cal’s offense was even worse, but still it was a sign perhaps that Cal had figured out a few things on defense.

Of course, San Diego State had a travel nightmare just to get to the game, so maybe they were just shaking off the cobwebs from an annoying 24 hours of travel confusion? The Aztecs - or more specifically, Nick Boyd - got hot from 3 in the second half and broke the game wide open. Cal’s focus and defensive intensity waned later in the game and SDSU piled on points, but the contest had been long decided by then.

Game Notes:

• DeJuan Campbell returned and put up 7 points in 20 minutes. BJ Omot is currently Cal’s only injury absence, with no announced timetable for his return.

• Jeremiah Wilkinson was basically the only Bear able to successfully drive the lane, as he finished 3-4 on his 2s and got to the line a number of times.

• Andrej Stojakovic followed up his career high 31 point performance against Northwestern St. by shooting 2-12 from the field and scoring 10 points, though he was active defensively with three blocks and three steals.

• There are 364 D1 basketball teams. Cal is 356th in the nation in assists/made shot. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but I do think it speaks to how much this team hasn’t yet learned how to play together.

Cal will enjoy a break for the holidays and be back in action on the road against Pitt on New Year’s Day. The Panthers are one of the few ACC teams who have started the season strongly, and the Bears will be double digit underdogs in their 2nd ever ACC game.