Cal 71, USC 66: Men's Basketball Vanquishes Old Foes in Rare Road Win

Mark Madsen returns to the sideline as Cal Men's Basketball earns first non-conference road win since 2017

Cal joins a new conference best known for men’s basketball prowess. For one November night in Los Angeles, Cal Men’s Basketball shows that ACC is better than B1G.

After missing Wednesday’s game to be with his growing family, head coach Mark Madsen was back on the sidelines. Cal Men’s Basketball clearly got a wake-up call from the poor road performance at Vanderbilt and bounced back on Sunday night like a completely different team.

California Golden Bears (3-1) not only got their first road non-conference win since 2017 (over Seattle), but they also got a win at USC for the first time since January 2017.

https://x.com/CalMBBall/status/1858378607338610973

Sure, the USC Trojans are in a similar position as Cal with essentially a brand new team since last December, when Bronny and DJ Rodman were on their bench. This year, Cal’s got Stephon Marbury II on the bench and Andrej Stojakovic to star.

Stojakovic had an efficient game with 7 for 11 from the field and 6 for 6 from the free throw line for a game-high 20 points. He also had a late block on USC to seal the game. At this point of the season, these are the expected efforts from Andrej.

But it was Jovan Blacksher Jr that was the difference in the game. The brand new Cal start point guard was 7 for 11 from the field and 4 for 7 from the three-point line for 19 points, 18 of which came in the first half. USC head coach Eric Musselman credited Blacksher’s great game as the main point of needed improvement for his Trojans.

To be fair, Cal only got 10 assists on 27 field goals in this game. This aspect of their game will likely need to improve to stay competitive in the tough ACC conference.

https://x.com/CalMBBall/status/1858346174404775970

However, the Cal Bears played solid enough defensively to disrupt a USC Trojans squad that could not handle any lateral quickness. USC played a small lineup for the majority of the game, but could still not handle Cal’s perimeter speed.

While USC had a slim 43-42 lead at the half, the Cal Bears quickly got the lead 1.5 minutes into the half. Trojans did eventually fight back to take a brief 64-63 lead with 6:30 left in the game.

Cal immediately answered with a corner 3-pointer made by the big forward BJ Omot, with an assist from Stojakovic. After that point in the game, Cal held the USC Trojans to 1 for 10 shooting for the rest of the game for the final 71-66 margin.

In the postgame conference with almost all USC press except for me, Trojans’ Saint Thomas told me that Cal did not do anything different late but it was just on the USC for rushing their shot collections.

One final shoutout to Cal’s Joshua Ola-Joseph. While he did not necessarily jump out in the box score, Ola-Joseph had a clutch and memorable sequence late. JOJ scored Cal’s next basket after the Omot three and then got a pivotal offensive board to set up two made free throws by Andrej Stojakovic.

Reading possibly too much into one road game, Cal Men’s Basketball looks again like a fun team to follow this year despite all the roster turnovers. There are still plenty of unknowns for a team that has not played together that much even without factoring in the possibility of injuries down the line, but Madsen and his staff appear to have the plan to teach solid fundamental basketball to his squad.

For one November night in 2024, Galen Center was finally again a Bear Territory!