Late Rally Falls Short as SMU Tops Cal, 81-77

Cal's late season swoon continues

The Cal Men’s Basketball team is in a bit of a funk right now. The Bears are coming off a a 1-6 stretch including three straight road losses, highlighted by a tight loss to Stanford last Saturday. There are stretches of games where they are not competitive, and when they start getting into an offensive rhythm the hole is too deep to climb out of and carry on to a win. It all leads to a bit of a cloud hanging over the team. In to town comes the SMU Mustangs. This is a typical Andy Enfield-coached team, reminiscent of his USC teams that won more than lost at Haas Pavilion. The Mustangs are a deep, free-flowing team who score in bunches, second in the ACC at nearly 83 points per game. SMU has 6 different players who play between 22 and 30 minutes per game. All 6 players score in double figures. Tonight, the Mustangs played without their top score G Boopie Miller (13.4 points/game, 5.7 assists). The Mustangs are on the NCAA tournament bubble, coming into the game with a 20-7 record, #41 in NET ranking and 0-5 in Quad 1 games. Tonight, Cal has the chance to play spoiler, and lift the cloud hanging over the team.

DJ Campbell with the pretzel shot and drawn foul in the second half of tonight’s SMU matchup

SMU started off strong, racing to an early 13-3 lead as Cal started 1-of-7 shooting. Cal started making shots, but SMU Mustangs G Chuck Harris could not miss, scoring 11 points on 4-of-4 shooting in the first 8 minutes of the game. After missing his first 4 shots, Jeremiah Wilkinson started connecting to keep Cal within range. Wilkinson scored 9 straight points to keep Cal with range. SMU lead 29-17 at the 8-minute timeout.

SMU was able to push the lead to 38-21. Cal increased their defensive pressure, and consecutive steals and baskets by Rytis Petraitis and Jeremiah Wilkinson energized the crowd and started a mini-run for the Bears. At the half, SMU led 42-29.

The story is the same for the Bears. Cal can’t shoot at a high percentage, while Cal’s opponent shoots light out. For the half, Cal shot 10-of-30 on generally good shot selections. They were only 1-of-9 from the outside. SMU was 18-of-31, including 6-of-9 from long range. What’s remarkable is Cal took 14 free throw attempts(making 8), while SMU did not have a single free throw attempt. And SMU still led by 13.

Cal came out energized in the second half. Five early points from both Rytis Petraitis and Jovan Blacksher Jr. bought the crowd to life. SMU had committed 7 fouls within the first 6 minutes of the half, meaning Cal would be shooting free throws the rest of the game. SMU continued to shoot well, starting off the half connecting on 6-of-9 shots. With 12 minutes left in the game, SMU led 59-49.

Andrej Stojakovic scored 4 straight points as Cal continued to chip away to the lead. Cal leads the ACC in offensive rebounding; poor shooting percentages means there are plenty of opportunities for rebounds and putbacks. Rytis Petraitis and Mady Sissoko scored consecutive putbacks, including a thunderous dunk by Sissoko, as Cal trimmed the lead to 4 points at the 8-minute timeout, 64-60 SMU advantage.

With Cal shooting free throws on all fouls, the Bears continued to attack the lane ag get to the free throw line. Cal tied the game up at 66-all after two free throws from Andrej Stojakovic with five minutes left in the game.

SMU responded. The Mustangs went on a 9-0 scoring run to take a 75-66 lead with just over three minutes left. SMU had the ball and a 76-71 lead when Coach Andy Enfield called a timeout to keep his team settled with one minute left in the game. SMU connected on 5-of-6 free throws in the last minute to hold on for the 81-77 victory.

Jeremiah Wilkinson led Cal with 20 points. Mady Sissoko added 13, and Rytis Petraitis added 12 before fouling out with under a minute left.

SMU shot 56% for the game, 53% from 3-point range. Cal shot 40% overall, 31% from long distance. Cal continues to be challenged defending driving guard and wing players. Cal’s help defense often finds itself in a no-win choice of assisting on the driving player and leaving the interior offensive player open, or staying with their interior defensive assignment but allowing the easy shot attempt. The Bears need to do a better job of identifying when to rotate and collapse on the attacking player.

Andrej Stojakovic scored 9 points, connecting on only 1-of-9 shots while adding 7 free throws. His usage was unusual, as he did not play his standard minutes along with the rest of the starters. When asked about Andrej after the game, Coach Madsen indicated that Andrej is still working back into game rhythm after missing a few weeks due to injury. And, he was subbed out midway through the first half as he was making defensive mistakes that Madsen wanted to correct. Coach Madsen said the Bears were missing their rotations, and were “playing with nonchalance at both ends of the court” at the beginning of the game.

Cal finds itself in a precarious position in the ACC standings. Teams 16th-18th in the standings do not participate in the postseason tournament. Cal is currently 5-12 in conference and alone in 15th place. Sunday, the Bears host 16th place Boston College (4-13 conference). Cal will be favored. A win there will guarantee a place in the ACC tournament as Cal will have a 2-game lead and owns all the tiebreakers with teams below them. A loss will leave Cal at risk of missing the tournament as Cal will face challenging road games next week at Louisville and Notre Dame.

Making the ACC Tournament as a 14 or 15 seed may not sound like much of a goal. But for a program limping towards the finish line as Coach Madsen continues to try to build this program and navigate a new conference, it will be a small sign of progress.