Cal men’s basketball is confounding. Inexplicable. A historic anomaly. So much so that I’m not even sure where to begin.
Hopefully you’ve already read BP’s breakdown of the Stanford game. I’m going to jump in with some numbers of my own, both from this individual game and the season at large.
[More coming later this week on WBB, who took Stanford to the wire, impressed Steph Curry, and have turned their season around defensively over the last couple weeks.]
Let’s start with one of the most astounding single game performance I can recall. Entering Friday’s game against Stanford, Cal was 65/236 from three on the season, good for 27.5%. That would currently place Cal 351st in the rankings. The Bears then shot 16/22 on the game, rocketing their season percentage up to 31.4 overnight.
What are the odds that a team shooting 27.5% would go 16/22 from deep? I don’t know, and I’m not qualified to calculate it, but I can tell you that in the history of Cal MBB, this game is an absurd outlier. For one thing, there just aren’t that many game where Cal even attempts 20+ three pointers. So, while the Cal record books will tell you that the single-game 3 point shooting record is 85.7%, it’s not that impressive that Cal went 6/7 in a game in 1986.
Since 2002 (which is how far back Kenpom single game records go), here are games where Cal attempted 14+ three pointers and hit 60% or higher:
2002: 11-17, 64.7%, vs. Oregon
2003: 11-18, 61.1%, vs. Howard
2012: 9-14, 64.3%, vs. Denver
2022: 10-15, 66.7%, vs. San Diego
2023: 16-22, 72.7% vs. Stanford
This obviously isn’t exhaustive with the 2002 cut-off date, but I doubt there were a ton of games that meet the criteria prior to 2002, because most teams just didn’t attempt that many 3s back in the 90s or earlier.
Games where Cal has a high volume of three point attempts AND makes an unusually high percentage happen maybe once every 4 or 5 years, and even then Friday’s game was extreme both in volume and percentage. If Jerome Randle, Patrick Christopher, and Theo Robertson had done what Cal did on Friday it would have been a historic performance. THIS team, doing what they did against Stanford, boggles the mind.
And perhaps the best number to put this in perspective? The NCAA D1 record for three point field goal percentage in a single game, minimum 20+ attempts is 17-21 (81%) by Wofford in 2016. Wofford, it’s worth noting, shot 41% from three that season, 7th in the nation. This Cal team was two made 3s away from breaking that record!
OK, you get it - weird things can and do happen in a single college basketball game. It’s a safe bet that over the course of the rest of the season, Cal will not be a 27.5% 3 point shooting team, nor approach 70% single game shooting again. But there’s something else worth exploring. Here is a list of Cal’s most efficient offensive performances so far this season, ranked by points/possession
Stanford, 1.54 ppp (ed. note: hahahahahaha furd)
UT Arlington, 1.20 ppp
Colorado, 1.11 ppp
Arizona, 1.01 ppp
Three of Cal’s four best offensive performances have come against Pac-12 competition. Cal performed better against quality Colorado and Arizona defenses than they did against Texas St. or Eastern Washington. Hell, Cal is currently 3rd in the Pac-12 in offensive efficiency in conference games only, though that’s HEAVILY influenced just by crushing Stanford.
Does this mean anything? Is there anything to read into this other than randomness? Obviously, DeJuan Clayton’s return from injury was a major factor against Stanford, but the 7th year senior wasn’t available against Arizona and didn’t have a noteworthy performance against Colorado, so his return is not by itself an explanation.
I’m confounded. I didn’t particularly understand how this team could start 0-12, and I don’t particularly understand how this team looks more or less like an average Pac-12 in conference play.
Two other quick notes:
ND Okafor over the last 4 games: 10-15, 25 points, 14 rebounds, 0 turnovers
Grant Newell over the last 4 games: 11-21, 30 points, 21 rebounds
There are serious signs that both freshmen are legit Pac-12 players who have turned a corner in their debut seasons. In an otherwise lost season, watching their progression has been a highlight.
"What are the odds that a team shooting 27.5% would go 16/22 from deep? I don’t know, and I’m not qualified to calculate it, but I can tell you that in the history of Cal MBB, this game is an absurd outlier."
The odds of this Cal team making 16 (or more) threes out of 22 is about 1 in 75,000. By contrast, the odds of that Wofford team going 17/21 is only 1 in 4500.
FEAR THE (WOFFORD) TERRIERS!
As reef liked to say, 'variance' although this is pretty extreme.
As to the larger, overall, improvement - getting Okafor a lot more minutes, and moving Lars from the central pivot of the offense to a dunker's spot, low post, offensive rebounder seems to be good for everybody. I am not qualified to coach a NCAA team, but using Lars as the screener (not a great screen setter, not dangerous on the roll, and those possessions where he goes to the elbow and catches it there - he's had, what two? three? great plays from the elbow - one spin and drive and finish, and one really really nice pocket pass to a backdoor cutter) is coaching malpractice. Okafor, on the other hand can catch it on the move, can finish lobs and is a much better screen setter. Yes, he definitely makes a ton of mistakes, but he's much more lively. Lars hanging around as a baseline finisher seems to me to make a ton more sense. Catch the ball one step away, finish over either shoulder or with a dunk. He's shown he can do that as long as he gets a clean catch and go straight up.