Men's Basketball: Cal Falters Against Pitt, Loses 72-56

Too many Bears turnovers, too few 3-pointers in loss to the Panthers

With Cal right on the in/out line for the NCAA Tournament, today’s matchup against Pitt (10-18, 3-12 ACC) was a status quo game. Cal wins and maintains their spot, Cal loses and drops most likely into the ‘Next Four Out’ group.

John Camden and team watching a second half shot attempt miss. Photo courtesy Don Collier.

Lee Dort returned to the starting lineup for the Bears. Cal was careless with the ball early on, committing six turnovers in the game’s first seven minutes which allowed Pitt to take an early 11-7 lead at the 12-minute media timeout. Cal continued to be sloppy with the ball, committing three more turnovers over the next several minutes. Dejuan Campbell came off the bench and injected some much needed energy into the Cal offense. Campbell scored eight points in eight minutes of play to keep Cal close. Pitt maintained a small lead, 19-15 with seven minutes left in the first half.

Dai Dai Ames had a tough game on Wednesday against SMU, scoring only two point on 1-of-10 shooting. Ames started today missing his first two shots before connecting on a turnaround jumper with four minutes left in the half. He made another short jumper a few minutes later, but pressed too hard on a couple drives and turned the ball over on two consecutive possessions.

The story of the first half was turnovers. Cal turned the ball over eleven times, on 39% of their possessions. Neither team was playing particularly great offense or defense. the turnovers gave Pitt four more shot opportunities. Cal did not go to the free throw line once, while the Panthers had eight free throw attempts in the first half. Pitt led 34-28 at halftime.

Pitt pushed their lead to eleven points early in the second half. Having been a basketball official for nine years prior to joining WriteForCalifornia, I am very reluctant to criticize referees. Today, I am criticizing the referees. Near the 14-minute mark, Pitt’s Barry Dunning Jr. threw a hard elbow in the low post, knocking over Justin Pippen. No foul was called. Coach Madsen earned a technical foul for his response to the no-call. Madsen’s technical foul was offset by a Pitt technical foul against an assistant coach for yelling at Cal players when coming up the floor. Repeatedly, the officials missed fouls on a driving Justin Pippen, and missed several double-dribble or feet shuffling on Pitt.

Cal shrunk the lead to 45-42 at the thirteen minute mark. Pitt held steady while Cal was held scoreless for over five minutes as Pitt pushed the lead to 54-44 with seven minutes left. Cal was getting OK offensive looks, but was only 1-of-8 from long range.

Cal could not make a meaningful dent in the lead. The long-range shots continued to be off the mark, while Cal’s defense was a little loose and allowed too many good looks to Pitt. Cal entered desperation mode the last few minutes and took difficult shots, allowing Pitt to add a bit of a cushion on their way to the eventual 72-56 victory.

All the statistics were bad for Cal. The Bears shot only 25% on 3-point attempts (5 of 20). Dai Dai Ames led Cal with 11 points, though it took him 12 shots attempt to get there. Lee Dort added 10 points and 6 rebounds. Pitt had four different players scored between 13 and 16 points as part of their balanced offensive showing.

Notes and Observations

• Cal committed 16 turnovers, the same number committed against SMU earlier this week. The season high for turnovers was 17 against Kansas State in November.

• Tonight’s 56 points is their second lowest total of the season, just behind the 55 score in the loss to Clemson, and equaling the 56 points in the loss to Duke in January.

• In his postgame comments, Dejuan Campbell said “We came out slow, got punched in the mouth.” and that the team did not have enough energy.

• The six seniors of Chris Bell, John Camden, Milos Ilic, Dejuan Campbell, Rytis Petraitis, and Lee Dort were honored before the game. They all received standing ovations for the 5,061 in attendance.

• This was just an ugly game for the Bears, and it showed their reliance on the outside shot. Cal’s starting foursome of Bell, Camden, Ames and Pippen were a combined 3-of-15 from long range.

• Lee Dort played only 19 minutes due to foul trouble and still getting back into game readiness after his injury. Cal shot 18-of-32 (57%) from inside the arc, but an inside oriented game is not in Cal’s DNA.

• Some interesting comments from Coach Madsen in the postgame. “Twelve turnovers in the first half is unacceptable. The missed assignments on box outs. Those are unacceptable. Uh, the lack of physicality is unacceptable. I take responsibility for all of it.'“

• On the high turnovers; “Hero ball too much, and then you know, we turned our back, and they just came and swiped the ball and took it from us.”

• The most interesting comments came when he was asked about the practice reps between Wednesday’s big victory over SMU, and today’s game; “We have to be able to handle success. And we did not do that. This week, we came off an unbelievable win against SMU, some good wins before that and, and we clearly were lackadaisical.....This was a huge game for us, and we did not show up to what we needed to show up.....Look, there were moments of practice in the previous two days, where we were fantastic that there was a moment yesterday where I had to stop, practice, and and have the guys run sprints. Because I didn’t like what I was seeing.”

• Though I criticized the referees, they were not the reason Cal lost. One last quote from Madsen; ”Did the refs miss some calls? Yes, they did, but that’s not why Pitt beat us. Pitt earned this win.”

Ilic, Dort, Petraitis, Campbell, Camden, and Bell with family members and framed jerseys during today’s Senior Recognition prior to tipoff

This loss does not eliminate Cal from NCAA consideration, but it does put a dent and removes any remaining margin of error. This is the first truly bad loss on their profile, and it comes at the worst time. In my estimation, here is what needs to occur for Cal;

1. Beat both Georgia Tech (Cal will be mild favorite) and Wake Forest (Cal will be underdog) on the road next week. This will get them most likely the 9th seed in the conference tournament.

   1. If they end up #10 due to tiebreaks, they will need to play an extra opening round game in the ACC Tournament. This may be preferable as they then face the #6 seed and then the #3 seed, a slightly easier path than the #8 seed → #1 seed, but at the cost of having to play an extra game.

2. Win the #8/#9 matchup against someone like SMU, and reach the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament. This puts them firmly on the line between First Four Out/Last Four In.

3. Pull the quarterfinals upset over #1 (or over #3 if 1a, above, is the path) and reach the ACC semifinals. This puts Cal firmly in the NCAA Tournament.

Any loss next week means they have to then offset it with a more difficult upset win in the ACC Tournament.

No matter how it plays out, it’s just exhilarating to be having these conversations. I started covering Cal basketball during Mark Fox’s 3rd year at the helm. To be playing games that matter into March is truly a much better place to be.