Progress in defeat?

Cal shows growth on offense in painful buzzer-beater OT defeat to Georgia Tech

photo via @calmbball twitter

OK, so Cal lost when Georgia Tech’s Baye Ndongo tipped in a missed shot a split second prior to time expiring in overtime to give the Yellow Jackets the 90-88 win. Whatever, this was a game between two teams fighting just to finish the season above .500, the result of this game doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

So instead I’m going to talk about some signs of positivity for next year, because that’s what matters right now.

There was a sequence midway through the 2nd half that gave me the biggest sense of optimism I’ve felt about Cal MBB since the Bears secured a commitment from Andrej Stojakovic.

The sequence started with Jeremiah Wilkinson, playing in front of a large crowd of family and friends, rolling down the court in transition. Wilkinson was already on a hot streak and had hit a 3 moments ago that brought Cal within a point of Georgia Tech. He had a lane to the basket, but his shot was going to be heavily contested. He chose to swing the ball to an open DJ Campbell in the corner, who quickly attracted a closeout and shuttled the ball to Andrej on the wing, who nailed the wide open 3 to give Cal a lead.

On Cal’s next possession, Wilkinson again drives the paint, draws a defender, and kicks it to Stojakovic, who steps into a midrange J that goes down. On the next possession, Stojakovic IDs that Tech isn’t guarding Joshua Ola-Joseph in the corner and sends a fastball pass that Ola-Joseph knocks down.

What stood out for me about this isolated sequence, and really the entire game, was that Cal’s two best players were impacting the game within the flow of Cal’s offense. There were a number of possessions where rather than trying to score over a contest in the lane, either Wilkinson or Stojakovic would pass to a better option.

And as a result, something unusual happened in this game: Cal went up against a solid defense and put up excellent offensive numbers . . . and they did it without crazy offensive rebounding numbers or a ton of foul shots.

Instead, the Bears scored by moving the basketball, finding open shooters, and hitting good shots. Cal totaled 17 assists on 35 made baskets, which is one of their better passing efficiency performances of the season. Possessions that earlier this year would have ended in a tough contested shot instead ended with open looks, and for whatever Cal lost in fewer free throw attempts they more than made up for with better shooting.

Was it perfect? Far from it. Stojakovic was still occasionally too loose with his handle or too late to see a double team coming. In some cases, he made the right decision but didn’t quite execute it, like when he drew a help defender and tried to slip a pass to Sissoko for a dunk, but sent the pass at Mady’s feet for a turnover. Cal had a few frustrating turnovers trying to make passes to streaking attackers on fast breaks.

But you could see the residue of design on all of this, and Cal did put up 1.19 points/possession on the road against an above-average ACC defense. This is pretty clearly Cal’s best offensive performance since putting up 93 points on the road against top 25 Missouri back in early December.

The other thing this game against Georgia Tech shares in common with that Missouri game? Cal lost.

Unfortunately, while I left this game feeling encouraged at the development of Cal’s offense, I am very much not able to say the same thing about Cal’s defense. The Bears allowed another pretty mediocre offense to rip them apart. Georgia Tech currently has the 16th best offense in ACC play and they put up their 2nd most efficient offensive performance against the Bears. It was an across-the-board performance. Tech, usually turnover prone, handled the ball well, did a good job on the offensive glass, and shot the lights out against a Cal defense that tried hard but was rarely in good position to make something happen.

Maybe if Jeremiah Wilkinson hadn’t had to leave the game with cramps in overtime after playing 37 minutes, Cal could’ve outscored Tech to win the game anyway. But as of right now, Cal’s defense is so ineffective that it results in painful defeats like this where the offense does lots of things right and it’s somehow still not enough to get the win.

But for now, in a season that’s (hopefully) about building towards something greater next year, I’ll think about a moment from this game when I daydream in July. I’ll think about Jeremiah Wilkinson scoring 12 points in about 2:30 of game action, forcing Georgia Tech to call a time out, as the camera first pans towards a crowd of 30-40 Wilkinson/Cal fans in the crowd going nuts, then pans towards Stojakovic running over to Wilkinson to hype up his teammates.

The duo of Wilkinson and Stojakovic is Cal’s present, but more importantly its future. Against Georgia Tech, both of them played together in a way I hadn’t quite seen yet this season, and this showing will keep me warm through the off-season.