Cal Men's Basketball: Texas State upends Cal, 59-55
Cal Men's Basketball: Texas State upends Cal, 59-55
The Bears are 0-5 for the first time ever......
Early on, the Texas State Bobcats employed a full court press, trap style defense that sent California Golden Bears into a doozy. Devin Askew would be called for a 10 second violation and would be forced to call a timeout within the first four minutes of the game, a signal for the Bears lack of preparation for the Bobcats defense.
Texas State lost in Pullman by a final score of 83-61 to Washington State, but had a solid road win at Rhode Island and a hard fought loss at UTSA. Cal had lost to UC San Diego and Southern in recent games, and the Sun Belt represented Bobcats wouldn’t give the Bears a break.
In this game, the Bears improved their three point defense, forcing the Bobcats into 5-19 (26%) from beyond the arc, a far cry from UC San Diego and Southern. However, Tyrel Morgan was relentless for the Bobcats, wreaking havoc on the offensive glass, going for 9 points and 9 boards, four of which were on the offensive glass. Mason Harrell led the half court offensive attack for Texas State, going for 21 points on 6-15 shooting and 7-7 from the free throw line. His poise was on full display as he, Morgan, and Tuongthach Gatkek led the charge in Haas Pavilion.
Cal waited too long to wake up from their slumber. I am not going to belabor the point. They are not talented enough nor coached well enough to afford digging themselves into holes (Texas State went ahead by 11 at one point) like this. Yes, the guard depth is basically at zero right now. Mark Fox said Jarred Hyder is now out for the year, on top of Jalen Celestine out due to surgery, Marsalis Roberson in a boot but sometimes that’s just how the dominoes fall. You have to maximize what you have and it’s not happening right now. With 8 seconds left, Mark Fox drew up a baseball pass when the Bears were down three. You don’t need to do that. Needless to say, it didn’t work and the Bears lost the game.
Devin Askew had 17 points and 6 rebounds for the Bears, while Lars Thiemann netted 15 points and 11 rebounds. Monty Bowser was a bright spot, getting 9 points off the bench with three three’s. Texas State only committed 7 turnovers, while Cal had 16. The Bobcats had 14 offensive rebounds and for a team that’s so much smaller than them, that’s unacceptable from the Bears. Tyrel Morgan was the MVP for the Bobcats, but at some point you just need to put a body on a body.
Cal is 0-5. This is who they are. Let’s hear your thoughts.
I don't see us winning a game this season. The team very much reminds me of Waking teams where it's a bunch of individuals on the court that don't play as a team. There were a number of times in trying to break the press where someone (Kuany, Newell) was wide open right in front of Fox or the same location on the other side of the court, but the guard was completely focused on handling this themselves. Plus, there were times when someone (Brown) was completely wide open under the basket, but yet again, the guard was focused on making a solo play to score.
I just don't see any inklings that the team is improving from game to game.
On one bright note, have you seen the guy trying to teach the spirit groups, especially the yell leaders, how to actually encourage the crowd? It's sad that someone actually has to teach students how to do this, but I'll give them some slack due to some tradition being lost from students graduating (and not being at games in person) during the pandemic. Too bad that there won't be any crowd left to encourage by the end of this season...
If you want to see a better coached basketball team, attend the women's games. They're 3-1 with a closer-than-the-score-shows loss to a ranked Notre Dame team.
For those that are pointing out that Cal was unprepared to handle Texas State's (or Southern's for that matter) press, and as a youth coach myself who spent many hours coaching 5th graders to press & beat the press, the suggestion that it somehow caught Fox unprepared, or that he failed to coach the break, is extremely unlikely. If it were the case, it'd be gross malpractice and he should be fired, absolutely. The more likely reason for the problems breaking the press is that, although being coached up, we are observably a slow (thinking and moving) team with one ball handler (Brown) and below average basketball IQ. Maybe Fox has lost the team, which is a possible explanation for the lackluster effort, and not much can be done to solve that other than an ice cream party. But the players should have enough pride in their own game to give maximum effort (in their 5-30 minutes on the floor) regardless of their thoughts of the coach or scheme. If lack of buy-in is the real problem, it displays a lack of character on the player's part.