Following a big win against Stanford over the weekend, the Bears will look to carry that momentum into their final two home games of the season. With a matchup against SMU on Wednesday, Cal men\u2019s basketball has an opportunity to build on its rivalry victory and strengthen its position heading into the postseason.<\/p>\n
Heading into the contest, the Bears sit at 19-8 overall and an even 7-7 in conference play. A win over SMU would not only mark their 20th victory of the season for the first time in a decade, but also pull them level with the Mustangs in the conference standings, tightening an already competitive race.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us it\u2019s just to keep winning games \u2014 I think if we win out we\u2019ll be just fine,\u201d said senior forward Chris Bell on Cal\u2019s focus heading into March. \u201cA lot of people get so focused on, \u2018You have to win this game or that.\u2019 If we just go into each game doing our game plan, focusing and coming out with the win, we\u2019ll be just fine in time for March.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the days to come, the key for the blue and gold while they prepare will be to hold on tight to their strong defense and free throw shooting while developing their overall shooting efficiency.<\/p>\n
The Bears have a plethora of strong shooters from Bell to sophomore guard Justin Pippen, but given the shooting percentage against Stanford \u2014 34.9% from the field and 34.6% on 3-pointers \u2014 they should be looking to make some changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen our guys take pride in one-on-one, individual defense, the whole world changes,\u201d said Cal head coach Mark Madsen while addressing Cal\u2019s shortfalls against Syracuse earlier in the season. \u201cTo be able to lock in and do that over the course of 40 minutes is very difficult to do. \u2026 Give Syracuse credit, they dominated us, but we slipped during that game and we were going to continue to try to address that.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the Bears prepare to hold their defense together, they have a strong SMU offense to consider.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs similarly have reliable shooters, led by redshirt senior guards Boopie Miller and Jaron Pierre Jr., who average 18.7 and 17.6 points per game, respectively. With such an offensively driven roster, SMU can score quickly and in bunches. Cal\u2019s defense will need to stay disciplined and locked in, while also being prepared to convert stops into transition offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we have a one-game series against a very talented SMU team,\u201d Madsen said. \u201cSMU is scrappy. They\u2019re tough, they\u2019re physical, they play zone (and) they play man \u2014 so that\u2019s the next cloud on the horizon that we have to be prepared for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also on the horizon for the blue and gold is the ACC tournament in March and a possible bid to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2016.<\/p>\n
Currently, Cal sits just outside of the bracket. With two more conference wins at home and another two on the road, the Bears will strengthen their odds to clinch an early round matchup.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be absolutely huge if we\u2019re able to attain that goal,\u201d Madsen said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is break the goal up into small pieces, into small bites.\u201d<\/p>\n
That next bite comes this Wednesday against SMU at 7 p.m. at Haas Pavilion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following a big win against Stanford over the weekend, the Bears will look to carry that momentum into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[27228,251105,64,63,726,4632,251109,121030,222152,251107,251111,251110,251106,30132,153046,251108,251104,1534,87133,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-499117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-acc","9":"tag-acc-tournament","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-basketball","13":"tag-bears","14":"tag-boopie-miller","15":"tag-cal","16":"tag-cal-mens-basketball","17":"tag-chris-bell","18":"tag-haas-pavilion","19":"tag-jaron-pierre-jr","20":"tag-justin-pippen","21":"tag-march","22":"tag-march-madness","23":"tag-mark-madsen","24":"tag-mustangs","25":"tag-ncaa-tournament","26":"tag-smu","27":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}