Cal men\u2019s basketball has been on track for the NCAA tournament throughout the season, barreling through regular play and dominating opponents with a new energy that it hasn\u2019t possessed in years. It was then shocking for fans that the team to derail the Bears\u2019 momentum was 11-18 Pitt in their last home game of the season.<\/p>\n
With a performance lacking energy and coordination, the Bears fell to the Panthers 72-56, tallying their second lowest-scoring game of the season while Pitt walked away with their third win against Cal in as many games.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously (I\u2019m) very disappointed with the way we played,\u201d said Cal head coach Mark Madsen. \u201cCongratulations to Pitt \u2014 they came out with tremendous physicality. I\u2019m very disappointed in myself for not having our guys better prepared; 12 turnovers in the first half is unacceptable. The missed assignments on box outs, those are unacceptable. The lack of physicality is unacceptable. I take responsibility for all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout the first half it was clear that Cal wasn\u2019t fully there. With 12 turnovers and zero minutes with the lead, the Bears were constantly losing possession of the ball and struggling to string plays together. They did, however, string together four turnovers in the span of three minutes.<\/p>\n
The 16 total turnovers during the matchup marked their second highest of the season in addition to featuring Cal\u2019s fewest free throws made, ending the night 5-of-7. This is a drastic outlier, considering the Bears lead the ACC in free throw percentages at 78.4%, with 493 free throws made in 29 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cPitt was the more physical team; anybody in the crowd could see that,\u201d Madsen said. \u201cWhen we tried to attack the rim, we were a step slow and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve been a part of a game where we didn\u2019t get to the free throw line in the first half at all \u2014 that\u2019s a problem. We have to play more physically.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moving into the second half, the Bears were able to cut down their turnovers, only committing an additional four while working to close the gap with Pitt.<\/p>\n
However, every time that Cal inched closer to tying the contest, the game would slip from its grasp. One of the key blue and gold scorers, senior forward Chris Bell, was kept to single digits for the first time in nine games \u2014 highlighting Pitt\u2019s aggression and Cal\u2019s lack thereof.<\/p>\n
The only Bears to manage double digits were junior guard Dai Dai Ames and senior forward Lee Dort, who knocked in 11 and 10 points, respectively.<\/p>\n
With frazzled players, the Bears began rushing to try and close the gap \u2014 attempting shots and plays that ended in an early change of possession rather than gaining the lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told the guys in the locker room, \u2018The desire to try to help your team win is a great desire, but to try to go hero ball and do it all yourself and go outside of the system, that\u2019s not smart basketball \u2014 that\u2019s bad basketball.\u2019\u201d Madsen said.<\/p>\n
This isolation-heavy style of \u201chero ball\u201d was evident throughout the 40 minutes, with players going straight for the basket rather than settling the ball and making a play \u2014 leading to missed shots and sloppy coordination in their attempts to catch up to Pitt.<\/p>\n
Where the offense lacked energy, the defense also lacked its usual ferocity. Box-outs that should be second nature to the blue and gold weren\u2019t executed, leading to extra possessions for Pitt.<\/p>\n
The Panthers capitalized \u2014 winning the rebound battle, taking more shots and getting to the free-throw line more often than the Bears.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn almost every category they outplayed us. This was a huge game for us and we did not show up the way we needed to show up,\u201d Madsen said. \u201cWe have to create our own energy. We have to create our own intensity. We have a locker room full of tremendous competitors and we didn\u2019t see that to the level that we needed tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was a critical loss for the blue and gold, one that may have derailed their progress this season.<\/p>\n
With only two more games of regular season play now on the road, the Bears are going to need to fight through these last two contests to prove they deserve a chance at the NCAA tournament later this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cal men\u2019s basketball has been on track for the NCAA tournament throughout the season, barreling through regular play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,4632,157052,121030,222152,251107,258069,258067,258066,251108,5357,66390,258068,85],"class_list":["post-516345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-bears","tag-big-game","tag-cal","tag-cal-mens-basketball","tag-chris-bell","tag-dai-dai-ames","tag-dejuan-campbell","tag-john-camden","tag-mark-madsen","tag-panthers","tag-pitt","tag-semetri-tt-carr","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516345","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=516345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}