Michael Duca and Morris Phillips on Cal basketball

by Michael Duca and Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–The thing about Cal facing Creighton and losing last weekend in that non conference game is that loss won’t help them as we approach the NCAA Tournament on whose going to go and who isn’t. Cal head coach Mike Montgomery knows there’s not that many opportunities in the non-conference to make them last.

When the Golden Bears went to Maui and lost to Syracuse 91-82 November 26th Syracuse is ranked number two in the nation right now but they weren’t ranked number two when Cal played them after raking up a few more wins. The Bears didn’t beat Syracuse and they didn’t beat Creighton that will hurt them come selection time.

As far as the Bears next opponent Furman is concerned whom they play at Haas on Saturday they won’t give Cal much of a battle that will be the final non conference game for the Bears and they will see Stanford on January 2nd at Maples Pavilion to open their first conference game in the new year.

The Bears best game in non conference play was the game against Oakland which they won 64-61 the team from suburban Detroit that was in Berkeley on November 15th that game went down to the last two minutes. Oakland went onto do some almost wonderful things.

The Bears also took Michigan State down to the end of the wire that game was played at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan. Non conference basketball is where you don’t want any slip ups like losing to someone your not suppose to lose to because people will come and hurt you come selection tme.

The NCAA will select someone whose in the top 40 who will hurt you, especially since Cal comes off that loss to Creighton which is disappointing and you’ll see them bounce back pretty well. The Bears are in Stanford Jan 2 and you don’t want to open the conference season with a loss and Cal hasn’t had much success at Maples lately. The Bears have lost the last three or four in Maples.

The Bears have won at Stanford only once since Montgomery was the coach the win was in his first year it’s a tough place to play for Cal. Montgomery doesn’t get much a of reception down there any more even though he was a great coach at Stanford for many years and they’re going to have to deal with Stanford and their size. If anything we know that Stanford doesn’t shoot the ball well all the time and hopefully Cal can take advantage of it.

Morris Phillips covers the Cal Bears with Michael Duca for Sportstalk Radio

Cal runs past Nevada in a high-scoring shootout

By Morris Phillips

Nevada and Cal engaged in an old-fashioned shootout Tuesday with a pair of former prep adversaries turned NBA hopefuls at the center of the action.

For a crowd of nearly 8,000, the Bears’ 92-84 win was satisfying entertainment.  For coaches David Carter and Mike Montgomery, not as much; they immediately harped on the lack of defense.

“I think we’ve got to do a better job of putting pressure on guys and just having that toughness defensively, collectively, and then if they make shots there really isn’t much we can do about it,” Carter said of his Wolf Pack’s defensive effort.

“I thought we made a lot of mistakes defensively,” Montgomery said.  “I think there’s still things we’re learning about how to play defense.  Some of the things that we didn’t do, we tried to talk about.”

Nevada forged an early seven-point lead, 17-10 then watched the floodgates open for Cal.  The Bears went on a huge run, finished the first half with 49 points and shot 55 percent for the game.  The Wolf Pack clearly missed three injured players in their frontcourt, and suffered even more when forward Ronnie Stevens, Jr. was saddled with foul problems.  Senior guard Justin Cobbs had no problem navigating on the offensive end as he racked up 15 points and eight assists, and did a great job of getting his freshman teammates involved offensively.

The Wolf Pack’s Deonte Burton stood as the counterpoint to Cal’s big scoring night as he put up 26 points and led a brief, Nevada second-half run.   Burton, the 6’3” senior, battled Cobbs many times as a prep in Los Angeles, and did so again on Tuesday.   When Burton got inside for a couple of big dunks and drew fouls, it didn’t sit well with Cobbs, eventhough he termed himself and Burton as friends.

“I wouldn’t say he got under my skin,” Cobbs said.  “It’s just frustrating sometimes when the calls were going the other way and myself being so competitive.  He was doing a great job of getting body contact and getting some calls, but it’s just the game of basketball.”

Six Bears finished in double figures, and Montgomery’s tweaking of his starting lineup in the wake of Cal’s disappointing loss at Santa Barbara seemed to work just fine.  Freshman Jordan Mathews and Ricky Kreklow got starts, while Tyrone Wallace and Jabari Bird came off the bench.  Mathews, Wallace and Bird all scored in double figures along with Cobbs, Richard Solomon and David Kravish.

“We just wanted to change,” Montgomery said of the lineup switch.  “If we can keep it competitive, we want to.  We want to keep guys motivated.  We don’t want guys to get stale or take anything for granted.”

The win allowed Montgomery to move up the all-time victories chart with 664 wins, tied for 27^th with UCLA legend John Wooden.  When asked about Wooden, Montgomery took the route of humility.

“The number of wins doesn’t mean much to anybody, but when they say that’s John Wooden, all of a sudden everybody perks up.  I have a little work to do.  I’m 10 national championships short (of Wooden).   There’s nothing to compare other than the fact that I’ve got the same number of wins.  That’s the only comparison there is,” Montgomery said.

The Bears face Fresno State on Saturday at 3:00pm at Haas Pavilion.

Santa Barbara’s picturesque, just not for the Cal Bears

UCSB’s junior guard Zalmico Harmon dished out 10 assists for the Gauchos on Friday night. (Presidio Sports Photos)

By Morris Phillips

In the last 30 years, UCLA has agreed to play in the gym of one of the other nine Division I basketball programs scattered across the greater Los Angeles area just four times.  In 1988, the Bruins ventured down the San Diego Freeway to help UC Irvine open their just built Bren Center and went home losers.

They haven’t been back since.

Mike Montgomery’s probably had dinner in Moraga more times than he’s agreed to bring one of his Stanford or California teams to play the St. Mary’s Gaels in their gym (once).  The Cal Bears hadn’t brought one of their basketball teams to beautiful Santa Barbara in 34 seasons. Kentucky plays at Western Kentucky?  Forget it.

There’s a reason for all of this: basketball coaches shrewdly avoid playing in places that are nearby, where an upset is a possibility, and a win for the little guy could make headlines that local, recruitable athletes would undoubtedly notice.

Montgomery knows better; he’s been smartly crafting who his teams play for years.  But the state is struggling financially, so UC schools have been encouraged to play each other more frequently to keep all the money in the system.

Well, in part due to all of that Cal became the first Pac-12 team to venture into the Thunderdome in 11 years and the improving Gauchos and leading scorer Alan Williams were ready.  Williams had 24 points and 12 rebounds, and UCSB pulled away from Cal in the second half to win, 72-65.

“We’ve been so close to breaking through with a big home win in the past and just couldn’t get over the humps, so this was pretty special,” UCSB Coach Bob Williams said.

The Gauchos defeated the Bears for the first time after 10 previous defeats in the series between the two schools.

The Bears’ defense again wilted in the second half allowing the Gauchos to shoot 59 percent and score 45 points.  Meanwhile, the Bears were struggling, shooting just 36 percent for the game and unable to answer UCSB’s firepower down the stretch.

Freshman Jordan Mathews led the Bears with a career-best 22 points.  Justin Cobbs chipped in 13, and David Kravish had 12.

The Bears used a rally to grab the lead, 28-27, at halftime, but UCSB surged in the second half, and hit four big free throws down the stretch to clinch it.

The Bears fell to 6-3 on the season with Nevada up next at Haas Pavilion on Tuesday.

Cal passes big test against 7’6″ Ndiaye and UC Irvine

By Morris Phillips

The 7’6” sensation known as Mamadou Ndiaye came to Haas Pavilion on Monday night and the Cal Bears needed to quickly determine whether the Senegalese freshman would be an oddity or a menace like he was three weeks ago in UC Irvine’s wire-to-wire victory over Washington in which he had 18 points, eight rebounds and an eye-popping nine blocks.

And what was the answer to the Ndiaye conundrum?  Incomplete.

In Cal’s 73-56 victory, Ndiaye played just 10 minutes due to foul trouble and he and the Anteaters couldn’t shoot a lick early, trailing by double digits for the final 34 minutes of the game.   Consequently, Ndiaye managed to dominate only the post-game quote sheet.

“That guy, when he posts up he has got his hands right at your face,” Cal’s 6’9” David Kravish said.  “You are looking right into his chest.”

“I was staring at his chest the whole game,” 6’11” Richard Solomon said.

“He’s a big dude,” Coach Mike Montgomery said.  “He got into our heads a little bit… just because guys had to figure out what they could do.  We knew that he doesn’t like to come away from the basket very much.”

What could have been a long night and a close game wasn’t in great part due to Kravish, who stepped away from the basket and hit a number of shots on his way to 19 points and 10 rebounds, and Justin Cobbs, who’s never shy about taking his game into the paint, which he did frequently Monday in compiling a game-best nine assists.

Now that the affable Ndiaye–who just last year was tooling around Huntington Beach on his oversized bicycle—has played nine games in his collegiate career, there’s telling tape for opposing coaches to dissect.  Montgomery’s among the best of the practitioners and his Bears took heed, only twice getting too close to Ndiaye and his ridiculous wingspan to have their shots blocked.  Instead, Cal’s ball movement for the most part was crisp and leading to numerous, high-percentage shots.

Meanwhile, Ndiaye had trouble getting out of his own way.

“He didn’t make the adjustments he needed to make,” UC Irvine Coach Russell Turner said.  “He got an offensive foul early, got two rebound fouls.  He needs to avoid those mistakes.”

Cal got a major lift from Solomon’s return from missing the final two games in Maui due to a corneal abrasion.  Solomon wore protective glasses, something he says he will do for the remainder of the season, not wanting to revisit the painful and scary eye injury that took place when an opponent inadvertently caught his eye.  Again it was apparent that Cal’s much better at both ends, but especially defensively, when both Kravish and Solomon are in the game together.

In Solomon’s absence, Syracuse and Dayton both had big shooting nights in handing the Bears their first two losses of the season.

The Bears travel to Santa Barbara Friday night where they will meet the Gauchos before returning home next Tuesday to face Nevada.

Cal plays well, but blinks late in loss to No. 8 Syracuse

By Morris Phillips

Catching the vaunted Syracuse Orangemen a hemisphere away from the Carrier Dome seemed like a good idea for the Cal Bears.

But that’s only if you haven’t checked the numbers: after Syracuse’s 92-81 win over Cal on Tuesday, the Orangemen are a perfect 8-0 at the Lahaina Civic Center, winning Maui Invitational titles in 1990 and 1998.

After beating Cal, No. 8 Syracuse is poised to win a third title, facing Baylor on Wednesday in the tournament’s championship game.  Cal will face Dayton–narrow 67-66 losers to Baylor–on Wednesday in the EA Sports Maui Invitational third place game.

“I thought we played really, really hard, really pleased with the effort,” Coach Mike Montgomery said.  “We had some lapses of things and I don’t think in that level of game you’re going to be able to win if you have lapses.”

In comparison to the Bears loss to Syracuse in last season’s NCAA second round at San Jose, this was a huge improvement for Cal.  Allen Crabbe and Justin Cobbs played tentatively, and the Bears struggled to figure out the Syracuse zone in a six-point loss that seemed much bigger.  This time, Cal played well in transition, and gave the ‘Cuse a battle, shooting 51 percent and scoring 81 points.

“I thought watching Cal yesterday that their team this year is much better than last year’s team,” Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim said.  “I just think (Jabari) Bird is one of the better freshman composure-wise that I’ve seen.”

The Bears played without center Richard Solomon, who had played 22 consecutive games, but missed Tuesday’s game with an eye injury.  Without their big man, the Bears didn’t back down, getting poised performance by five freshman in their nine-man rotation, and trailing 62-59 with 8:54 remaining when Syracuse pulled away.

“I think the problem was we had some lapses in terms of defense,” Montgomery said.  I think as much as anything, the in-line out of bounds hurt as much as anything.  They probably scored 15 points on in-line out of bounds in the zone.”

Cal was led by Cobbs with 18 points and eight assists.  Bird had 17 points and seven rebounds, David Kravish had 15, and Jordan Mathews 12.  Tyler Ennis led Syracuse with 28 points, and Trevor Cooney added 23.

The Bears outrebounded the Orangemen 30-26, but saw Syracuse shoot 53 percent from the field, and 95 percent from the line, missing just one free throw on the night.

“I like the way we fought without our big guy, Richard Solomon,” Cobbs said.  “I think we played hard and gave them everything we wanted.  Just couldn’t pull it out at the end.”

The Bears fell to 5-1 on the season, and their meeting today with the Flyers provides another opportunity for an significant win as Dayton upset No. 11 Gonzaga on Monday.

Michael Duca on the NCAA

by Michael Duca

LAHAINA, Hawaii–The Golden Bears came out a little edgey in their win over Arkansas 85-77 on Monday night at the Maui Invitational, maybe they were just nervous. The combined records of these two teams in that tournament on before Monday night 30-0. So it’s hard to decide who your favoring. They had a scuffle early on in the game in the sense the Bears were not hitting shots and not making the plays that they wanted to make and it had been rehearsed all week in practice.

It was rehearsed in practice which was a long week of practice and Cal head coach Mike Montgomery said that the team pretty much forget everything they practiced for all week in the first five minutes of the game. A couple of things happened first of all they did start playing the way they were coached to play and the other one that made a huge difference in the past forward Richard Solomon had managed to collect two fouls early in the game and then sit down here Solomon collected a third foul early in the second half.

Montgomery sat Solomon down and in came Roger Moute a Bidias at forward and said to the freshman “you know how to do this I have to trust you and get out there and play” and play he did he played with three fouls for much of the rest of the game and Moute a Bidas fouled out in the final 1:10 of the game collected 11 points and had more than a dozen and half rebounds after that point and began and basically to took over the floor.

The Bears faced Syracuse on Tuesday and their best known for their two-three zone defense and they play that two-three defense better than anyone else in the country. Cal faced them in the NCAA Tournament and did not do well at all and Monty is hoping that those players can carry over because one of the reasons they did not do well is they didn’t really attack the weaknesses of that two three zone.

There aren’t that many of them because the Orange have guys that are 6’8 and 6’9 out on the wings and they make it difficult but their are seams in a two three zone. There are places where you can take the outside it’s going to be up to Cal’s front court to really take advantage penetrating that zone and hit some higher percentage shots.

This was a closer game than the tournament was last year even though they don’t have Alan Crabbe and Crabbe was probably their best outside shooter threat they’re a more veteran club despite Crabbe’s departure and with the inside presence of both Crabbe had a tremendous game and Solomon had a terrific first half on Monday night that indicates that they could play competitive against this Syracuse team.

Michael Duca covers Cal basketball for Sportstalk each week

Michael Duca on Cal football and basketball

by Michael Duca

BERKELEY–Anytime you have a chance to make history and this year the Cal football Bears have made history, they are among the worst team among the FDS in every category and therefore in the long and storied history of the Big Game which is coming up this Saturday at Stanford they are the biggest underdogs ever. Do you want to know what their in store for?

This will shock you but I would tell you to take Cal and points in this game on Saturday and the only way that Cal could be able to beat the spread with their 32 points and their never going beat the spread and hold the score down and the only way your going to hold the score down is to run the football. Their going to actually concentrate on running the football and Stanford is going to expect them not to run the football.

Their going to concentrate on trying to control the ball on the ground and Cal can’t do that they only have two Pac 12 quality lineman and that’s the problem. These games, these rivalry games can throw everything out the window and they don’t even bother printing these in the racing forms because there is no forms to these games. Remember Joe Kapp’s last game was an 17-11 victory over a Stanford team that was a four touchdown favorite.

Is there any chance for Cal to pull out a miracle and shock the crowd at Stanford with a win answer: I don’t think the band will be on the field.

Cal hoops: Playtime is over the real games start next week in Maui for the Maui Invitational to face some really good teams, the Maui tournament will see Arkansas, Baylor, Cal, Chaminade, Dayton, Gonzaga, Minnesota, and Syracuse, and Cal will find out what a good team really is. This team is doing well going into the tournament they are 4-0 the last time Cal was 4-0 going into a tournament they were riding high and they were fat, dumb, and happy and they went back to Wisconsin and played a Big Ten that just physically manhandled them.

From the time they tried to leave the locker room and until the time they got on the bus to go back home they have not forgotten that and they have brought that and a little bit more focus in the Pac 12. They realize they have a chance to be a really decent team this year. They may not be at the very top pius echelon of the Pac 12 this year looks like Arizona and UCLA are those big teams but Cal is right behind them which means all they need one or two players or wins in winning the league and that’s always been their goal.

Guard Justin Cobbs he was fine the other night after recovering from an injury. The first question we asked Cal head coach Mike Montgomery last Monday night after beating Southern Utah was what did he learn about his team after a game like that? Montgomery was honest he said, “not very much.” Southern Utah was overmatched physically and talent wise from about the time they got off the airplane.

However their coached by a former player at Stanford Nick Robinson suddenly it gave Robinson an opportunity to play a in bigger arena in front of 4,000 to 5,000 people which is more than who their going to play in front of in Utah.

Michael Duca does commentary on Cal football and basketball each week for Sportstalk Radio

Cal tops Southern Utah, improves to 4-0

By Morris Phillips

Soon after the opening tip on Monday at Haas Pavilion, things went south for the Southern Utah Thunderbirds.

The Cal Bears scored the first six baskets of the game and established an early 14-0 lead.  From there, the Bears cruised to a 75-47 victory to improve to 4-0 on the young season.

“It was 12-0 before we knew it, and we had a hard time coming back from that,” SUU Coach Nick Robinson said.  “We got some good shots, but they weren’t falling for us.”

Robinson was a role player on Cal coach Mike Montgomery’s best and final teams at Stanford, graduating there in 2005.  In a short time since, Robinson has elevated himself to a Division I head coach after several stints as an assistant at various programs.

While Robinson’s rapid ascent is quite impressive, his team’s performance on Monday wasn’t.  The Thunderbirds struggled with the bigger, quicker Bears from the jump.

“We substituted a lot early,” Montgomery said.  “It seemed pretty obvious that they were outmatched.”

“They were flat-out better than we were,” Robinson said.  “(Cal) was more disciplined defensively, they did a great job on the boards, and hit open shots that we weren’t capable of hitting.”

All 13 Bears that suited up got action in the first half on Monday.  And although the frequent substitutions didn’t do much for continuity, it didn’t affect progress on the scoreboard.  The Bears led 33-10 after 15 minutes with the Thunderbirds shooting 22 percent in the first half.

Richard Solomon contributed 14 points, seven rebounds and three blocks in the win.  Tyrone Wallace had 15, and the trio of Ricky Kreklow, Jordan Mathews and David Kravish had nine each.

A.J. Hess led Southern Utah with 15 points.  The Thunderbirds shot 29 percent for the game and committed 15 turnovers.

Cal sees a jump in competition on Monday when they travel to Maui and open the Invitational against Arkansas.

Bears squeeze past Oakland, 64-60 behind freshman Bird

By Morris Phillips

Friday night at Haas Pavilion, Oakland was a lot closer to Berkeley than anyone in a blue-and-gold uniform could bear.

The Grizzlies from suburban Detroit are known for their challenging non-conference schedule and armed with prolific three-point shooter Travis Bader, they gave Cal all they could handle in the Bears’ come-from-behind 64-60 victory.

“There was no question that Oakland played harder than we did,” Cal coach Mike Montgomery said.  “We were late to loose balls, we weren’t attentive to details.”

Oakland led by as many as nine points in the first half, and the game was tied with 2:10 remaining as the Grizzlies’ zone defense, hustle and the shooting of Bader, who finished with 21 points, kept Cal on its heels.

Cal managed to keep pace in the second half as freshman Jabari Bird heated up, finishing with a career-best 24 points, including six made three pointers.  Bird’s three with 1:59 remaining broke a 56-all tie and gave the Bears the lead for good.

“Basically, I caught it and was open and had been hitting three’s all night, so if we were going to lose this game, I wanted to lose the game with that… but it went in and we won,” Bird said with all the carefree wisdom of an 18-year old.

Justin Cobbs contributed 13 points and five assists, and Richard Solomon had 11 points and 17 rebounds to aid Cal’s cause.   Bader had assistance from Kahlil Felder and Tommy McCune who had 13 and 11 points respectively for Oakland.

Oakland fell to 0-3 with earlier losses to No. 12 North Carolina and No. 24 UCLA.  The Grizzlies played without second-leading scorer Duke Mondy and forward Dante Williams, who were accused of sexual assault in Southern California earlier this week.  The pair were cleared in an initial police investigation but suspended by the university pending further fact finding.

Cal improved to 3-0 on the season with a matchup with Southern Utah up next at Haas on Monday night.   The Bears improved to 36-6 in non-conference matchups during Montgomery’s five plus years as coach.

The Bears shot just 33 percent in the opening half as Oakland’s zone made Cal’s cumbersome mix of veterans and freshman a bit tentative.  At halftime and then early in the second half, an animated Montgomery did all he could to wake his guys up.

“We had five minutes alone, just sitting there silent, and then he came in and talked to us like it was a regular game,” Bird said of Montgomery’s halftime prodding.  “And then right before we walked out he said get the energy up and play like we know we can.”

Michael Duca on Cal

by Michael Duca

Cal football: In the new Cal system with old players and that’s pretty old for people who are seeing this team (1-9) but that’s just how it is. It was the team that former head coach Jeff Tedford left behind and it was not covered at just that and the skill set is somewhat underneath it. So current head coach Sonny Dykes has spent the entire year trying to shave the edges off round things so they’ll fit square holes.

Jared Goff is well on pace to throw for 58,000 yards in his career and it maybe well beyond that. Again it’s a true freshman stepping up and running a system that’s somewhat new to him, not totally new. Goff played spread in high school but he didn’t play spread for Dykes and he didn’t play it with this group of players who were drafted for pro set offense. If you look at last Thursday’s game Cal’s offense played USC pretty even.

Cal hoops: Obviously everybody figures you schedule cupcakes a certain time of the year and I don’t think St. Mary’s scheduled a cupcake at Akron last night and Cal scheduled a cupcake at Coppin State. Coppin State went up the coast up a ways and smoked the Oregon State Beavers at Corvallis. That’s a win that Cal could be pretty proud of.

It gives them an idea of what they’ve got this year, the Bears have to figure out a win without having Alan Crabtree to lean on and they could do real well without him because he was so streaky and so prone to disappearing on defense when he wasn’t hitting on offense so if he had a good game it was a great game and if he had a so so game it turned out to be a poor game.

Cal is going to need David Kravish to produce a low post presence they don’t have a lot of height, they’re very limited on who they have on the team. Head coach Mike Montgomery might go small and by small he basically means playing a four guard offense to draw the other team away from the basket. When they go to the four guard offense Kravish is the man on the island, you’ve come to the lighthouse at the opening of the harbor.

Kravish has developed greatly over the years, he came in a skinny kid with a lot of ball hocking ability and could never tell where the ball winds up on a rebound. He’s beefed up a little bit, he doesn’t get pushed around in the low post like he did a couple years ago. He’s got the potential to be a solid good ball player. It really anchors that low post offense for them.

For Monty coaches are coaches they are always excited about their team and their always looking forward to their next game and their always respectful to their opponents. This is how they are they don’t believe in whacking hornets nests and, they don’t believe in over selling their kids and in front of their kids and underselling them and they have kids playing with a chip on their shoulders and Monty is great at that.

He’s one of those guys whose never satisfied because you can only approach perfection you could never reach it.

 

Michael Duca covers Cal for Sportstalk radio