by Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–The problem with the Cal Bears is their just are not shooting well, their just not a team that you can really count on. They scored 22 points in the first half of the quarter finals against Colorado barely pulled out the season finale at Haas Pavilion against the same team and their offensive short comings and their ability to make shots is what has got them on the slide.

The Bears have nine loses in their last 14 games, Cal however can get an NIT selection and their in the top 75 in the country so they could get in the NCAA Tournament. The Bears are still in the top 75 in the country and they should be a highly seeded team in the NIT and the NIT should be happy to have them and they maybe happy to have them matched up against St.Marys or USF in the first round.

The Bears just need to play better and this will obviously give them an opportunity and for a team that ended the season as poorly as they had that’s really a great opportunity for them because nobody wants to look as badly as they have been lately. Cal would love to win a game at the end and nobody wants to end a season like this and this is a young basketball team.

Cal really needs to build for next year and one of the ways to do that is to gain some confidence and win some games here. Once again a match up in the NITs against one of the local schools especially St.Mary’s since Cal head coach Mike Montgomery has barely faced them in his college career. The last time Montgomery had coached against the Gaels was probably a good ten or 15 years ago.

There is still a lot for Cal to play for but the way they ended their season was improbable that final victory against Colorado they missed their last ten shots of the game and they didn’t make a shot in overtime and found a way to pull it out. Justin Cobbs led the team with scoring in that game with 21 points but he’s not supposed to be the scoring leader and he’s suppose to be the offensive leader.

He’s supposed to be the distributor, he’s supposed to be the playmaker but time and time again his teammates have missed shots in situations where he has got the ball and Montgomery says if he sees you miss a couple and he’s likely to come to you after that. That puts a lot of pressure on Cobbs to go ahead and do it himself and that’s not necessarily his strong suit.

It’s a tough spot for Cobbs and for the team to struggle and it comes back on the team star and Cobbs is just not a team leading scorer type guy. He’s really a playmaker and facilitator and Montgomery would liked to have seen him play better against Arizona’s Nick Johnson and ASU’s guard Jahii Carson and the two other point guards in the Pac 12 that are NBA type caliber players.

Morris Phillips is talk show host and covers Cal basketball for Sportstalk radio