Oregon State’s Drew Eubanks (12) get his shot blocked by California’s Kingsley Okoroh (22) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in Corvallis, Ore., Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017. California won 69-58. (AP Photo/Timothy J. Gonzalez)
By Morris Phillips
The two-tiered nature of the Cal Bears’ season continued at Corvallis on Saturday night.
After getting blown out at Oregon by the hyper-speed Ducks on Thursday, the Bears found the pace more to their liking against Oregon State in a 69-58 victory. The Bears improved to 9-1 when they hold their opponent to 60 points or fewer.
While the Bears haven’t had any success against their four, highest-rated opponents, they have had success against everyone else, going 14-2 against anyone not named Arizona, Oregon, UCLA or Virginia. Unfortunately, the NCAA tournament committee won’t take notice unless there’s a breakthrough, and the Bears have just two scheduled opportunities remaining: February 11 at Arizona, and the February 22 rematch with the Ducks in Berkeley.
If there’s a Bears’ barometer for success than it would have to be sophomore Ivan Rabb, who missed his first eight shots against the Ducks, but was far more settled against the Beavers with a team-best 18 points, eight rebounds.
“Shots weren’t dropping and I wasn’t getting to the free-throw line. But tonight I made an effort to get to the line, knock down shots, and just be more patient on the block. Overall, my teammates played better, I played better and we were way better as a team,” Rabb said.
The injury-riddled Beavers dropped their seventh in a row, losing to Cal, while the Ducks extended their school-record win streak to 15 in their win over Cal on Thursday. So the contrast between the two challenges couldn’t be more extreme. But the pace of the two games was probably more telling, as the Bears aren’t ideally suited for transition basketball, and benefitted from being matched with the more deliberate Beavers.
Cal got little resistance from OSU after the game was tied at 9 with seven minutes elapsed. Cal scored the next basket and led for the final 33 minutes without enduring as much as one Oregon State run. OSU shot just 40 percent from the field, and missed 24 of their 40 shots inside the three-point arc.
“I just think we have more bodies with more experience. Not that they didn’t play hard. They have a lot of talent, they have young talent,” coach Cuonzo Martin said.
“We just had to utilize our experience, our older guys and also our bodies, try to run in transition and ultimately get to Ivan Rabb to make plays.”
Charlie Moore added 15 for Cal (14-6, 5-3), and Jabari Bird finished with 12.
Drew Eubanks led Oregon State with 22 points, and sophomore Stevie Thompson Jr. added 19 points, six rebounds. The Beavers were without leading scorer Tres Tinkle, who has missed the last 14 games with a broken wrist.
The Bears have a week to prepare for rival Stanford, who visits Haas Pavilion on Sunday. If the Bears win, they’ll post a respectable 6-3 record at the Pac-12 schedule’s halfway point. And projecting forward, the Bears could win 21 or 22 games, without pulling an eye-opening upset.
Unfortunately, that might not be enough for the NCAA selection committe, and far more palatable for the NIT.
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