By Morris Phillips

Being a work in progress isn’t necessarily pretty. It wasn’t for the Bears in their two cold-shooting performances at Madison Square Garden.

Cal fell to No. 22 Texas in the 2K Empire Classic consolation game 62-45 on Friday, while shooting 36 percent from the field. The 45 points and their shooting percentage were season lows.

Coach Mark Fox’s premonition to have his club forgo perimeter shots given their opponent and their compressed schedule was smart thinking. But it didn’t benefit Cal, they cut down on the attempts, but still missed seven of the eight 3-pointers they took.

“It’s our fourth game in eight days, our second game in under 24 hours,” Fox said. “I didn’t feel like today would be a good 3-point shooting day for either team. I think we anticipated it would probably be a game where 3s are hard to come by.”

Shaka Smart’s Longhorns had a part in Cal’s cold shooting. One night after allowing Georgetown 45 points after halftime–and being outscored by 21 points–Texas made defense a point of emphasis. The bigger, more experienced Longhorns weren’t necessarily disruptive, blocking three shots and creating three steals, but they gave Cal fits by simply contesting shots and rebounding the misses.

“Today we responded from that loss last night,” said Texas forward Jericho Sims, who was one of four Longhorns’ starters to score in double figures. “I learned that we’re a gritty team and we just got to keep the strong identity.”

Texas certainly didn’t take control by making shots, as their 41 percent shooting wasn’t much better than the Bears. But they seized control with the outcome in doubt, starting the second half on an 18-9 run that stretched their lead to 13 points with 12:38 remaining. Seven different Longhorns had baskets in the run, as the Longhorns did a better job than Cal of sharing the basketball. Texas finished with 19 assists on 26 made baskets.

For Cal, the trip to New York to face top-ranked Duke and Texas was a reality check after their 4-0 start against lesser competition. Defensively, they were engaged, but did little offensively. Matt Bradley led the Bears with 22 points on Friday, and he registered as the only Cal scorer in double figures in either game, which shows were Cal needs to improve.

“We’ll use it hopefully as a great lesson in how we have to grow and change and improve. If we use it the right way, this weekend can be very productive for us,” Fox said.

Cal resumes its schedule on Tuesday when UC Davis visits Haas Pavilion.