Author: moepea

I like lilacs, mist and cold air.

UCLA leaves Cal at the side of the road in 76-56 conference win

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By Morris Phillips

This Cal-UCLA pairing isn’t looking much like a rivalry right now.

The Bears looked like they were stuck in Southern California freeway traffic in falling to UCLA 76-56 on Sunday. The loss was Cal’s seventh in a row against the Bruins, and they haven’t won in Pauley Pavilion since 2010–well before one of college basketball’s best known venues underwent a major renovation.

Coach Mark Fox’s club didn’t actually get stuck in traffic. But they did deal with COVID-19 snafus that kept Makale Foreman and a second player in Berkeley on Saturday while the rest of the team traveled to Los Angeles. Those two players joined the team for the game but missed Saturday’s practice and the pre-game walk through. Fox wasn’t succinct, but apparently both players may have been saddled with false positive tests that took 24 hours to correct.

That upheaval along with playing one of the Pac-12’s championship favorites on a date historically early in the schedule left Cal disorganized, especially in the game’s first half.

“We were a step behind every play,” Fox said. “They shot nearly 70% in the first half. You have to give them credit for some for that, but obviously our defense was nowhere near where we wanted to be. Offensively, I didn’t think we played with any authority.”

At one point, the Bruins scored 15 straight to extend their lead to 31-11 with 6:57 remaining. The Bears would trail 40-22 at the half without recording a steal, a blocked shot or an offensive rebound.

“Yeah, we defended without fouling,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said. “Also they only had three offensive rebounds on 27 misses, so we worked hard on our boxing out. We know they’re a big, strong, physical team. The most irrelevant stat on a statsheet is the halftime score. I laugh when I hear ‘ya, ya, we were winning at half.’ That means you lost if somebody says that. We talk about strategy at halftime. What had hurt us, adjustments, we were well-aware that Mark Fox’s teams are not going to quit.”

The Bears did string together five consecutive possessions with points, getting them to within 66-54 with 4:30 remaining. But UCLA responded, scoring 10 straight to re-establish a 20-point lead.

Foreman led Cal with 14 points. Ryan Betley and Matt Bradley each contributed 12 points.

Both programs have remarkable similarities in the last two seasons, but UCLA and Cal have embarked on dissimilar trajectories. Both Fox and Cronin are veteran coaches in their second seasons at their respective schools, and in both programs, tough times and decisions have already hashed out. But the Bruins have better weathered the storms, starting with their 50-40 victory over Cal in January that sparked a 10-3 finish to last season that vaulted the Bruins to the top of the Pac-12 standings.

The Bruins have the better recruits but things didn’t gel until Cronin repeatedly demanded a defensive approach and got his team to buy in.

And the Bears? For Fox and his crew, their have been breakthroughs–seven conference wins last season and a Pac-12 tournament upset of Stanford–but the losses have been glaring, including Sunday’s.

Ironically, both teams returned eight rotation players from January’s game into Sunday. The Bruins have a clear, defensive identity augmented by offensive standouts Tyger Campbell (11 points, 12 assists on Sunday) and NBA prospect Chris Smith (21 points, two steals), a long armed shooter and defender who has grown at both ends of the floor.

Of Cal’s eight returners, none seems poised for stardom, including Bradley, who watched the final minutes from the bench as Cal briefly rallied. More specifically, none of the eight has added a secondary skill that will help Fox fill in the gaps. The Bears absence of an offensive facilitator and a secondary scorer needs to be addressed. Which players can answer the call?

The Bears continue their Los Angeles swing at Pepperdine on Wednesday. The Waves took the Bruins to three overtimes last week in San Diego before falling 107-98.

Cal builds a wall late, holds off No. 23 Oregon for first win

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By Morris Phillips

BERKELEY, CA–Waiting until December 5 to win for the first time proved agonizing for the Cal Bears.

But for coach Justin Wilcox not having his club repeat its litany of mistakes suffered against Stanford was especially satisfying, as the Bears held on to beat No. 23 Oregon 21-17 Saturday night.

“We felt like in the last couple of weeks for much of the game we played well enough to win,” Wilcox said. “Just made too many mistakes. We were not perfect tonight by any means, but really proud of hard the guys played and that’s a result of practice and preparation.”

Nikko Remiglio’s 28-yard touchdown catch ended up as the game’s winning play and the only score of the second half as the Bears prevented the Ducks from grabbing the lead on three possessions in the fourth quarter. Both teams missed opportunities to seize control in the second half as defense took over on both sides after halftime.

Oregon overcame a lackluster first half by striking for a pair of touchdowns in the final 2:08 before the break to wipe out Cal’s 14-3 lead. Oregon quarterback Tyler Shough hooked up with Travis Dye for a 67-yard pass play which set up Cyrus Habibi-Likio’s one-yard touchdown run two plays later to cap Oregon’s rally that took just 90 seconds in game time to complete.

But the second half saw the Bears contain Shough for the most part, followed by a pair of costly turnovers in the game’s final minutes. Cal’s Kuony Deng jarred the ball loose from Oregon’s Johnny Johnson II at Cal’s 38-yard line with 52 seconds remaining to exhaust the Ducks final push.

Oregon coach Mario Cristobal saw his Ducks lose in a similar manner to Oregon State last week as mistakes late cost his club its national and Pac-12 title hopes.

“Self-inflicted issues. And just not generating any type of points in the second half. Stopping ourselves on drives,” Cristobal said. “Just coming up short. Not good enough.”

Chase Garbers finished 20 of 32 passing for 183 yards and a touchdown as the Bears overcame a lack of success running the ball with Oregon holding them under 100 yards rushing. Ironically, the touchdown pass to Remiglio came on play action with Garbers elaborate hiding off the football allowing his receiver to work himself open at the goal line behind the pinching Ducks’ linebackers.

The Bears still have slim postseason hopes with a trip to Pullman up next to face Washington State on Saturday. The Bears would need to win out and find a compatible bowl in a landscape where several have already been canceled due to COVID-19.

“It’s a good thing any time we have some success and then are able to parlay that into more opportunities to play,” Wilcox said.

Arizona State holds off Cal, 70-62 in Pac-12 opener

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By Morris Phillips

BERKELEY, CA–Coach Mark Fox gave an honest opinion in handicapping his Bears’ assignment against high-scoring Arizona State saying, “we’re going to have to overachieve.”

Fox got his wish, with Cal playing above its current abilities and pushing the Sun Devils to the limit. But that effort wasn’t quite at the level needed to pull a significant, early season upset.

Senior Remy Martin led ASU with 22 points, five assists and the Bears went the final 2:11 scoreless, falling 70-62 at Haas Pavilion. The Pac-12 opener for both teams saw the Sun Devils maintain a slim lead throughout the game’s final 21 minutes after Cal led for the final time, 34-31 just before halftime.

Matt Bradley led Cal with 20 points, but missed 14 shot attempts as Cal’s offense never got dialed in despite a significant edge on the glass providing additional opportunities.

The Bears shot just 40 percent from the floor and committed 20 turnovers. That and a quiet night from the Cal bench (6 points) marked the line between Fox’s desired overachievement and something decidedly less.

The Golden Bears (2-2, 0-1) travel to UCLA on Sunday afternoon knowing their glaring needs of better ball movement and a consistent, secondary scorer are clearly discernable for their opponent. The Bruins exploited both issues in Cal’s worst offensive effort of last season, also at Pauley Pavilion.

While transfers Ryan Betley and Makale Foreman have been capable starters and shooters, returning Bears Joel Brown, Andre Kelly, Lars Thiemann and Grant Anticevich haven’t had representative games in any of the four contests to date. Anticevich is 3 of 16 from distance thus far with Fox saying shooting improvement from distance should come quickly for his senior forward and Bradley as well.

The Sun Devils got 14 points, three rebounds from their highest rated recruit in program history, Josh Christopher, the younger brother of former Cal star Patrick Christopher.

Blocked extra point leaves Cal winless, and without the Axe

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By Morris Phillips

How could a blocked extra point be so costly?

For star-crossed Cal, it was just that: no overtime, no win over Stanford, no Axe and likely no postseason.

With under four-and-a-half minutes remaining, the Bears moved smartly and quickly down field culminating with Christopher Brown Jr.’s 3-yard touchdown to pull the Bears within 24-23 pending the extra point. But with 58 seconds remaining, Dario Longhetto’s kick was blocked, leaving Cal agonizingly short.

“We had multiple opportunities to win the game but we didn’t get it done,” coach Justin Wilcox said. “We can’t sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. We have to own it, starting with me. We have to coach better and individually have to own up to what we didn’t do well enough to win the game.”

Wilcox hinted at other problems, not just the blocked kick. There were several–a muffed punt, a blocked field goal attempt before the half, and two critical deficits, 17-10 and 24-17 with time running short–leading the Bears to a tough loss without any wins.

The Bears got another gritty effort from Chase Garbers, and a 121-yard rushing effort from true freshman Damien Moore. But missing three starters on the offensive line prevented the Bears from seizing momentum and keeping it. No consecutive scores and miscues kept the Bears locked in a close game.

Stanford–absent of the edge in physicality that propelled them to eight, consecutive wins in the series prior to last season–simply followed Cal’s miscues with opportunism.

Cal basketball in the win column with blowout of Northwest WA, 86-61

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The Cal Bears Ryan Betley (00) led all scorers on Thanksgiving night at Northwest University at Gill Coliseum with 14 points in the Bears first win of the 2020-21 season (KLC Photos)

By Morris Phillips

It’s not the distinction the Cal athletic department was looking for but hey, it’s 2020 and just about anything goes.

The Cal men’s basketball team has a win at least a day before the Cal football team gets its initial win. Call it calendar confusion or a COVID cancelations conundrum, the Bears hoopers have their first win, 86-61 over Northwest (WA) a day before the Cal football team (0-2) faces Stanford in the Big Game.

Normally, the overlap between college football and college basketball is brief, but nothing is normal this season. In fact, it wasn’t until midway through this week that the Bears found out they would be playing on Thanksgiving day.

But once the novelty of it all played out the Bears got down to business, decimating the NAIA Eagles with a 27-4 run early in the first half on their way to a 20-point halftime lead and a 25-point win.

Five Golden Bears scored in double figures led by Ryan Betley with 14 points, nine rebounds. Andre Kelly an Matt Bradley each scored 11 points, Makale Foreman and Joel Brown each had 10.

Mark Fox jumbled his lineup, inserting Foreman, Kuany Kuany and D.J. Thorpe as starters after the team started sluggishly on Wednesday versus OSU. Fox took advantage of the big lead by getting playing time for his entire roster with Logan Alters, Blake Welle and Jalen Celestine making their season debuts.

The two schools were originally scheduled for Friday afternoon but the late scratch of the Colorado State Rams due to COVID issues forced the teams to move up 24 hours to accommodate a newly scheduled Northwest (WA)-Oregon State matchup on Friday.

The Bears return to the Bay Area early in anticipation of their home opener against Nicholls of the Southland Conference on Monday night.

 

 

Bears’ late rally falls short in season-opening loss to Oregon State, 71-63

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By Morris Phillips

A sluggish start doomed the Cal Bears in their much-anticipated season opener against Oregon State.

After trailing by five at the half–and as many as 14 in the second half–the Bears’ late rally came up short in a 71-63 loss at Corvallis. Cal gets a quick turnaround with Northwest University up next at 3pm on Thursday also at Gill Coliseum.

The Bears and Beavers agreed to play each other in a rare non-conference matchup between Pac-12 foes just 48 hours earlier when Cal’s scheduled opponent, Colorado State was forced to withdraw from the multi-team event due to Coronavirus issues.

The Bears may have had a couple of more returning players than did OSU, but the Beavers had the more impactful newcomers as they controlled the glass and displayed better shot selection in a game the home team led throughout. Senior guard Ethan Thompson led OSU with 15 points, seven rebounds and six assists and Nicholls transfer Warith Alatishe contributed 16 points to help Oregon State hold off Cal, who climbed within 67-62 with a 1:30 remaining but could get no closer.

The Bears got 21 points from Matt Bradley, who led Cal despite missing 11 of his 16 shot attempts from the floor. Transfer guard Makale Foreman was the only other Bear in double digits with 10.

Cal ran into trouble early, falling behind 10-4 on their way to missing 18 of their 30 field goal attempts before halftime. The Bears ran into more problems in the second half by shooting threes in an attempt to get back in the game, but missed 11 of 14.

The Beavers controlled the glass 43-32 to make up for their subpar 44 percent shooting. Reserve Rodrique Andela grabbed 11 rebounds in just 23 minutes off the bench. Jarod Lucas was OSU’s other bench contributor with 11 points in 24 minutes.

Freshman Monty Bowser and graduate transfer Ryan Betley made their Cal debuts with Betley starting and scoring nine points.

The two schools hadn’t met as non-conference opponents since the 1987 NIT. Prior to that they met in a regular season contest at the Far West Classic in Portland in 1984.

The Bears and Beavers will meet again on January 2 and February 25 in Berkeley. They split last season with each team winning at home.

Stanford’s home-opener win streak snapped in 35-32 loss to Colorado

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By Morris Phillips

STANFORD, CA–Until someone figures out Jarek Broussard and the Colorado run game, the good times could hang around Boulder for a while.

And Stanford? The physical, hard-nosed bunch always hanging around their football facility for the last decade might not be currently enrolled in school.

Stanford survived a rough first half in which they couldn’t finish anything offensively while the visiting Buffs cleaned up with their quick-hitting run game. But somehow quarterback Davis Mills and kicker Jet Toner kept the Cardinal within range, down five, 14-9.

The appearance of competitiveness disappeared quickly to start the third quarter, as Colorado struck for two touchdowns on their way to a 35-32 win at Stanford Stadium.

“Everybody’s buying in,” fifth-year senior quarterback Sam Noyer said. “Guys are having fun out there. It’s good to see that again. I haven’t seen that in a couple years.”

Noyer ran for a pair of touchdowns and threw for two more, including a 34-yard pass play to Jerry Rice’s son, Brenden that put the Buffs up 28-9 just six minutes into the second half.

Mills did his best to rally Stanford, throwing for 327 yards and a touchdown, but the senior misfired on 25 pass attempts and failed to convert 11 of 16 third down opportunities. Mills’ uneven performance was indicative of his lack of practice and game reps due to COVID testing procedures that the Pac-12 admitted this week contained errors and should not have forced the Cardinal to hold out Mills and three others that missed the opener at Oregon.

“He was in isolation essentially from Saturday afternoon until Thursday night,” coach David Shaw said of Mills. “He was able to come in and get one practice and it showed. There’s not much we could have done about it, but to say that it didn’t affect his performance I think would be inaccurate.”

Mills one-yard touchdown pass to Scooter Harrington cut the Colorado lead from as many as 19 to three with 2:45 remaining. But the Buffs salted away the remainder of the clock, allowing Stanford just 10 seconds and the final play of the game which resulted in a fumble.

The Buffs got 121 yards rushing from Broussard, and 177 yards total on 45 carries. That didn’t include a swing pass that turned into a 55-yard touchdown by Dimitry Stanley, one of several big plays where the Stanford defense was caught uncharacteristically napping.

The Stanford run game underperformed, managing just 70 yards on 21 carries, in part due to Mills needing to throw on nearly every down when their deficit grew to three scores. Still Austin Jones paltry production stood out as the sophomore followed up a 100-yard performance at Oregon with nine yards on nine carries.

The Cardinal fell to 0-2 after finishing last season 4-8, by far the worst stretch of results in the last decade under Shaw. Stanford also dropped their home opener for the first time after 12 consecutive wins.

Cal’s season opener against Washington canceled due to COVID

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By Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–The Washington-Cal Bears football game scheduled for Saturday night has been canceled due to a player’s positive COVID test, and the subsequent quarantining of the Cal players in his position group.

The decision to quarantine the infected player’s position mates was made by the Berkeley Public Health Department in keeping with their mandates through contact tracing. The player registering the positive test remains asymptomatic, but those student-athletes who were deemed to be in close contact with him must quarantine for 14 days, the period of time in which the virus could surface due to the contact.

That means along with Saturday’s cancelation, the Bears’ game at Arizona State scheduled for November 14 could also be in jeopardy once individual timeline’s are determined for each quarantined individual based on their most recent contact with the athlete registering positive.

“I think part of this is tough to swallow because the players and our athletic department, coaches, athletes tried to do the best we can with the information we had. And unfortunately, it didn’t quite do the job because they still were contact-traced. They don’t talk to us about those specific scenarios,” Cal coach Justin Wilcox said.

Only 20 student athletes at Cal have registered positive tests since on-campus activities resumed along with regular testing on June 4. This was the first positive test within the football program, and couldn’t have come at worse time with two games of the team’s abbreviated six-game schedule jeopardized without the possibility of being rescheduled.

Further, the Bears had received positive reviews from Pac-12 journalists who touted the team’s experience and talent relative to their conference opponents. The outset of the season also gave the entire athletic department hope that they could lessen the financial issues within the program caused by a series of annual financial deficits.

A’s win season finale, 6-2, host the White Sox on Tuesday in playoff opener

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By Morris Phillips

OAKLAND–Losing five of seven to close the regular season isn’t ideal, but winning the season finale is for the A’s.

“More than anything, it’s been a difficult season on some guys,” manager Bob Melvin said. “It’s a new, clean slate. You can really make up a lot of ground by having a good postseason.”

Winning or losing the final contest of a pandemic-truncated season prior to the start of an expanded postseason is just one aspect. The crazy world of major league-mandated tie breakers is the other confounding piece of this unique 2020 season.

The AL West champions rebounded from a 2-1 deficit on Sunday to defeat the Mariners, 6-2, and appeared set to host the Astros, a familiar and dangerous opponent, despite their losing record (29-31), the worst of the AL qualifiers.

But 45 minutes after the A’s win, the Twins fell to the Reds in Minneapolis, 5-3 in 10 innings, and that bumped the A’s to the two-seed and a matchup with the Chicago White Sox, the third-place qualifier from the AL Central with a record just one game inferior to the A’s (36-24).

Wait a minute. How’s that? The A’s moved up a seed, but drew a far more accomplished opponent in the process? Well, in the word of Rob Manfred, yes.

The pairings follow a familiar pattern: the eight qualifiers in each league are seeded 1-3 for the first place teams, 4-6 for the second place teams, and 7 and 8 for the best remaining records. What makes the process disjointed is the mixing of two seeding philosophies where the final two qualifiers aren’t the two best, third place clubs with a 60-game schedule that had each club playing just nine of the other 29 big league clubs.

Because of that, only one of the eight, opening series involve clubs that have played each other in the regular season (Blue Jays versus Rays). That leaves a lot of uncertainty, especially in the 48 hours leading up to the wild card openers.

Would the A’s rather see a familiar opponent with a losing record, or one with as good as record as themselves that they haven’t seen since March 3 in spring training?

We’re about to find out. This aspect will be appealing to them: instead of one opportunity in front of 50,000 adoring fans, the A’s will get three shots to win twice in the their stadium with no fans.

The winners of the Astros-Twins series and the White Sox-A’s series will advance to a ALDS pairing at Dodgers Stadium. Again two opponents with no recent familiarity in an unfamiliar ballpark.

The A’s have starting pitching options in Sean Manaea, Mike Fiers, Mike Minor, Jesus Luzardo and Frankie Montas, who enhanced his stature with a career-best 13 strikeouts in six innings on Sunday. Montas had muddied his postseason outlook with an ERA of 10.88 over his previous six starts overlapping the birth of his child and a subsequent paternity leave.

“I was going to take him out after five, but I really needed him one more inning,” Melvin said of Montas. “He came in before I said anything and said, ‘I want one more’ and then struck everybody out. I think that’s going to do wonders for him going forward.”

Chad Pinder returned from the injured list and entered the game as a pinch hitter, than designated hitter getting three at-bats. Pinder last played September 12, and he gives the A’s another option to fill the big shoes of Matt Chapman at third base.

The primary option at the hot corner, Jake Lamb homered leading off the seventh inning to give the A’s the lead for the first time, 3-2. The former Diamondback has 12 hits–seven for extra bases–in 13 games for the A’s.

Rockies strike back, pin critical 5-4 loss on the Giants

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By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–Gabe Kapler immediately turned his focus to Friday’s doubleheader, and the biggest 14 innings of the season for his Giants.

And what of Thursday’s agonizing 5-4 loss to the Rockies that could have had his club in the driver’s seat regarding the postseason heading into the weekend?

Kapler simply avoided any reflection–emotional or analytical–involving the Giants.

“They got the job done, and you have to kind of tip your cap to them,” Kapler said of the Rockies. “They did pull out all the stops. They put the five-man infield out there. They extended Bard, I’m guessing, probably beyond the most comfortable space. That was a good effort by their ballclub.”

What the Giants hope to achieve with 14 flawless innings on Friday, they basically failed to achieve in 11 uneven innings Thursday afternoon. The Giants jumped out to a 3-0 lead after two innings, only to trail 4-3 after seven. Brandon Belt’s homer got the Giants even after eight. Then the Giants put themselves on the precipice of victory with a bases loaded, one out situation in the tenth, only to stall and then see the Rockies take control in the 11th.

Kevin Gausman essentially admitted what Kapler would not regarding the frustrating affair.

“We don’t really have the luxury of sitting around and feeling bad for ourselves,” Gausman said. “We’ve got a doubleheader tomorrow against the Padres. If we can win both those games that would be huge. Just try to forget about it.”

The Giants’ offense wasn’t as decisive as its been at Oracle Park. After their early flurry, the Giants scored one run over the game’s final nine innings. They failed to fully capitalize on five extra-base hits, and the bases-loaded failure in the tenth could have given them control of the game. The team’s improving bullpen held up, but allowed the game-winning run in the 11th.

The out-of-town scoreboard provided some good news; some bad on Thursday. The Marlins bounced back, beating the Braves to remain over .500 and ahead of the Giants. Meanwhile, the Brewers fell to the Cardinals, keeping them behind the Giants, and along with the Phillies, saddled with a losing record.