Category: Cal Bears

By Morris Phillips

Quite frankly, Cal’s opening drive of 2014 may have been better than their entire, 1-11, 2013 season put together. That’s how good the 18-play drive was and, conversely, how bad the Bears were in their first season under head coach Sonny Dykes.

But the best part? Things got even better after the opening drive in Cal’s surprising 31-24 win over Northwestern. The Bears scored touchdowns on their first two possessions, built a 24-7 halftime lead, and held off a second-half rally by the Wildcats to beat a Division I opponent for the first time under Dykes.

“The big thing for me is just establishing what this team is,” Dykes said. “New Year. Everything is brand new and we’ll see where we are to start the year and make our journey.”

Cal’s two-pronged quarterback attack led the way as sophomore Jared Goff threw for 281 yards and three scores while freshman Luke Rubenzer spelled Goff and ran for a team-best 48 yards on 11 carries. Rubenzer made his name in pre-season practices with his arm and feet but was used in the opener as a change-up guy who wasn’t afraid to stick his helmet into the teeth of the defense.

Eight of Rubenzer’s 11 carries came on Cal’s first two drives as the freshman spelled Goff and kept the Wildcats’ defense on its heels. The 18-play opening drive culminated in a 1-yard touchdown pass to Bryce Treggs and was followed by an 11-play drive that ended when Kenny Lawler Jr. caught Goff’s 7-yard touchdown pass.

In between the two opening drives, the Bears’ defense stopped Northwestern at the Cal 22-yard line on fourth down and 1. Suddenly—and after being uncompetitive in games for long stretches in 2013—the Bears found themselves with a 14-0, first quarter lead.

When Northwestern finally struck back with a 54-yard touchdown pass and catch from Trevor Siemian to Cameron Dickerson late in the second quarter, the Bears opened their next drive with a 76-yard bomb from Goff to Trevor Davis that allowed Cal to take 24-7 lead to the locker room at halftime.

Davis not only caught his first touchdown as a Bear, he also led the team with 3 catches for 93 yards.

Cal saw Northwestern rally after halftime, slicing the Bears’ lead to 31-24 in the fourth quarter, but with the Wildcats driving for a potential, tying score in the final moments, Cal linebacker Jalen Jefferson came up with the critical interception with 1:38 remaining that preserved the win.  

Jefferson was a one-man wrecking crew, finishing with a career-best 16 tackles along with a sack and his second-career interception, both coming in the fourth quarter.

Afterwards, the Bears were relieved to have ended their streak of losses against Division I opponents. But the disasterous 2013 season left the young team with only one direction—up—to pursue.

“All the work we put in all season, everything we did from last winter, all the way to spring ball, all the way to summer conditioning and all the way to camp has really kind of just come together,” Goff said. “That doesn’t mean we’re done or we’re finished or anything, but it just feels great to especially give the seniors, the guys who have been working for five years to get a big win like this.”

The Bears open their home schedule on Saturday at noon when they get a visit from the Sacramento State Hornets.

by Ralph Gora

SANTA CLARA–The one thing that was discussed at Wednesday’s college coaches luncheon at Levi’s Stadium that the Cal Bears player athletes scores were much better. That was something confirmed by the head coach Sonny Dykes. Dykes also admitted the Bears had a tough year last season going 1-12 but look to turn things around in 2014.

“We have tremendous optimism as we start on Sunday and look forward to moving on our program, we talk about this last year about the small battles that we won and what they meant to us” Dykes said. Dykes said that there are things that need to be worked on during camp that will impact the future of the program at Cal.

Dykes said that the Bears need to believe in themselves and said that last season brought some pretty adverse situations especially considering that the team won only one game in 2013 with not a lot wins on the field. The optimism on the club has continued and Dykes said it’s carried from early spring to this summer.

Dykes is happy with the team’s hard work in camp thus far and he’s been please with the players attitude and what they’ve brought to camp. Dykes is excited about what he’s seen with the team since last fall and feels that the Bears have a chance to build for this season and looks forward to be involved in a program that the school could be proud of.

The student athletes have improved in the classroom in what was an issue, Dykes said that the team has addressed this with the team and told the players that improvement on their grades need to have the utmost action taken and that it’s paying off for the Bears in the classroom. Dykes said that the players have raised their APR from a 922 to 969 from last year and that was a tremendous jump.

The grade scores have placed Cal in the middle of the Pac 12 Conference and Dykes said there is still work to be done as he is pushing for the school to be at the top. Dykes feels with that number the school can only get better and better with improvement and Dykes said he’s excited that that grade average number is only going to increase for his players.

Ralph Gora covered the Cal Bears at the college coaches luncheon at Levis Stadium on Wednesday for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

By Morris Phillips

Purdue man leaves Tennessee to coach the Golden Bears. 

Must be a story there. 

And there is.

Cuonzo Martin is leaving the Tennessee Volunteers to replace Mike Montgomery at Cal.  Martin spent three years in Knoxville following four years as head coach at Missouri State.   The former Purdue player appeared to be staying with Tennessee after leading the Vols on a season concluding run and an NCAA Sweet 16 appearance. But discord ran deep between Martin and Tennessee fans who campaigned loudly that he not be retained for a fourth year.
While others like former Warriors coach Eric Musselman and former UCLA coach Ben Howland were mentioned in the search, Martin was not. It wasn’t until Xavier coach Chris Mack apparently turned down the job that the Tennessee coach was seriously considered.
The Bears return David Kravish, Jabari Bird, Jordan Mathews and Tyrone Wallace to a team that finished tied for fourth in the Pac-12 and made an NIT appearance.

By Morris Phillips

A game featuring coaches with a combined 2,400 career wins figured to be fiercely competitive.  That Mike Montgomery and Larry Brown sniffed out the other’s intentions on the biggest possession of the night in itself was fitting.  This time, Brown’s execution was a step ahead of Montgomery’s anticipation as Nic Moore’s 3-pointer with nine seconds remaining won it for SMU, 67-65.

The Cal Bears finish their season at 21-14, one game short of a NIT semifinal appearance in Madison Square Garden.

SMU will make the Garden appearance, and continue a renaissance season under Brown, who is making the 13^th stop in his Hall of Fame coaching career.  The Mustangs were the most notable NCAA tournament omission, and they’ve displayed their worthiness, by winning three straight in the NIT.

But this one was whisker-close, and had it gone the other way, could have easily stood as the biggest win in Montgomery’s exemplary six years at Cal.

The Bears played without Richard Solomon and Kameron Rooks and saw Ricky Kreklow compete bravely with a broken nose, but never backed down from bigger SMU, which lost only one game all season at sold out Moody Coliseum.  With three lead changes in the final 90 seconds, this was a crowd pleaser, well above typical NIT fare that pales to the bigger NCAA bracket.

“The environment, the atmosphere was terrific,” Montgomery said.  “It’s great to see the job Larry has done here and got the excitement back up.  It was loud.”

Cal shot well early and led most of the first half, only to see SMU respond in the final minutes to lead, 32-29 at the break.  Spearheaded by Jabari Bird, who scored 15 of his 20 points in the second half, the Bears erased SMU’s seven-point advantage and led 18 seconds remaining.   That’s when the Bears abandoned the zone look they’d used for most of the night. The 67-year old Montgomery knew SMU would solve a zone in that situation and create a quality look to win.  But the 73-year old Brown was a step ahead.

“I thought they would play man, they had played zone the whole time, and fortunately they played man and Markus (Kennedy) set a good screen and we got a wide-open look,” Brown said.

Sophomore guard Moore raced along the three point line from the baseline and caught and shot the game winner in a flawless sequence.

“(Brown) called the one that I wanted to hear and Nick Russell found me and I hit the shot,” Moore said.  “Moody magic came out.”

“I thought it was the right decision,” Montgomery said of the defensive change.  “We were switching all the ball screens…everybody was prepared to do that. Tough shot…good result for them.”

Justin Cobbs raced up court when Cal eschewed a final timeout, but his three attempt at the buzzer just missed. The senior guard had just given Cal a led with 18 seconds to go, on a shot from distance, but this one was barely off.

”It felt good actually,” Cobbs said. ”It just didn’t go down.”

Cobbs helped lead Cal with 18 points in his final college game.  Bird had his best game of his young career, scoring in double figures for the third straight game for the first time.   In the absence of Solomon, David Kravish gamely played 38 minutes, scoring 12 points with eight rebounds.

Markus Kennedy had 19 points for SMU and Moore added 11.  The Mustangs enjoyed a huge disparity on the glass, 35-22.