Tag: Cal Bears

Headline Sports podcast with London Marq: TMZ reports D. Cousins threatens to put bullet in head of ex-girlfriend; Cal hopes to work towards a bigger bowl game this year; plus more

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On Headline Sports with London:

#1 Former Golden State Warrior and now Los Angeles Laker DeMarcus Cousins threaten to put a bullet in the head of his ex-girlfriend Christy West. West filed a restraining order against Cousins. Cousins wanted their seven-year-old son to attend the wedding of his and his girlfriend, but West said she wouldn’t have it, which touched off the argument. Cousins is out for the season with a torn ACL.

#2 The Cal Bears’ Justin Wilcox preparing his team for this Saturday’s game against UC Davis. Wilcox led Cal to a 7-6, 4-5 record last season. They got in the Cheez-It Bowl last season, but are looking for a bigger bowl this season.

#3 Kansas City Royals owner David Glass is close to selling the Royals for $900 million. The deal for $1 billion would go to John Sherman, a Kansas City businessman. Under Glass, the Royals won the 2015 World Series against the New York Mets.

#4 The San Jose Earthquakes picked up a key win after going winless in four of five games they got the victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps. The Quakes’ Judson, Chris Wondolowski, and Andres Rios all scored for San Jose for the 3-1 win.

#5 London has Orlando City at San Jose this Saturday night at Avaya Stadium. The Quakes are looking for their second straight win. Does playing at home give them that chance?

London does Headline Sports each Wednesday at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Stanford closes out the season against Cal Thursday night

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Photo credit: @StanfordMBB

By: Ana Kieu

Stanford Cardinal men’s basketball fought all the way, but came up just short in Sunday’s 62-61 loss to the Washington Huskies at Maples Pavilion. Stanford had a chance to win on the game’s final possession, but KZ Okpala’s shot at the buzzer was no good and Stanford fell to Washington.

Josh Sharma scored 16 to go along with 14 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season. The teams traded baskets down the stretch, before Washington forced a pair of turnovers in the final 2:37 to gain an advantage. A Sharma basket put Stanford back on top with 1:51 to go, but Washington got consecutive baskets from Nowell to go on top for good.

Oscar da Silva added 15 points and 10 rebounds for the Cardinal.

Now, Stanford (15-14, 8-9 Pac-12) has another conference foe, Cal (7-22, 2-15 Pac-12), to host at Maples Thursday night. Well, it’s not going to be friendly, as these two teams are conference foes and the same thing will be applied to their respective fanbases. Stanford has one goal in mind and that’s to beat Cal, but that’s easier said than done. Although Cal is the equivalent of San Jose State in the Pac-12, Cal might unleash their anger on Stanford. But you never know which Stanford team will show up so this may turn out to be a down-to-the-wire Pac-12 clash.

By the way, Stanford teamed up with Coaching for Literacy in Sunday’s game. Cardinal head coach Jerod Haase and company wore green ties, lapel pins and wristbands to raise awareness and support the #Fight4Literacy cause.

Oh, and before I forget, Cardinal guard Cormac Ryan ranks third among freshmen in school history with 47 three-pointers.

Dog Days Are Over: Cal clips the Huskies to end 16-game losing streak

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By Morris Phillips

BERKELEY, Calif. — Washington coach Mike Hopkins may have been the first to grasp what was transpiring when he called a pair of early timeouts to express his exasperation with the indifference his Huskies were displaying on defense.

Ultimately, Hopkins’ timeouts didn’t work.

The Cal Bears, off a favorable start, wavered briefly before halftime, only to recover and hand Pac-12 leading Washington a damaging 76-73 loss that will weigh heavily with the NCAA selection committee. Immediately, Cal’s win ends their 16-game losing streak that had outweighed any positives Wyking Jones’ team had gathered in a trying season.

“We knew we had it in us. We just had to find it,” said Connor Vanover. “It took awhile, but now I think moving forward we will have a clear head. If we can beat Washington, why not anyone else?”

Meanwhile, Washington found little consolation in winning the conference regular season title despite the loss when their closest pursuers, Oregon State and Arizona State, both loss on Thursday.

“We didn’t respect the game,” Crisp said. “We didn’t respect our opponent. We just expected we would come out and win the game. Obviously, you’re never going to win basketball games like that.”

The Bears bothered Washington early with a 2-3 zone that forced the Huskies into some careless turnovers, and quick, fruitless possessions. The Bears took the lead, 19-16, on Paris Austin’s 3-pointer with 11:57 remaining before halftime.

Any scenario seeing the Bears end their lengthy losing streak would have to involve an offensive explosion since the nation’s 313th-ranked defense was unlikely to make a difference at the Pac-12 level. And that formula played out as Darius McNeill,  Connor Vanover and Justice Sueing combined for 51 points, and the team shot 55 percent from the floor, and 53 percent from distance. The Bears shared the ball, solving Washington’s frequent use of a 2-3 zone.

“They kept their composure,” Jones said of his Bears’ poise down the stretch. “We turned it over a couple times, late, and they did as well, but the guys just continued to believe, more than anything. Connor continues to shine and kind of give us all a preview of how good he can be.”

And most importantly, the Huskies were limited, failing to produce a run that could create some separation on the scoreboard.

Instead, the Huskies blinked, scoring just four points in the final 5:03 of the game, allowing Cal to protect a paper-thin lead.

With Washington misfiring, the Bears got their final basket from Vanover with 3:26 remaining. Three made free throws broke the tie and gave Cal a lead they would protect.

The Huskies missed three shots in the final minute, including a good look from David Crisp at the buzzer. Crisp led all scorers with 32 points, but only 5 of those 32 came in the final 12 minutes of the game.

“We’ve done about everything wrong in the last couple games where we give up the lead within the last five minutes,” Sueing said. “Going into this game, we were used to having that close, intense matchup. We made it a thing to make sure we stayed together and fight until the end.”

“You got to play with passion and have a chip on our shoulder with every possession and we didn’t have that tonight,” Hopkins said. “We didn’t have basic principles. We were breaking down and you can’t do that with your foundation.”

Cal hosts Washington State on Saturday, their final home game before they close the regular season at Stanford on March 9.

Bears Squander Another Opportunity, Fall to UCLA 75-67 in Overtime

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Photo credit: @CalMBBall

By: Michael Duca

BERKELEY, Calif. — The second time was not the charm.

Cal opened its Pac-12 season against a UCLA team in disarray, with Interim Coach Murry Bartow coaching his first game after a mid-season change. The Bruins broke form and blew out Cal at Pauley. Wednesday night, the Bears got their shot at the Bruins at home, immediately after what should have been a soul-crushing loss to Utah Sunday afternoon.

It was not meant to be.

One of the worst free-throw shooting teams in the nation (62%), the UCLA Bruins rode 9-of-10 shooting from the charity stripe to a 75-67 overtime victory at Haas Pavilion. Led by Kris Wilkes 27 points, the Bruins, who did not lead until 11:04 remained in regulation, caught fire late from behind the arc to steal a sloppy game from Cal, which is still seeking its first conference win (0-12, 5-18). UCLA started the game shooting 3-of-16 from behind the arc, but finished hitting 7 of their final 16 treys, including back-to-back shots from the left corner in a 30-second span in the final 90 seconds of regulation. Those three-balls pulled the Bruins from a 59-55 hole inside 2:00.

Cal, which held a nine point advantage at the half, fell to 3-3 in games with a lead at the intermission. The Bruins played a sloppy game, with 13 turnovers in the first half (and only 4 assists). Those turnovers led to a 15-4 lead in points off turns for Cal, but they just could not hold it in the second half once the Bruins started to hit from outside.

Wilkes 16 points after intermission overshadowed a nice evening for Darius McNeil, who flashed his speed time after time in racking up a team-high 18 points, including four treys, but McNeil also committed a pair of thoroughly unnecessary fouls that gave the Bruins life.  The taller Bruins owned the boards, with a 50-36 edge that included 17 offensive rebounds and 13 second-chance points.

Down 9 with 14:00 left in regulation, David Singleton hit three consecutive three-balls for the Bruins to close the game to 43-42 at 12:18.

Matt Bradley had a rollercoaster night, missing his first eight shots but draining a three to send the game to overtime.

Cal’s frustration will only increase when they watch film – they have suffered mightily in conference play from poor defense, but they held UCLA (averaging 80 points/game) to under 40% shooting on the night, but could barely exceed hitting one-third of their own shots (23-of-68).

Justice Sueing had a solid game with 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting, adding a team-leading 7 rebounds and 3 assists. Conor Vanover is beginning to show flashes of adapting to the speed of the college game, finishing with 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting, plus 6 rebounds and a pair of blocks (plus countless other shots altered), and a pair of plays where he created held balls that gave Cal possession.

It remains to be seen whether Cal will break through and avoid a winless conference season, but it is clear from watching this team that they have not given up on the season – they competed hard for 45 minutes, but just didn’t have the offense to put the game away in regulation.

Next up for Cal are the USC Trojans, Saturday afternoon at 5 pm.

Stanford’s KZ Okpala leads the Cardinal to a 84-81 win over the Cal Bears

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By Jerry Feitelberg

The Stanford Cardinal tipped off against the Cal Bears Sunday afternoon at Haas Pavilion. The Bears have been struggling all season long and the Cardinal entered the game with a mediocre record of 10-10. As followers of both schools know, records do not count when the two teams meet in any type of athletic competition. The Bears, 0-8 in Pac-12 play, wanted desperately to beat the Cardinal. Conversely, The Cardinal did not want to be the first Pac-12 team to be beaten by the Bears.

The teams went at it tooth and nail in the first 20 minutes of action. The lead changed hands several times and the game was tied at least three times in the first half. The Bears led 29-24 when Justice Sueing made a bucket and was fouled on the play. He then made the free throw. The Cardinal’s Cormac Ryan hit a three and Lukas Kisunas followed with his first basket of the night to tie the score at 29. The teams tied again at 31 and 35 each. Cal’s Matt Bradley knocked down a three to make it 38-35. Stanford made a basket and the first half finished with the Bears ahead 38-37. Okpala led the Cardinal with 11 points. Oscar da Silva and Daejon Davis each had 5. Sueing led the Bears with 10. Big Connor Vanover, who is 7 feet 3 inches tall contributed 8. Paris Austin had 6.

It was more of the same in the second half. Neither team would give an inch. If one team went on a small run, the other team fought back to either tie the game or take the lead. Stanford led early, but Cal came back to tie. The Bears tied at 58. The Bears led 66-51 but Stanford kept coming back and the Cardinal, led by KZ Okapala’s 30 points, was able to hold off the Bears as the won 84-81.

Here’s how the game ended. he Bears’ Matt Bradley drove the baseline for an apparent tying bucket. The Cardinal’s big Josh Sharma appeared to have fouled Bradley on the play. After a review, the call was reversed and the ball given to the Cardinal. Had Bradley been awarded the free throws, he could have tied the game. The Cardinal had the ball and ran out the clock to win the game 84-81.

Game Notes: The loss was the Bears tenth in a row and matches the longest streak in school history. The Bears are 5-16 for the season and 0-9 in the Pac-12. The Cardinal’s record is now 11-10 and they are 4-5 in the Pac-12.

Okpala had a career-high of 30 points to lead Stanford. Bryce Wills had 16, Daejon Davis 14, Oscar Da Silva 7 Cormac Ryan, 7. Justice Sueing paced the Bears with 23. Paris Austin had 15, Matt Bradley 13, and Connor Vanover 15.

While this is the third year in a row that the Cardinal is having a so-so season, there is a reason to have hope that the future will be brighter for Stanford as 11 of the 15 players on the squad are either freshman or sophomores. That should bode well for Cardinal coach Jerrod Haase.

Up Next: The Cardinal return to action Thursday night when they face the Oregon State Beavers in Corvallis, Ore.

Cal Bears basketball podcast with Michael and Morris: Cal needs to figure out UCLA and USC

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photo by bruinnation.com: The UCLA Bruins Moses Brown throws down as Cal Bears defender Justice Sueing could just watch during Saturday night’s game at Pauley Pavilion

On the Cal Bears basketball podcast with Morris and Michael:

We thought we’d have some good news to talk about regarding the down Pac-12 conference with two of the more down teams in that conference USC and UCLA. One of them, the UCLA Bruins, started to turn it around before Cal got to town. UCLA fired head coach Steve Alford, and all of sudden, the Bruins have become unstoppable.

UCLA turned it around immediately. They came off those four losses. UCLA lost to Liberty in a 30 point blowout loss. There was Ohio State they played Stanford and they all beat up on Cal. The Bears got 92 points against Stanford and the Bruins. No matter what they did in this last game, they just couldn’t get past UCLA.

Morris and Michael do the Cal Bears podcasts every week podcast at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

 

Duck Soup: Oregon poised to use Redbox Bowl as a springboard for a national title run in 2019

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By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO — All college football bowl participants want to put their best foot forward, making a statement that caps a successful, winning season and serves as a springboard into the next.

The Oregon Ducks might be best positioned to capitalize on that formula.

With the announcement that prolific passing quarterback Justin Herbert will return for his senior year, along with the highest rated recruiting class in the history of the program, the Ducks are positioned to be the Pac-12 favorite and a national title contender in 2019.

For Oregon, the road to the top of the 2019 college football mountain starts Monday in Santa Clara where the Ducks face Michigan State in the Redbox Bowl.

Herbert, who passed for 2,985 yards and 28 touchdowns, was poised to be a top five pick in this spring’s NFL Draft. Instead he’s staying in Eugene in the hopes he can lead the Ducks to rarified air.

“We couldn’t be more excited for Justin to return for his senior season,” Coach Mario Cristobal said. “He is a special talent on the field, but, more importantly, a special person and leader off the field.”

“I have come to realize, is that nothing could pull me away from the opportunities that we have in front of us,” Herbert said. “As we prepare for our bowl game, I would like to ensure that there are no distractions outside of this game. My commitment to my teammates, our coaches, Duck fans, and the University of Oregon has never been stronger.”

To say Herbert’s decision to remain in school bucks current convention would be an understatement.  The 6’6″, 233-pound junior is rated as the No. 1 quarterback on ESPN’s draft board and a surefire top five pick in several other mock draft scenarios. That type of positioning along with the fact that Oregon is coming off an 8-4 season following a 7-6 campaign in 2017 under previous coach Willie Taggart, who bolted from Eugene after one year to coach Florida State, would suggest Herbert to be the next guy to leave town, in his case for millions of dollars courtesy of the NFL.

But that decision would discount the influence of first-year coach Cristobal on Herbert, his classmates, several of whom have also decided to return, and the highly-rated recruiting class. Simply put, something’s brewing with the Ducks, and it’s not just the opportunity to make a third trip to the BCS National Championship game like they did in 2011 and 2015.

It’s the opportunity to potentially win it this time.

Herbert’s return along with that of offensive  linemen Shane Lemieux, Calvin Throckmorton and Jake Hansen–all highly regarded prospects with a remaining year of eligibility–means the Ducks could return all 11 starters on offense, pending the decision of wide receiver Dillon Mitchell. Rarely does the unsettled landscape of college football yield 11 returning starters, but Lemieux made it clear that Cristobal has his entire roster thinking and dreaming.

“We talked this year about laying the foundation where we want our program to go,” Lemieux said. “I want to come back in ten years or so when we’re winning national championships every year and we turn into this dynasty like Alabama or these other schools, and really say, ‘We started that.’ A lot of these seniors right here are going to look back at the foundation that we started.”

Cal prevails over San Jose State to win 88-80

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Photo credit: @CalMBBall

By: Michael Duca

BERKELEY, Calif. — In a Christmas-break clash between two local rebuilding programs, the California Golden Bears and San Jose State Spartans met at Haas Pavilion Friday evening in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd. Cal prevailed, 88-80. Darius McNeil (season-high 22 points) and Andre Kelly (21 points and 10 rebounds, both career highs) led Cal, while Oumar Barry had a career-high 18 points, one of four Spartans in double figures.

The Spartans, behind five players in double figures, were coming off a loss to Stanford where they gave the Cardinal all they wanted, and more, before succumbing 78-73.  Cal was coming off a 95-73 drubbing at the hands of Fresno State.

While both teams opened the game shooting poorly (a combined 2-for-11 in the first three minutes), the Golden Bears (4-6) rode runs of 5-0 and 7-0 to double up the Spartans (3-7), 14-7, in the first seven minutes of play.  It would be misleading to attribute the low scoring to defensive aggressiveness, and each team committed just one personal foul in the game’s first 10 minutes of play.

After the first media timeout, at 16:00, the Bears found the range, hitting 4 of their next 5 shots including 3-of-9 shooting from long distance to extended their lead from 5-4 to 17-9 at the second media timeout.

When the third media timeout rolled around, at 7:27, Cal, trying to solve the Spartans’ 3-2 zone, was riding a cold streak of nearly 5 minutes without a field goal, and more than eight minutes with just a single layup. It got so bad, usually reliable Matt Bradley came up with a steal in the Spartan paint and ran the length of the floor, only to miss the cripple layup. A minute later, San Jose State tied the game at 19 apiece.

The teams traded scores until intermission, which came with the Spartans holding a 32-30 advantage, despite having a less-than-stellar 4/10 assist/turnover ratio.  San Jose State out-shot Cal 48% to 35% and outrebounded them 18-14. Andre Kelly led the Golden Bears with 12 points on 4-of-7 shooting, and six rebounds. Post man Oumar Barry led San Jose State, also with 12 points (on 4-of-6 shooting) and six rebounds, en route to a career scoring high of 18.

Cal came out of the intermission smoking, shooting 70% in the first six minutes and opening a 14-point lead behind 9 points from Darius McNeil.

“They were packing in,” McNeil said, “they wanted us to shoot it (in the first half), we just started hitting them after halftime.”

“I talked to him at halftime,” noted Coach Jones, “and told him he needed to shoot the ball more.”

The Golden Bears were more aggressive to the hoop in a 26-11 run to start the half, and as a result were in the bonus with nearly 13 minutes left in the game.

“Coach had us start to press and we got some turnovers and opened a lead,” said McNeil.

The pesky Spartans refused to go away, however, cutting the lead back to 8 with 6:30 to play. A Matt Bradley block of a Michael Steadman layup at 5:00 produced the Bears’ third defensive stop in four possessions and led to a 12-point cushion with 4:46 to play, 77-65. The Spartans weren’t done yet, however. An 11-0 run in the game’s final three minutes saw the Golden Bears clinging to a 4-point lead inside a minute, after a 2:40 scoring drought.

San Jose State head coach Jean Prioleau said, “I think we have a very competitive group.  We are resilient, and in the beginning stages of building a program in the South Bay Area. I think we shot very well tonight, maybe the best in school history. We had a lot of live ball turnovers, and that’s very bad for us.  We switched up our man and zone, and they hit some threes, but we lost because of live ball turnovers.”

The Spartans committed 15 turnovers, while the Golden Bears had a season-low 5.

Paris Austin, who had a career-high 11 assists and zero turnovers, hit a pair of free throws with 36 seconds left, and a foul on Steadman on the ensuing possession all but sealed the deal, giving Austin another pair of free throws with a 6-point lead.  Austin netted both to give the Bears their final cushion. The 88 points are the most surrendered by San Jose State this season.

“It felt like this was a complete team effort,” said a smiling Coach Jones, “which is what you want. Paris Austin stands out, because we have been talking about sharing the ball, and 11 assists with no turnovers does that. He didn’t care about his points, but they took care of themselves.”

The double-double for Kelly was the first of his career.

“I just try to shoot a high percentage from the field,” Kelly said, “and I tried to make plays tonight. To be honest, I don’t look at the stat sheet, I didn’t know how good my night was.”

Coach Jones knew how good it was. “I would love to see him do that every night,” Jones said.

Next up for Cal is a December 29 game at Haas vs. the Seattle University Redhawks. Tipoff is at 5 pm.

Three takeaways from Stanford’s 23-13 win over Cal in the 121st Big Game

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Photo credit: gostanford.com

By: Ana Kieu

The Stanford Cardinal won their ninth straight Big Game at Memorial Stadium against the California Golden Bears on Saturday. With the win, Stanford (8-4, 6-3 Pac-12) not only preserved bragging rights, but also kept the Axe away from Cal (7-5, 4-5 Pac-12). Congratulations to the 2018 Cardinal squad!

Now, let’s take a look at three takeaways from Stanford’s 23-13 win over Cal in the 121st Big Game.

Early bird gets the worm
Okay, the game wasn’t scheduled at 10:00 am or earlier than that, but its kickoff was set for noon, which was close enough.

Anyhow, Stanford jumped out to an early lead on their first two drives of the game to grab a 10-0 lead on running back Cameron Scarlett’s first score and held on against Cal to extend the longest winning streak in the Big Game, which was established in 1892.

The Cardinal took an early lead and never looked back. That’s the way the game should be played, especially against a rival or archrival.

The other PA 
No, we’re referring to the initials of Stanford cornerback Paulson Adebo, who’s a redshirt freshman.

Adebo may not be a household name in the Cardinal’s world. Well, at least not yet. But please keep in mind that Adebo tied the school record with 22 passes defended on the season–in both pass break ups and interceptions.

Vaughn Bryant also held that record with 22 passes defended with 18 pass break ups and four interceptions.

Almost perfect
Stanford kicker and punter Jet Toner has made 14-of-15 field goals this season. Toner currently owns the highest field goal percentage in school history in a single season with .929 and in a career with 34-of-40 and .850.

Toner ain’t perfect, but he’s almost perfect and that’s nearly the same thing, right? When there’s a healthy Toner, there’s likely going to be a higher chance of a Cardinal win in the end.