Tag: Justice Sueing

Sueing Doing Work: Cal’s leading, returning scorer breaks out in 89-83 win over SDSU

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By Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–The biggest mystery surrounding Cal basketball through seven games was the struggles of Justice Sueing, the team’s leading, returning scorer who hadn’t looked comfortable or been as productive as he was in his breakout, freshman campaign.

Under the bright lights of a tense, tight ballgame versus San Diego State on Saturday night, Sueing provided answers to the questions. The sophomore from Hawaii poured in a game-high 23 points, including a lead-changing 3-pointer with 1:43 remaining as the Bears forced their way past the Aztecs, 89-83.

The win followed Cal’s empty effort in a 19-point home loss to USF on Wednesday, and was every bit of the momentum-gathering, confidence-builder the team needed after a 2-5 start to the season. With rarely-used Grant Anticevich and Connor Vanover thrust into important roles, and point guard Paris Austin playing more efficiently, Sueing’s offensive breakout felt like Cal’s biggest development.

“I’ve been hesitating a little bit too much and not play with a free mind. I came into this game knowing what I was going to do, knowing how I was going to play it,” Sueing said.

Sueing shot 35 percent from the floor in the season’s first seven games (24 of 68), numbers more akin to getting benched, then leading an ascending club offensively. At times, Sueing’s shooting stroke looked disjointed, at other times, the 6’7″ forward barely registered as his less experienced teammates tried to find their offensive rhythm.

Either way, Sueing’s absence on the offensive end of the floor was a recipe for disaster as a young Cal squad grasped for scoring in all five of its losses. Then on Saturday, against a familiar non-conference opponent, the Bears battled for 35 minutes, only to find themselves trailing 76-68, their biggest deficit of the evening.

And that’s when all the growth and confidence emerged almost of nowhere.

First, Darius McNeill hit a three, narrowing SDSU’s lead to six. Paris Austin followed with a three, and Sueing’s three inside two minutes gave Cal the lead.

Freshman Matt Bradley, who came off the bench in a lineup change that allowed Vanover to start, hit a 3-pointer that broke an 83-83 tie with 32 seconds remaining.

In the final seconds, SDSU’s Devin Watson committed a turnover and the Aztecs’ leading scorer Mike Mitchell missed 3-pointer. Meanwhile, the Bears supplemented their four made threes with 7 of 8 from the free throw line in their final push.

“We were just trusting each other I think,” Sueing recounted of the final minutes. “Matt had a huge shot at the end and we all trust him. He’s one of the best 3-point shooters in the country. All of us just trusting each other, feeding off of each other.”

 

Temple captures third place with 76-59 win over Cal at Legends Classic

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By Morris Phillips

Cal’s basketball roster isn’t blessed with superior size or experience with no one over 6’8″ starting, and junior transfer Paris Austin and Roman Davis the only players with more than a year at the Division I level.

Given that, it isn’t a surprise that the Bears aren’t very good defensively, at least not yet.

Temple took advantage on Tuesday, racing past Cal, 76-59 to capture third place in the Legends Classic. The Owls shot a sizzling 54 percent from the field, one night after St. John’s shot 55 percent against the Bears.

Temple scored 19 of the game’s initial 24 points to build a double-digit lead, only to see Cal respond, and trail by four, 32-28, at the break. But the Owls ran away for good with a 10-0 run midway through the second half that finished Cal.

“I thought we did some really good things tonight, not perfect, but some good things,” said Temple coach Fran Dunphy.

Not surprisingly, the Owls relied heavily on their one-two punch of Quinton Rose and Shizz Alston. The pair scored exactly half of Temple’s 76 points while taking 33 of their 57 shot attempts. Alston also played the role of the Owls’ chief distributor with 10 assists.

“Alston did a good job distributing the ball,” Cal coach Wyking Jones said. “Rose and Alston are both very good players.”

The Bears fell to 1-3 on the season, and they won’t return to the hardwood until Monday when they face Santa Clara at Haas Pavilion.

Darius McNeill led the Bears with 12 points, and three other starters scored 10 each. But leading scorer Justice Sueing missed seven of his eight shot attempts and finished with four points.

The Bears trailed for the game’s final 39 minutes, and they were outrebounded 34-27.

The Bears return home to host the Santa Clara Broncos on Monday, November 26 at 6:00 pm PT.

Bears nearly craft an upset over St. John’s at the Legends Classic in Brooklyn, lose 82-79

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By Morris Phillips

The Bears, with their cast of unheralded underclassmen, appeared to be quite a match for St. John’s and pre-season Big East Player of the Year Shamorie Ponds on Monday in Brooklyn.

At least for 37 of the game’s 40 minutes they were. That’s when the hometown hero took over.

The Red Storm overcame a late, seven point deficit to the Bears as Ponds scored 16 of his game-best 32 points in the final seven minutes, leading St. John’s past Cal 82-79 at the Barclays Center.

“The crowd got us into it late in the game, so it feels good to be home,” said Brooklyn native Ponds about the Red Storm’s late surge.

Cal’s last lead came with 2:39 remaining when Andre Kelly hit a jumper. But Ponds would score nine of St. John’s final 10 points in their closing run. His 32-point performance marked the seventh time the junior guard has surpassed 30 points in his career.

The Bears stayed in it most of the night by making contested shots, rebounding and not committing turnovers. The Bears trailed 38-31 at halftime, but opened the second half with a 9-2 run.

Darius McNeill led Cal with 21 points, and four of his five made 3-pointers came before the break. Justice Sueing finished with 19 points, and 14 of those came after halftime. The Bears shot 57 percent from the field and 81 percent from the foul line. But they weren’t the well-oiled offensive machine they aspire to be despite the superior field goal percentage, tallying just 10 assists on 29 made baskets.

Ultimately, Cal couldn’t get St. John’s stopped defensively at key junctures of the game. The Red Storm shot 55 percent and held a slight edge on the glass (27-23).

“They were hitting tough shots,” St. John’s Justin Simon said. “They’re a great team that’s well-coached. We were trying to give them difficult looks.”

St. John’s (4-0) advances to the championship game Tuesday against VCU. The Bears (1-2) will face Temple in the third-place game preceding St. John’s-VCU at the Barclays Center.

This was the first ever meeting between Cal and St. John’s, coached by Warriors’ legends Chris Mullin and associate head coach Mitch Richmond.

“We got back on our heels a little bit tonight, but I was happy the way we regrouped and got the win,” Mullin said. “[Tuesday] will be nice. It’s always nice to play a high-stakes game early in the season against a good team, and we’ll be jacked up.”

Cal returns home to host Santa Clara on Monday at 6:00 pm PT on the Pac-12 Network.

Plenty Of Room To Grow: Cal Bears look inexperienced in 76-59 loss to Yale in China

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By Morris Phillips

Truthfully, the 2018-19 Cal Bears basketball team is less experienced than the previous version that featured seven newcomers and landed in the Pac-12 basement a year ago.

You didn’t need a close-up observation to conclude that. Nor did most get one. The Bears opened their season with a ragged loss to Yale, 76-59 in Shanghai, China on Saturday afternoon, which was shown live in the U.S. on Friday night.

One statline immediately jumped off the page for Cal: they shot 20 percent from the field in the first half, registering just one assist.

“(Yale) found a very good rhythm in sharing the ball and running their plays all the way through. We have to do a better job of that,” coach Wyking Jones said. “We have to trust each other. We have to continue to trust each other more on the offensive end.”

The Bears led briefly, 9-8 with 10:24 remaining in the first half before the Bulldogs put the game away with a 15-0 run that came with leading scorer, Miye Oni, on the bench with two fouls. While Yale patiently ran their sets seeking favorable matchups to drive or shoot, the Bears failed to set each other up, instead settling for tough shots.

Cal started returning sophomores Justice Sueing and Darius McNeill, junior transfer point guard Paris Austin along with freshmen Matt Bradley and Andre Kelly. Missing was the experience, size and shot blocking ability provided by graduated seniors Marcus Lee and Kingsley Okoroh. With only two returning starters and Juwan Harris-Dyson unavailable due to a hand injury, Cal had few options stylistically.

Meanwhile, Yale, picked to finish third in the Ivy League, had Oni, more experience, and the continuity provided by coach James Jones heading the Bulldogs for the 20th, consecutive season.

“We did a good job defensively, getting stops, and rebounding. And then we were able to get in a good rhythm on offense,” said Jones, the Ivy League’s longest tenured coach.

Oni, limited to just 17 minutes on the floor due to fouls, still put up 16 points with three made 3-pointers. The 6’6″ junior guard shared high scoring honors for Yale with reserve Azar Swain.

Austin led Cal with 18 points, but managed just two assists. Leading returning scorer Sueing finished with 9, missing 11 of his 14 shot attempts.

NBA Hall of Fame inductee Yao Ming and Joseph Tsai, Yale graduate and Alibaba co-founder, sat together courtside at the annual Pac-12 international showcase held at the Baoshan Sports Center. The game concluded a week of touring and goodwill for players from both schools.

Late collapse: Rare Washington State road win drops Cal into the Pac-12 cellar

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Photo courtesy of Marcus Edwards/KLC Fotos

By Morris Phillips

BERKELEY, CA–The sobering reality of life in the “Conference of Champions” is that beyond all the competition, parity and national name recognition is an undesirable place reserved for the Pac-12’s downtrodden.

The Cal Bears have taken residence there–in 12th place–after Washington State’s Drick Bernstein slipped behind the defense and scored the game-winning layup with a second remaining at Haas Pavilion on Thursday.

The 78-76 loss to WSU in a wildy-competitive contest between the Pac-12’s most disadvantaged teams most certainly means the Bears will be the lowest seeded team in the conference tournament that commences in two weeks at Las Vegas. With the win, the Cougars swept the season series against Cal and would have to lose at least two of their final three league contests to fall behind the Bears.

When two teams have combined for just five conference wins, any movement in the standings in this short time frame is highly unlikely. Along with the drama laced into the victory, the scenario had WSU Coach Ernie Kent feeling very fortunate.

“For this team, with everything they’ve been through, similar to what Cal’s gone through, to come down here and play a much-improved Cal team, it was just a grind-it-out win for us,” Kent said.

On the game’s final play–on the heels of Marcus Lee’s tying basket with seven seconds remaining–the Cougars refused a timeout and rushed the ball up the floor where they found Cal’s defense scrambled. Bernstein slipped into the post and WSU guard Malachi Flynn found him for the game-winner.

“We weren’t communicating well enough and he got open for a layup,” said Cal’s scoring leader Justice Sueing, who finished with 25 points. “That game should have been ours.”

Despite the loss, the Bears achieved some level of redemption for their poor showing last month in Pullman, in which the Cougars embarassed the Bears in a 25-point win that turned lopsided after halftime. This time the Bears paid attention to WSU’s shooters, controlled the glass, and shared the ball offensively, illustrated by their 17 assists. But the Bears went scoreless for more than three minutes down the stretch, which allowed Washington State to draw even, and set up the dramatic finish in which there were five lead changes in the game’s final minutes.

Individually, the Bears did some notable things, most prominently Sueing’s 25 points, his sixth 20-point game of the season. Lee was a perfect 7 for 7 shooting from the floor. Darius McNeill hit three 3-pointers, and seldom-utilized Roman Davis came up with a career-best 15 points.

Washington State countered with four of their starters scoring in double figures led by Robert Franks with 15.

The Bears host Washington on Saturday in their regular season home finale.

The turnover factory: Cal coughs it up in loss to red-hot USC

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USC point guard Derryck Thornton (5) and Cal’s Justice Sueing battle for a loose ball in the first half on Jan. 28.
Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

By Morris Phillips

Well, we’ve seen this before. And not just once or twice.

On one hand, Cal’s season-long struggles are indicative of their imbalanced roster and the unrelenting lessons an inexperienced team faces at the highest levels of college basketball.

But on the other hand, USC’s story is far more uplifting. The Trojans began the season in the rare clutches of the FBI and a far-reaching probe into the seamy underside of college recruiting. But despite the firing of a trusted assistant coach and the loss of one of their most beloved teammates, the hottest team in the Pac-12 has hit its stride, fueled by a deep and athletic roster that could be termed a fastbreak waiting to happen.

“We’re a 55-foot buzzer beater away from being in first place in the league but we’re 8-2,” USC coach Andy Enfield said. “It’s a compliment and credit to our players.”

That’s the backstory regarding USC’s 77-59 runaway victory over Cal on Sunday at the Galen Center. Turnovers–bunches of them–rate as the story’s headliner.

USC forces turnovers as if they were running a manufacturing company with the aforementioned as their primary product. Unfortunately, Cal can’t hold on to the basketball in normal circumstances, and facing the Trojans takes that flaw to an extreme level.

Even in a competitive first half in which Cal shot 47 percent from the floor, and led briefly by eight, the Bears turned it over 14 times. Leading 29-28 just before halftime, the Bears shots stopped falling while the turnovers continued unabated.

As Cal (7-15, 1-8) failed to prop up their sloppy ballhandling with made shots, the USC track meet commenced. Just six minutes into the second half, the Trojans’ lead hit double digits. USC’s leading scorer, Chimezie Metu capitalized on a second shot opportunity with a dunk, and the Trojans led 44-34 with 13:56 remaining.

“Once we get our defense going, we get steals, we get into transition and that generates our offense, and the rim looks bigger,” USC senior guard Elijah Stewart said. “We had more energy in the second half, we had ball movement and played together.”

Enfield felt his team took difficult shots early, as a scoring drought nearly six minutes in length allowed Cal to gain confidence and establish a lead. Cal coach Wyking Jones felt his team lost its stride as USC began to dictate the pace.

“We have to do a better job of not getting sped up,” Jones said.

Marcus Lee led Cal with 23 points, but 17 of those came in the second half as USC pulled away. Also Lee and guard Darius McNeill were credited with 12 of Cal’s 20 turnovers.

Stewart and Jonah Mathews led USC (17-6, 8-2) with 16 points a piece. Stewart’s scoring all came in the second half, and the Trojan leaders both canned four 3-pointers.

Cal’s loss was their eighth in a row, their worst run since 1992. The Bears continue to compete, and they’ve put to rest their issues with slow starts. But real improvement can’t commence without better ball security and overall consistency.

“We have to be able to but together a 40-minute game,” Jones said. “Not just halves.”

The Trojans have won six straight, and eight of nine. With play concluded for the month of January, the Trojans have seven wins, the first time they’ve done that since 1982.

Just last week, USC fired assistant coach Tony Bland after he received a federal indictment right before the season opener that focused on illegal payments to players and their families and advisers. De’Anthony Melton, the Trojans’ sophomore guard and NBA prospect, was suspended in the wake of Bland’s indictment. In the wake of Bland’s firing, the USC athletic department announced that Melton’s suspension would be extended through the remainder of the season.

The Bears return to the hardwood on Thursday when the Oregon Ducks visit Haas Pavilion.

 

Haas is not a Home: Visiting No. 14 Arizona runs away from Cal in the second half for eventual 79-58 win

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Cal_MBB_180104_ADS_195_71
Photo courtesy of Al Sermeno/KLC Fotos

By Morris Phillips

BERKELEY, CA–Make no mistake: Arizona is heating up. After a puzzling three-game losing streak in November, the Cats went undefeated in December and they’ve only lost once so far in January.

And the Cal Bears? They’ve–at the least–stopped the slow starts. Now they’ve got work to do on the scoring droughts and the uncompetitive finishes.

On Wednesday at Haas Pavilion, Arizona stayed hot, and Cal was saddled with another essential, remedial homework assignment, as the Wildcats cruised to a 79-58 victory.

The Bears weathered the impending storm early, leading 16-15 with 10:12 remaining in the half. But their anxiousness surfaced, their shot selection deteriorated and Arizona ran away, leading by 10 at halftime and increasing their lead from there.

“Marcus takes a jump shot and Don takes an ill-advised shot,” coach Wyking Jones said. “We could have had better shots, and that lead to them going up by 10 at the half.”

Starting the second half, the Bears couldn’t summon a rally. Playing without starting guard Rawle Atkins, Arizona (15-4, 5-1) coughed the ball up early, but they eventually started making shots.

“Cal’s zone is very extended,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said. “You watch it on film, I think it’s one of those defenses sometimes players have to get into a rhythm and understand and get a sense of how to move the ball against it. … Once we got through that stretch, no doubt turnovers plagued us throughout but we also had some good moments.”

Individually, the Bears had their hands full with 7’0″ Deandre Ayton. The freshman phenom is freakish in his ability to dominate in the paint, but also step away and make jump shots. Ayton led the Cats with 20 points, 11 rebounds, but his 9 for 11 shooting was merely the headliner for the Cats’ 62 percent shooting for the game that masked any other deficiencies they displayed on the stat sheet.

With Cal’s zone defense confounding Arizona only for the opening minutes of the game when they forced six turnovers, the Bears needed to capitalize with some offense. But a 1-for-10 shooting drought followed their final lead at 16-15 and their shooting didn’t get any better after halftime.

Justice Sueing led Cal with 19 points, but missed all six of his 3-point attempts. Don Coleman and Darius McNeill combined to scored 14 points, but they missed 14 of their 18 shot attempts.

Marcus Lee didn’t succumb to foul trouble and played 31 minutes, but couldn’t impact the scoresheet with only four points and two rebounds. Kingsley Okoroh scored 10 points but struggled to contain Arizona’s Dusan Ristic when the two were matched up in the paint, and Ayton when he stepped outside.

After five, consecutive losses, and at least one double-digit deficit in all six of their Pac-12 contests, the Bears are searching for at least one, confident player. Right now, it’s not apparent that they have one.

“We can’t get our backs up against the wall,” Sueing said. “We have to continue to move forward and keep pushing because we know how good we can be. We haven’t shown it thus far but we have to keep pushing so we can catch that break soon.”

Cal (7-12, 1-5) returns to the hardwood on Saturday night to face Arizona State at 730pm.

 

 

Lopsided second half says it all as Cal drops its fourth straight to Washington State in 78-53 loss

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Photo courtesy of Al Sermon/klcfotos.com

By Morris Phillips

The second half of Saturday’s California-Washington State game couldn’t have provided a greater contrast.

Washington State’s high volume turnover factory closed early, the Cougars shared the basketball beautifully, struggling Robert Franks caught on fire, and the smallish home crowd in Pullman sounded like a crowd.

At the same time, Cal wilted, displaying competitiveness akin to an off-season workout. But it wasn’t: the meeting of the two teams anchored to the bottom of the Pac-12 standings was instead was a critical moment, the Bears occasion to right their ship after three lopsided defeats. In the 20 minutes after the half, the Bears appeared almost disinterested.

Given the contrast, Coach Wyking Jones admitted he was bewildered.

“I’m just wondering which team is going to show up,” Jones said of his Bears. “There’s a team that battles and competes and executes and follows the game plan, and there’s the team that looks like this.”

After trailing 30-25 at halftime, Cal simply let this one get away. The Cougars outscored Cal by 20 in the second half and they registered an easy 78-53 win, WSU’s first in conference play after starting 0-4.

Meanwhile, Cal’s dropped four straight, all by double-digits, erasing any momentum built in their stirring comeback win at Stanford in the Pac-12 opener. The Bears scored just 53 points while totaling just six assists, both season lows.

Franks hit seven of his school-record 10 3-pointers in the second half, including three in less than 90 seconds as WSU increased their lead to 48-36 with 14:15 remaining. In all, the junior forward put up 25 of his career-best 34 points after halftime, capped off by a team statistician-mandated capper with 43 seconds remaining to set the record.

Franks’ breakout came after his self-admitted poor game against Stanford. That gave Jones another reason to be irked with his team.

“Somebody has to step up and say: ‘He’s not going to get five, six, seven, eight,” said Jones.

Justice Sueing led Cal with 14 points, well off his 27 against Washington on Thursday. Sueing played with great restraint against the Huskies. On Saturday, he appeared rushed, committing five of Cal’s 14 turnovers.

After 22 turnovers against Stanford, 23 against Washington, and 10 in the first half against Cal, the Cougars had just five turnovers in the second half.

“I thought we did a much better job of taking care of the ball and the big reason for that is not over-dribbling,” WSU coach Ernie Kent said. “This is a passing system, not a dribbling system.”

Cal returns home to face conference co-leaders Arizona on Wednesday at 6 pm PT. The No. 17 Wildcats are tied atop the standings with Stanford, winners of four straight.

Fumbled away: Cal’s now familiar shortcomings crop up again in 66-56 loss at Washington

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By Morris Phillips

SEATTLE–Every basketball collective wants their game to sing, as if it were an operatic ballet, hoovering effortlessly three feet above the hardwood.

Cal and Coach Wyking Jones want that. Unfortunately, Pac-12 conference play is upon them, and they’re not there yet.

Thursday night in blustery Seattle, the Bears started fast, suffered a mental gaffe right before the half, surrendered the first couple of baskets after the break, and fell to Washington, 66-56 at Alaska Airlines Arena. Cal dropped its third in a row after winning at Stanford in the conference opener, scoring a season-low 56 points. While spotty offense was the headline for what ailed the Bears, it was just part of the story along with the visitors’ issues at the foul line, and the sudden disqualification of leading scorer Don Coleman with more than 12 minutes remaining.

Even Jones, succinct as they come, missed a key issue or two in giving his summary of the loss.

“We didn’t take advantage of the free throw line.  We went through stretches where we couldn’t score. We wanted to start off agressive, which we did,” Jones recounted.

“Then Crisp got going, and that really ignited them.”

David Crisp, UW’s accomplished, junior point guard scored all 10 of his points in the second half, including a pair of 3-pointers 41 seconds apart as the Huskies effectively put this one away seven minutes before the final horn, given Cal’s struggles scoring the ball and Coleman’s ejection.  Ironically, Crisp–from a purely personnel standpoint–represents what sets the Bears and Huskies–a pair of young teams with first-year coaches–apart: a confident ball handler that can corral youthful teammates, whose play can run the gamut from erratic to even chaotic at times, even if only for key stretches of a 40-minute ballgame.

Even with Crisp on the floor for 34 of those minutes Thursday, both teams threw the ball around carelessly.  The Bears had 10 turnovers in the first half, and 18 for the game. The Huskies had nine in the first half, and a season-high 20 for the game. Knowing that the Huskies love point blank scoring opportunities, the Bears built a wall in front of the hoop early, drawing two UW charging foul calls in the game’s first three minutes, and limiting them to 41 percent shooting before the break.

“Cal missed fouls shots. Our offense in stretches wasn’t good,” said UW coach Mike Hopkins, the former, long term assistant to Jim Boeheim at Syracuse. “It reminded me of an early-season game. It didn’t feel like there was a flow.”

With Marcus Lee in foul trouble, Cal played the final seven plus minutes of the opening half with four freshman and Kingsley Okoroh on the floor. Cal’s defense alone during that stretch was good enough too keep them even on the scoreboard at the break. But a poor decision by Darius McNeill in the final seconds prevented that.

With Cal down one, McNeill attempted and missed a 3-pointer with 13 seconds remaining, and time left on the shot clock. McNeill’s decision to shoot early backfired as Washington raced down and got a three from Michael Carter with five seconds remaining. That increased Washington’s one-point lead to four at the break, and they built on it with Matisse Thybulle’s dunk and three to open the second half.

The Bears steadied briefly, as Justice Sueing provided a pair of baskets in a 10-2 run that had Cal down 35-34 with 15:23 remaining. But Coleman, picked up a technical foul due to his too verbal protest regarding his fourth foul–which took him from three fouls to disqualified in one petulant act–and Cal was cooked.  Crisp’s back-to-back threes followed in an 18-5 Huskies run and the Bears never recovered.

Sueing led Cal with 27 points on 11 of 16 shooting, but the other eight Bears to play at least three minutes combined to miss 25 of their 36 shot attempts, and nine of their 15 free throws. Throughout, the Bears’ passing lacked the authority and acumen to dent a Pac-12 defense.  Lee playing just 17 minutes, and Cal’s lack of bench production (Washington’s reserves outscored Cal’s 18-2) were issues as well.

“That was our main focus to let them shoot shots–because they’re very good at rebounding off their missed shots, offensive rebounding,” said UW freshman Jay Nowell, who led the Huskies in scoring with 20 points. “So we just wanted to box out every time, make sure they only got one shot.”

The Bears visit Pullman, WA on Saturday to face the equally, turnover-challenged Cougars. Washington State committed 22 turnovers on Thursday as they lost at home to Stanford, 79-70.

Cal smashed by Division II Chaminade, Coach Jones questions his Bears effort

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Sueing_Cham

By Morris Phillips

The Chaminade Silverswords, the giant killers from Honolulu, were at it again. The Division II powerhouse took advantage of their esteemed position as host school of the Maui Invitational and bagged another one, this time blowing past Cal, 96-72, in the tourney’s seventh-place game.

But unlike upsets over Texas, Oklahoma, Stanford or the big one over Ralph Sampson and No. 1 Virginia in 1982, Chaminade couldn’t claim all the credit this time. That’s because Cal was listless from the start, falling behind 10-0 which drew the ire of first-year coach Wyking Jones.

“For me, in all the years that I’ve been coaching, I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life by the lack of effort from our guys,” Jones said. “So for me, it’s about going back to the drawing board, myself and my staff, and figuring out what changes we need to make because there definitely needs to be some changes.”

Chaminade shot 56 percent from the field for the game and made 14 three-pointers. They grew more accurate after halftime, shooting 67 percent, and briefly increasing their lead to 30. The Silverswords lost to Notre Dame by 27, and Michigan by 38 earlier in the tournament, but registered the first-ever win over a Division I opponent by as many as 24 points against Cal.

“How about those Silverswords, huh?” Coach Eric Roivard gushed. “Incredible performance. We got our butts kicked the last two days. Notre Dame just beat us. And for these guys to just bounce back, get up at 6:00a in the morning, get a little bit of breakfast, watch film of a Cal team that we’ve never seen live before, and to follow the gameplan and to execute what we were trying to do, I give these guys all the credit.”