Cal now faces #1 seed Duke, which
defeated Arkansas-Pine Bluff 73-44 earlier on Friday. Sunday's game
marks the first time that Cal and Duke have played since the famous
March 20, 1993 NCAA second round game where the Bears, behind the
heroics of Jason Kidd, upset the two-time national champions 82-77
and catapulted themselves into national prominence.
“I just am really happy for our
basketball team,” said Montgomery. “It was a long way to come and
we had a lot of respect for Louisville. I think our guys were really
ready to play. We got off to a tremendous start, just bang, bang,
bang, shot the ball and probably caught them off court, which we do
occasionally. To their credit, they came back and got within four.
Theo had a huge three from the corner, took it back to seven, and
then they broke down a little bit with some mistakes and we
capitalized on it.”
The Bears were led by 21 points from
Theo Robertson and Jerome Randle, while Patrick Christopher
contributed 17 points and a team-high eight rebounds.
Cal jumped out a 22-4 lead that
featured some of the best basketball they've played all season. Even
a 19-minute delay to the start of the game due to a faulty shot clock
didn't throw them off.
“Well, it was a bad start but we
worked hard to get back in the game to get it back to four,” said
Louisville head coach Rick Pitino. “You have to give them credit,
they have more experience than us and they're a great shooting team.”
On offense, the Bears were patient with
the ball, working the ball around, making the extra pass and shooting
the ball extremely well, from Robertson's opening three-point shot
all to way to Christopher's three-point shot which gave Cal a 12-0
lead.
Defensively, the Bears knew they had to
do a good job of guarding Louisville forward Samardo Samuels. Samuels
would have been a challenge for Jamal Boykin to guard straight up, so
Cal chose to double-team him in the post.
“We had a game plan where we wanted
to double Samuels so it was really a team effort,” said Robertson.
“When Samuels caught the ball, my responsibility was to go down on
the high side of him and really force him into kicking the ball back
out and not giving him a clean look at the basket and then really the
task was trying to get back to a block off. Those guys had a couple
inches on me so that was a tough task.”
The benefit of Cal's smaller starting
lineup is that with Jorge Gutierrez, Randle, Christopher, and
Robertson, the Bears were quick enough to double down on a defender,
but then get back on the perimeter in the event that the ball was
kicked back out.
Although Samuels ended up with 16
points, against the Bear defense he managed just eight field goal
attempts and the Bears did force him into committing five turnovers.
Cal pushed the lead out to 22-4. Part
of it was because even when Louisville managed to get an open shot,
they weren't shooting the ball that well, and part of it was because
Cal was attacking the press effectively.
Often teams faced with a press will
break it to bring the ball upcourt and then slow the ball up to keep
the tempo down, but allowing the defense to recover. This causes the
net effect of playing five-on-seven or five-on-eight. To beat a
press, a team has to attack it and be efficient with it to force the
opposition out of it.
“We came out and we were smoking,”
said Christopher, who made three-of-four three point shots in the
first half. “We were hitting shots everybody was finding each
other, and I don't think we struggled with the press too much and
that was a key for us. We didn't panic much, and we got it done.”
The Bears had the added bonus of having
four players – again Randle, Christopher, Robertson and Gutierrez
- who could all bring the ball upcourt. Often the Bears didn't bother
having Randle involved in bringing the ball upcourt, which threw off
Louisville's defensive focus. This also helped kept the Cardinals
from burning out Randle who played the entire 40 minutes.
“We knew what they were going to come
with,” said Randle. “They were going to extend the zone a little
bit, and instead of us backing off and being on our heels, we just
wanted to penetrate the ball and find an open man.”
Although the Bears built an early
18-point lead, they weren't able to hold onto that margin. Throughout
the season Cal has built big leads to see them disappear. But more
often than not, they've been able to fight through the rough patches
and finish off games. The bad news that they end up having to work
harder than they'd like. The good news is that through it all
they've developed a degree of mental toughness that most teams that
make it into March aren't really all that sure they have.
Louisville's defense is aggressive
enough that passes that can be attempted and completed easily against
most teams end up being turnovers. Add a few turnovers with some
colder shooting and all it was going to take was a little offense for
the Cardinals to get back in the game.
While the Bears' base defense was fine,
they were getting clobbered by Samuels and unlikely star in freshman
Rakeem Buckles. Buckles a 6-foot-8 freshman who appears far thicker
than the 215 pounds that he's listed at, came into the game average
3.3 points a game with a season-high of 10, but in an effort that
gave some Cal fans Jordan Wynn nightmares, he finished with team
highs of 20 points and nine rebounds.
Samuels and Buckles grabbed five
offensive rebounds in the first half with contributed to Louisville's
10 second-chance baskets in the first half.
In an effort to get more size in there,
Montgomery chose to put in at different times Markhuri Sanders-Frison
and Max Zhang. Sanders-Frison, who relishes physical play, found
that his zeal resulted in two fouls in just 16 seconds. Zhang worked
effectively on the double-team with Boykin, but found himself having
difficulty with Buckles as Louisville went on a 9-0 run to close
within nine, 30-21.
Louisville narrowed the deficit to six,
but a late jumper by Christopher and a 35-foot heave by Randle at the
buzzer found the Bears up by a fortunate margin of 11, 41-30.
Throughout the early part of the second
half, the Cardinals appeared ready to make a run. On top of that
Louisville's Rick Pitino was substituting heavily – and it appeared
that the game would come down to the last five minutes.
But that's when Robertson stepped up.
It's hard to call Robertson underappreciated, but Randle and
Christopher are the All-Pac-10 choices, the story of Boykin's
transfer from Duke is well-documented, and even Gutierrez, who was a
reserve for much of the season, was named on the first-team Pac-10
all-defense team.
After hitting the first shot to put Cal
up three, Robertson's offensive game was subdued in the first half.
But in the second half, with the offense hitting a tiny bit of a
lull, it was Robertson driving for a lay up or hitting a three-point
shot. During a 3:12 stretch, Robertson scored 10 points, adding two
steals, and assist and a rebound as the Bears stretched their lead to
56-41.
When Robertson, who was three-of-four
on three point shots, made one to put Cal up 15, two of the Duke
staff members who were scouting the game remarked, “That guy can
shoot.”
Sensing the game and their season was
slipping away, Louisville had to summon up one last rally.
During a break, someone from the
Louisville section yelled to Samuels, “Come on. I know you don't
want to go home!”
Samuels looked back and nodded.
Just as in the first half, the Bears
were getting open shots but weren't hitting them. Louisville's press
was starting to take a toll. The Cardinal were within nine at 60-51,
when Boykin missed a jumper. Gutierrez, who played 32 minutes and
finished with seven points and four assists, outbattled the
Cardinals' Jerry Smith, who in the process of fighting for the ball,
pulled Gutierrez on the ground.
Gutierrez bounced right up and stood
right in front of Smith but didn't say a word, but the message was
clear.
The Bears weren't going away.
Yet the offense stagnated as the Bears
went nearly five minutes shooting one-of-six from the field with a
turnover as the Cardinals fought and fought. A three-pointer by
Preston Knowles, inside baskets by Samuels and Buckles and soon
Louisville was down four, 62-58.
But it was that man Robertson, who
responded with a three-pointer, putting Cal up seven, 65-60.
“I don't remember exactly what play
we had on it,” said Robertson. “But I'm pretty sure it was Pat, I
think, or Jorge got some dribble penetration, and the corners, we
thought they were susceptible as an open area for us. Pat drew two
and saw an opening, so I just let it go and I was feeling pretty good
about my shot at that point.”
Cal was leading 65-60 when Boykin found
a cutting Gutierrez who scored on a lay-up and was fouled by Buckles
with 5:59 left. The foul was Buckles' fourth – Louisville would
have to sit him. Gutierrez made the free throw to go up 68-60.
And that's what the score was with five
minutes left. But the Bears hadn't gone throughout most of
conference play with their starters logging heavy minutes to give it
away. Randle, Christopher, and Robertson had played the entire
second half up to that point.
To help give Boykin a brief moment of
rest, Montgomery reinserted Zhang. Zhang was part of a one-big lineup
was then paired with Boykin for a two-big lineup as the Cal prepared
for an onslaught when Buckles would be put back into the game.
With Louisville running out of ideas,
they decided to resort to the Hack-a-Max. Coming into the game,
Zhang was 50% from the free throw line – and while some might
question why he was in at that point, his potential defensive value
far outweighed whatever offensive liability he might represent.
When he missed the front end of the
one-and-one, it appeared the strategy paid off. However Louisville
subsequently turned the ball over. Once again Louisville fouled
Zhang.
Incredibly, the officials whistled
Lousivlle for an intentional foul. While there's no question that it
was an intentional, the refs almost never call an intentional foul
unless something flagrant occurs. The Louisville bench howled with
protest and was issued a technical. Adding insult to injury, Zhang
made both of this free throws, Randle made his technical free throws,
and Robertson was fouled on the ensuing possession and made one of
his free throws.
With that five-point possession, the
Bears were up 75-60 with 2:24 remaining and all that was left were
the post-game handshakes.
The late game fatigue never arrived for
Bears. If anything, it affected the Cardinals who were playing at
midnight Eastern time, well beyond when they usually play. Louisville
was held to just two points during the final six minutes.
“I think at that point in the game
everyone was really focused on wining,” said Robertson. “The
concentration was there, we just knew we had to be smart with the
ball and close the game out. We had a lot of really good
contributions. Max came in and blocked a couple of shots. Those free
throws were huge. Really everyone just locked in and made some plays
down the stretch.”
While for Louisville senior Edgar Sosa,
who was plagued by foul trouble and was limited to 29 minutes and
just eight minutes, Friday's game marked the end of his college
career.
“It's tough,” said Sosa, who added
five assists and two steals. “It hasn't quite hit me yet that this
is my last college game and I'm pretty sure I had my moment. You know
it's tough. We liked our bracket. We liked the way we matched up with
this team. Tonight you can't take anything away from Cal. They were
the better team.”
And for Cal, a chance to repeat
history, 17 years later.
“It's a tremendous opportunity for
us,” said Montgomery. “They're a number one seed, and we're going
go out there and lace them up and get after them.”
