Fox doing the let them use the whole clock defense while down a lot again.

Cal did a terrible job on the boards tonight. No boxing out and not physical at all. Soft as tissue.

Gkhoury2325 said:

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Cal did a terrible job on the boards tonight. No boxing out and not physical at all. Soft as tissue.

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Another Fox L on the road. That's the bottom line.

Wazzu is a better team than UW.

More fouls. absolute ######## garbage.

KoreAmBear said:

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Fox doing the let them use the whole clock defense while down a lot again.

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Agreed, I don't understand the poor strategy that is using tonight by slowing it down. It just does not make sense at all down double digits. This old Midwest basketball should stay there. Just my opinion! Tonight he should shoulder a lot of the blame for this loss.

Washington is a sh*t team too. I mean, bad. But we are worse.

Poor performance by Kelly tonight. Very disappointing.

The officiating was garbage, but the Bears' second half of the second half play was disappointing.

Washington had a big run. Could have been us. We're as good as they are.

Golden One said:

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Poor performance by Kelly tonight. Very disappointing.

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4 points from Kelly. We're going to lose most nights when that happens.

Seems like we were surprised they zone. Come on guys. That's what they do.

Brown was getting into the paint at will in second half and was dropping it off to their bigs when Kelly helps

Cal tried to compensate by bring a guard but we're just over powered

The game could have went better with J Brown for his defense on T Brown

Cal made their big run with shepherd at the point but they didn't go to that lineup much in second half

Celestine was in the donut hole a lot in second half but didn't pass it to him

High lights were the Shepherd dunk and Sam

The sad part was that almost never did the guard up top try to penetrate and kick. We could not get to 50/50 balls that were loose. They knocked balls away from our high post players because they were thinking as opposed to being athletes. They need to catch and kick out or look high post or backside cut. It looked like Cal never practices against a zone defense.

Bear8995 said:

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KoreAmBear said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I also have a problem with how they count TOs. Hyder makes a lazy pass across the top and they give it to the player he is passing to. How does that make sense?

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Hyder has a real issue with his weak passes.

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He has a real issue of being in over his head. Since this is his 4th year, I'm hoping he graduates and moves on. We need the scholarship.

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this is his 3rd year

Golden One said:

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Poor performance by Kelly tonight. Very disappointing.

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2-3 Zone neutralized Kelly inside. We needed to score from 3. Kuany, Alajiki and Anticevich each made the one 3 they each attempted.

Big C said:

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Bear8995 said:

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KoreAmBear said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I also have a problem with how they count TOs. Hyder makes a lazy pass across the top and they give it to the player he is passing to. How does that make sense?

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Hyder has a real issue with his weak passes.

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He has a real issue of being in over his head. Since this is his 4th year, I'm hoping he graduates and moves on. We need the scholarship.

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this is his 3rd year

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Yes, Hyder is the back-up PG next year unless one of the juniors or underclassmen leaves.

KoreAmBear said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I don't understand why we can't learn not to dribble in the middle of the zone. TO every time.
The refs are calling BS but we aren't being aggressive going to the hoop and drawing fouls. Play it like they are calling it.
Against the zone, you can't hold the ball as long as we do. Swing the ball. Fake a pass, then make a pass. The open look is the diagonal cross court. Don't know why we can't figure that out.

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Because they are kind of playing scared.

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Great observation. I (with drizzlybears brother and our daughters) was virtually courtside center-court tonight. Cal came out really timid and listless. And when things got tough and the crowd got louder, Cal seemed like they were playing scared and tenuous.

I think we felt tonight what Joel Brown means to this team. Also, Cal did not have a good approach to UW's zone. I thought we had solved it, but then couldn't handle it late again.

BearSD said:

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The officiating was garbage, but the Bears' second half of the second half play was disappointing.

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Yes.

KoreAmBear said:

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In many of our losses away from Haas, we have a 5-10 minute deciding stretch in the 2nd half where we go into an offensive drought. We did this v. UNLV, Seton Hall, Utah and UW. Fox' offense can be shut out for stretches at a time, because our offense is premised on burning clock and then without many options late in the shot clock. It's sad. We should have won all of these games.

Bottom line, though, we are not going to win very many games with Andre scoring 4 and Grant scoring 7.

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And without our staring PG.

Luckily none of Cal's future opponents were watching the game. The zone took away Kelly for the whole game, and once they started blitzing the point, took away everyone else during the second half. Cal's lack of ball handling and passing ability was on full display. The only solution is recruiting.

sluggo said:

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Luckily none of Cal's future opponents were watching the game. The zone took away Kelly for the whole game, and once they started blitzing the point, took away everyone else during the second half. Cal's lack of ball handling and passing ability was on full display. The only solution is recruiting.

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Maybe in 2023.

I like Kuany and felt he should start but he is killing us with bad passes and poor decisions. Lead to many turnovers last night.

This game being played on Wednesday gave Cal 1-3 fewer practices since the UCLA game. This could explain, but not excuse, the team's ineffectiveness against W's zone. I will say that with most teams playing switching man-to-man defenses, it's fun to watch a well-executed zone defense for a change.

KoreAmBear said:

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bearister said:

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17-5 foul differential.

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The flagrant 1 was just inexplicable.

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This is a great example of what should have been a no-call. Because making the call by the rules has a disproportionate impact on the game result (which refs are taught NOT TO DO). One of two things should have happened. One - nothing - play on. However the UW player stayed down - clearly staging what he was hoping the refs would do. Two - what the refs should have done is stop play to allow the down player to make sure he was fine (which he was), review and see that it was INTENTIONAL by Fuller to draw the foul (look at his body position and how he places his head at elbow position, then flops). The refs should have given Cal the ball and resumed play. UW still gets the benefit of stoppage of play to set their half court defense.

Cal should have had the ball with the lead. Instead, UW got free throws, and the ball. That one turned out to be at least a 5 point swing. Cal's style of play makes it real hard to come back and the momentum just killed a fragile bear ego. Game over.

The rule that was put in place a few years ago was meant to be a point of emphasis. That is, rebounding players can't keep their elbows out when securing the ball. They must keep them at their sides. I believe this is what the refs called last night as an automatic Flagrant 1.

I have two problems with this. First, whenever I hear 'point of emphasis' it just means that mediocre refs will use that as an excuse to exert undue influence on the game result. Second, these rules that go counter to everything a player is trained to do and practices their entire life makes it ridiculous. I thought Don McLean made a very good point about this.

Again, UW plays a special type of zone

Most teams play a much more passive zone. At least we handled their blitzes well

HearstMining said:

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This game being played on Wednesday gave Cal 1-3 fewer practices since the UCLA game. This could explain, but not excuse, the team's ineffectiveness against W's zone. I will say that with most teams playing switching man-to-man defenses, it's fun to watch a well-executed zone defense for a change.

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sluggo said:

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Luckily none of Cal's future opponents were watching the game. The zone took away Kelly for the whole game, and once they started blitzing the point, took away everyone else during the second half. Cal's lack of ball handling and passing ability was on full display. The only solution is recruiting.

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UW's zone is unique. It's almost a 4-1 zone. Cal has faced zone defenses numerous times this year, without particular difficulty. UW's zone is not something a team picks up to do for an individual opponent. UW itself has taken this long to learn it this season (compare their performance over the last week with the prior two months of the season).

Hard to make conclusions about Cal's ability to handle the blitzing of the PG when Cal was playing without its PG. If anything, this game showed the importance of Brown (despite his flaws) to this team.

Cal also just played very poorly for most of the game, especially early. I was at the game and from the get-go Cal appeared listless and was way out-hustled by UW. Some of the outcome was simply about that. Zone defenses are supposed to be vulnerable to offensive rebounds. Cal has been a very good rebounding team. And yet last night Cal (and Kelly in particular) didn't rebound either.

HoopDreams said:

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Again, UW plays a special type of zone

Most teams play a much more passive zone. At least we handled their blitzes well

HearstMining said:

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This game being played on Wednesday gave Cal 1-3 fewer practices since the UCLA game. This could explain, but not excuse, the team's ineffectiveness against W's zone. I will say that with most teams playing switching man-to-man defenses, it's fun to watch a well-executed zone defense for a change.

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Yep, that underscores my point. Even in the few practices they had, it was probably tough for Cal's second string to simulate the intensity of the Husky zone. And also, why it's fun to watch.

turnovers and passive defense doomed the Bears. 2k just kills us even though he sometimes makes an unexpected good play. Hyder should be in intramurals. Shepard might be the best backup point, but he overdribbles, calls his own number too much and turns the ball over. I would play the underclassmen a bunch more.