Utes hand Bears ninth straight loss, 82-64

Stop me if you’ve heard this before but Cal stayed close to its opponent for awhile, but eventually the other guys pulled away and handed the Bears a loss.,

This time it was Utah, which spanked the Bears, 82-64, at Haas Pavilion Saturday evening. The Bears (5-15, 0-8 Pac-12) have lost nine straight’ and will go at least a year between conference victories. Their last came on Feb. 3, 2018, and Cal next plays Feb. 3, 2019 when it hosts Stanford.

Utah (11-8, 5-2) completed a sweep of its Bay Area trip and  has won four straight to insert itself into conference contention. The Bears? They have the cellar all to themselves, and are likely to keep it from here until the end, which can’t come soon enough for a lot of Cal fans.

Head coach Wyking Jones has been pleading with his team to play two solid halves in the same game. On Saturday he changed that tactic ever so slightly. That didn’t seem to work, either.

“Before the game I challenged the guys, let’s focus on 20 (minutes),” he said. “Then let’s come back in at halftime and regroup talk about it. Then put together 20 in the second half.”

That didn’t seem to happen.

Utah, which came into the game hitting just 38.0 per cent from behind the three-point line, became extremely accurate in the first half. As the Bears repeatedly lost track of the Utes beyond the arc, the visitors bombed in 11 treys in 21 attempts during the first 20 minutes.

That marksmanship helped them build a lead as large as 14 points. Timmy Allen’s old-fashioned three-point play capped an 11-0 run and put Utah up 35-21.

“We started off in a zone,” Jones said. “They made us take some long slides to get to get the corner. And they started off knocking a few down out of the zone.”

Cal was not too shabby itself from long range in the opening period.  The Bears were 7-for-15 and closed the half with consecutive threes by Matt Bradley and Darius McNeill that were the finals of a 15-5 run and left the Bears within hailing distance at intermission, 46-42.

But that good vibe did not last long. Shortly after intermission Utah took off on a 9-2 run, and that set the pattern for rest of the evening. Justice Sueing and McNeill sparked a little spurt midway in the period that saw Cal get within eight at 58-66, but Utah then took command and built the lead to its final distressing total.

“Once we matched up I didn’t like our communication,” Jones said. “We weren’t coming together on the switches. We were giving them space.”

Sueing also felt that the Bears were not keeping each other in the know on defense.

“A lot of it is a lack of communication,” he said. “In the first half they kind of took us apart,

I think our guys did a good job with the effort and put ourselves in a position to win. Tonight, those moments when we’re not talking on defense, and really hurt us at the end..”

While holding Utah to just two threes in ten attempts, the Bears let Utah still shoot 57.1 per cent from the floor in the second. Jones felt that the Bears second-half offensive problems (9-for-25, 36 per cent) in the second half contributed to the defensive problems.

“They played a matchup zone.,” Jones said. “I felt we took too many pullups, too many tough, contested pullups and that really hurt us on the offensive end. With everything we can’t score, the energy and execution on defense seems to take a toll. To me that’s what happened tonight.”

The Bears were outrebounded by the bigger Utes, 42-25, and the visitors seemed to come up with virtually every loose ball.Things like that make it tough to win.

“I am pretty sure they won 80 percent of the 50-50 balls that could have gone either way,” Jones said. “They outrebounded us 42-25.  That just comes down to toughness and comes down to fight and we just have to get better in that area.”

He also lamented the offensive tactics his team employed. Shooting jump shots when the rim beckons is not the best way to score.

“We could have gotten to the rim more than we did,” Jones said. “That is going to be something we are going to look at. They are big but we are the quicker team and we didn’t exploit that today.”

And another effect of not going to the hoop aggressively is not getting free throws. Teams tend to commit more fouls on the inside then they do on the fringe. Cal shot just ten free throws “We didn’t get get into the lane and look to attack,” said Jones. “Had we done that we would have gotten to the line a whole lot more.” Neither team spent a lot of time at the free throw line, Cal was 5-for-10, Utah, 3-for-9.

Sueing led the Bears in scoring with 20 points and McNeill had 15.Sedrick Barefield had 21 points for Utah.

Cal committed just seven turnovers and forced 15.

Notes: At halftime Cal Hall of Famer John Ricksen, who along with his late twin brother Rupe excelled in basketball and tennis, received the Pete Newell Career Achievement Award. … Also at halftime Cal team that in 1959 won the NCAA championship was recognized on the 60th anniversary of their achievement….Freshman Jacobi Gordon, who missed Thursday’s Colorado game with an Achilles injury, was back in the rotation, albeit briefly, Saturday. … The Bears have a full week off and take on Stanford at Haas Pavilion Sunday at 1 p.m. With Jared Goff playing in the Super Bowl that day one wonders how many Cal fans will be attending the basketball game. ...Jones and his staff will be out recruiting early in the week and the Bears will not have any structured practices until Thursday... “They will shoot around Monday and Tuesday, take Wednesday off and practice on Thursday,” he said. “They won’t hear my voice Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They need a break.”