When the game is on the line for the California Golden Bears, it’s best to put the ball in Matt Bradley’s hands. As seconds waned from the clock on the Bears’ last possession in overtime, the sophomore guard banked home a three to give Cal a 62-59 lead. Washington’s Hamier Wright missed the three as time expired and Cal finished its home sweep of the Washington schools and moved to 8-8 and 2-1 in conference play.
Bradley said after the game that the plan was for him to take what ended up being the Bears’ final shot but he’d also have Paris Austin and Grant Anticevich coming off screens. It was similar to the play the Bears ran at the end of regulation but Bradley dumped it off to Anticevich who missed what would’ve been the go-ahead shot in regulation.
“It’s as pretty as a sunset that you wish you could watch that thing for 30 minutes,” head coach Mark Fox said about Bradley’s winning shot. “But it happens in two seconds. It’s a thing of beauty, you know, and as much as he’s worked and as much as he’s bought in, he deserved that thing to go in.”
Cal maintained a lead throughout the game but the Washington Huskies (11-6, 1-3) made a late push to tie the game at 43 after two Jamal Bey free-throws with 6:39 to play. Both teams would only score six points each for the rest of regulation. After Bey’s free-throws Cal forward Anticevich tapped in a Kareem South miss to push the Bears back up 45-43. Washington tied the game on the ensuing possession after some Isaiah Wright free-throws.
Austin countered with a pullup jumper with 5:30 to play. Jaden McDaniels made a layup after an offensive rebound to tie the game at 47 with 4:22 to play. Over the finall four minutes, both teams would score just two points. First was a Bey layup to give Washington its first lead since 15:50 in the first half when the Huskies were up 6-5. With 2:10 to play, South made a driving layup to tie the game back at 49.
Both teams had multiple chances to take the lead in the final two minutes. But after a Grant Anticevich three-point miss with 12 seconds in regulation and a Nahziah Carter miss at the buzzer, the game went into overtime.
Austin was the early hero for the Bears in overtime. He got his own offensive rebound to setup a South three-point shot, giving the Bears a 52-49 lead. After Bey countered with a three of his own, Austin made the games next four points, giving Cal a 56-52 lead with 2:52 to play in overtime. After a couple Isaiah Stewart free throws, Bradley made a driving layup with 1:32 to go in overtime, giving the Bears a 58-56 lead.
With 34 seconds to play, Anticevich fouled Carter on a three-point attempt. The shot missed but Carter got three free-throws. He missed the first and made the second two, tying the game. But there were still more than 30 seconds left on the clock so Cal wouldn’t get the final possession unless it got an offensive rebound. But it didn’t need it as Bradley banked home the winning shot.
“Just a great Pac-12 game,” Fox said after the game. “I think Mike’s done a great job. When you beat a team that that’s good, you feel good about your own team. Because they have a really good ball club.”
Bradley led all scorers with 17 points on 6-of-16 shooting. Anticevich added 13 points also on 6-of-16 shooting. Anticevich led the Bears in rebounding with seven boards including three on the offensive side. Austin was the other Cal player in double-digits with 10 points on 5-of-9 shooting.
Cal found success early in the first half with mid-range jumpers, exploiting the middle of Washington’s zone and took a 28-20 lead at halftime. The Bears increased the lead to 10 multiple times in the second half. The last time was a 41-31 lead with 12:15 to play in regulation. But Washington used a 12-2 run that lasted nearly six minutes to tie the game at 43.
Washington’s lineup looked much longer and taller than the Bears, but were without starting point guard and leading passer and offensive creator Quade Green, who was ruled academically ineligible for the winter quarter on Thursday hours before UW’s game against Stanford. It showed as UW struggled to get any sort of offense going in the first half. It took the Huskies just over 14 minutes before making its first two-point shot, although it had made five three-pointers before then.
The Huskies are led in scoring by two blue-chip recruits that will likely be in the NBA in the next year or two in Isaiah Stewart and Jaden McDaniels. Stewart, who came into the game averaging 18.5 points and 8.8 rebounds per game only ended up with 13 points and six rebounds. He was efficient, going 4-of-7 from the field and 5-of-6 from the free-throw line but looked rattled by the Bears' physicality in the frontcourt.
“We played one-and-a-half men on him,” Bradley said of game-planning for Stewart. “When he got it, we made sure somebody was digging off. And that worked. It got him really frustrated. I caught an elbow to the mouth for it. He was really chippy.”
Head coach Mark Fox regularly rotated between Lars Thiemann, Andre Kelly, and DJ Thorpe to keep a fresh body on Stewart.
“We threw a lot of guys at him,” Fox said. “You know, I but Lars in, and I put Andre in, and I put DJ in, and then I did it again. We rotated a fresh big strong body on him.”
McDaniels added 12 points and 11 rebounds but went 4-of-12 from the field.
Cal held Washington to 30% (18-of-61) shooting from the field. UW out-rebounded the Bears 44-38, but the Bears went 26-of-65 (40%) from the field. Washington didn’t score a field goal over the last 4:08 of play in overtime while the Bears went five-of-seven from the field in the extra playing time. After 17 turnovers during Thursday’s game against Washington State, the Bears only turned it over 10 times on Saturday night while UW turned it over 13 times.
“I think this win was more about the investment that we’ve demanded that these kids make,” Fox said of the game. “And late in the game, it just meant a lot to our team. To dig in — whether it’s on offense or defense — to make the plays that we needed to make. Our defense tonight was obviously very good. But the play that hopefully everybody will talk about is the basket that went in to win it.”
It’s the second year in a row Cal has upset the Huskies at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley. Cal is off until Thursday when it starts its Los Angeles tour with a game against USC. The Bears will return to action against UCLA on Sunday. With two conference games left to play at the time of publication, the Bears sit tied for second in the conference with Oregon at 2-1. Stanford leads the conference at 3-0 and is the only remaining undefeated team in the Pac-12. When including Cal’s three-game conference win streak to end last season, the Bears are 5-1 in the last six regular-season conference games.
