Bears Make Big Rally but Come Up Short Against Seattle

Cal came all the way back from an 18-point first half deficit to actually take the lead against Seattle Saturday night. But too many mistakes and a concession of the backboards  did the Bears in and the visiting Redhawks came away from Haas Pavilion with a 82-73 victory.

The Bears ended their non-conference schedule with a 5-7 record and some real concern whether they can have any sort of respectable showing in the Pac-12  season which begins Thursday at USC.

Seattle, which had a noisy contingent of rooters in the crowd of 4,104, is 14-1.

The Redhawks came out blazing, and taking advantage of some wretched Cal shooting, indifferent Bears  defense and their own domination on the boards were ahead 29-11 with 7:36 left in the first half.

“We came out flat and we weren’t ready to play at the start of the game, I don’t know why,”: head coach Wyking Jones said afterwards. “I’ve got to do a better job of getting them ready. I could tell in the shootaround the energy level wasn’t there for whatever reason,

“Typically we start well, but we weren’t ready to play today. We had some energy in spurts, but you can’t dig yourself an 18-point hole and expect  to win,:”

While the Redhawks were getting wide-open looks and converting them, Cal missed 9 of its first 14 shots. Plus the Bears were getting killed on the boards. Seattle had a 19-7 rebounding advantage in the first half and for the game were credited with 19 second chance points to seven for the Bears.

“That was the difference in the game,” Jones said. “They got 19 points on 14 offensive rebounds.”

Seattle is not a particularly big team, with its tallest starter 6-9. But when Cal’s 6-8 Grant Anticevich picked up his second foul with a little more than two minutes gone, the Bears got even smaller.

Paris Austin, who led the Bears with 20 points and had five rebounds, said a lot of the board responsibility belongs to the guards.

“We need to rebound more,” he said, “We are not going to put it on our bigs. We’ve got to do our job, too, getting down there and helping them out as a team.”

Using a full-court press and finally challenging some shots, the Bears were able to cut the Seattle lead in half by the end of the first period. They closed the opening 20 minutes with an 8-2 run that made the score 40-31 at the intermission, a trend that continued early in the second half.

Austin, Darius McNeill and Andre Kelly led Cal on a 17-7 run.  Austin, actually put the Bears ahead when he took a feed from Kelly and laid it in for a 48-47 Cal lead, their first since the opening minutes.

The teams traded three-point plays, but Seattle scored the next six points and Cal could never get closer than three the rest of the way.

The Bears had particular trouble with 6-9 junior forward Myles Carter a transfer from Seton Hall. who hit six of his eight field goal attempts in the first half and finished the period  with 12 points. Using some double teams in the second half the Bears were able to briefly slow him down, but they could not control him down the stretch. He finished with 26 points and 13 rebounds.

“Carter was active tonight, he hurt us,” Jones said. “I give those guys a lot of credit, they came unto play.”

Point guard Morgan Means, who seemed to be in the middle of virtually every Seattle possession, helped keep the Bears at arm’s length with some uncanny free throw shooting. He was 16-for-16 from the line, including 10-for-10 in the second half. He, Carter and guard Delante Jones each played the full 40 minutes.

Although they closed the margin in the second half, Cal was outrebounded 38-30 and had 13 turnovers and only eight assists.

Even after cooling off in the final ten minutes, Seattle finished the first half shooting 57.7 per cent from the floor. The Bears, who went nearly five minutes without a point, did manage to bring their first half percentage up to a respectable 42.9 per cent. Cal did not reach double figures in scoring until nearly 11 minutes had been played and Austin hit a pair of free throws to make the score 25-11. Seattle scored the next four points to hit their biggest first-half margin.

“We can’t dig ourselves a hole that at home,” Jones said he told his players afterwards.. “We don’t dig ourselves a hole then we’re fine. We just use so much energy trying to get back and that’s the main message. We can’t come out flat. That just can’t happen.”

Cal’s 7-3 freshman Connor Vanover, who was injured against Cal Poly on December 15, missed his third straight game, Although he is not a ferocious banger, he does give Cal some height underneath, and his absence probably contributed to the rebounding woes

Now the conference season looms. “We’ve definitely got to make some adjustments,” Austin said, “We met some adversity today, We just were a little passive and we’ve got to get readyh for our next game.

Seattle built its 11-3 record with victories over the likes of Puget Sound, Bryant, Fairfield and Longwood. They do however, own a win over Washington State. The loss was to Washington on the Huskies home court.