Losing streak hits five as Arizona routs Bears

The downward spiral continued for the Cal men’s basketball team Saturday night at Haas Pavilion as Arizona methodically handed the Bears their fifth straight defeat, 87-65

Cal (5-11, 0-4 Pac-12) has lost its last 11 conference games.

The Wildcats (13-4, 4-0), who had a sizable contingent among the crowd of 7,868 and their impressive plays, of which there were many, drew louder cheers than anything that Cal did. Not that, aside from Justice Sueing, the Bears fans had all that much to celebrate.

The Wildcats look capable of once again being a force in the conference despite their well-publicized problems on and off the court.The Bears really had no answer for anything the Wildcast did.

“Before the game I challenged our guys to pick up their sense of urgency defensively and for whatever reason we just didn’t have it tonight,” head coach Wyking Jones said afterwards. “Two   things we worked on the most things week was shooting, because we are good shooting team We got a ton of shots the last two day. And free throws, we struggled with tonight,”

Cal hung with the ‘Cats for much of the first half, and trailed by just 28-24 with 4:34 left. But Arizona finished the half with a 12-4 run, appropriately punctuated by a Chase Jeter dunk at the buzzer. Jones pointed out that the usually reliable Darius McNeill was 0-for-6 from the floor in the first half, including several wide open looks, and the Bears made just seven of their 12 free throws in the period. Had the things gone more according to form, “They wouldn’t have had such momentum going into the second half.”

But they did and then with the 6-10 Jeter having his way underneath and his quick mates chipping in, the Arizona just pulled away. He scored six of Arizona’s first 11 points in the second half, the Wildcats quickly had themselves a 17-point lead. From then on the only question was how big the margin of victory would be.

For Arizona Jeter was just too tall and too quick for the Cal defenders. He finished with 23 points on 8-for-11 shooting.

Freshmen post men were the primary defenders on Jeter, and Jones obviously was unhappy with what he saw from them. “Some of that is inexperience, but at the same time, there needs to be more effort and more sense of urgency when it comes to getting a stop and making the right defensive play,” Jones said. “The sense of urgency is not there right now, and we desperately need to improve that.”

Jeter also grabbed nine rebounds to help account for UofA’s 38-28 edge on the boards.

Arizona had four men score in double figures,and nine of its ten players scored at least three points.

Cal point guard Paris Austin, who had missed the last two games with a high ankle sprain, was back in the lineup, but couldn’t really do the Bears much good. He scored just eight points and had but two assists and three turnovers.

Jones said he didn’t see anything physically wrong with Austin, and attributed his problems to his perhaps being “a little rusty.”

Sueing was a bright spot as he tied his career high with 27 points.. He went 8-for-13 from the floor and even grabbed a team high five rebounds.  Despite his efforts the Bears were just 20-for-58 from the floor, a 34.5 per cent figure. Arizona, on the other hand was 32-for-57, 56.1 per cent.

Jones now has to rally his troops for the rest of the Pac-12 season, which resumes next weekend against the Washington schools in the Northwest,

“At this very moment, everybody’s unhappy,” Jones said. “We’ve got to regroup. We’ve still got a lot of games to play. Some guys are going to have to grow up quicker. … We’re young, but we’ve still got to play the games. We’ve still got to compete. We’ve still got to be able execute and do the things we need to do to win.”

He said he feels attitude is not an issue. “They always come in with the right attitude,” he said. “That’s not an issue.”