Bears Bounce Back Against Fresno State
After a two-game skid, losing by double digits at San Francisco and at Santa Clara, the Bears (6-4) were back home in the comfy confines of Haas Pavilion and came out with a win, downing Fresno State 69-63. It was a back-and-forth affair the entire game with neither team leading by more than eight. But the Bears pulled away late and were lead by Matt Bradley who poured in 24 points to lead all scorers. Kareem South added 17 and Andre Kelly also scored 10. Cal is now 6-0 in Berkeley and 0-4 away from Berkeley.
“I thought this was a hard-fought game,” Head Coach Mark Fox said after the game. “And, really, a fun game to coach. And hopefully, a fun game for everybody to play in.”
On both road games, Cal suffered from poor three-point shooting and high amounts of turnovers. But against Fresno State (2-7), the Bears shot 43% (6-of-14) from three and only turned it over six times while converting on nine assists. The only issue for the Bears was rebounding as they were out-rebounded by the Bulldogs 38-28. Fresno State snatched 15 offensive rebounds.
“It was a really good feeling to come back home after two losses,” Bradley said after the game.
“I think we had a great week of practice coming into the game,” he added.
South agreed, adding, “I think we did a good job of trusting our system.”
Cal lost by 12 to San Francisco and then by 19 to Santa Clara. Bradley, in particular, struggled, scoring just 11 against San Francisco and 14 against Santa Clara. Heading into those games, the sophomore was averaging close to 20 points per game.
“Matt had a bad week last week. He had a tough week last week,” Fox said. “But Matt Bradley had a great approach and response to it. And give him credit. He really grew up and I thought he practiced really well the past two days.”
Throughout the game, the Bears built five to eight-point leads but were never able to pull away more than that. With 3:38 in the game, Fresno State had a chance to tie the game at 59 when New Williams was fouled on a made layup. Williams missed the layup but Cal knocked the rebound out of bounds and Fresno had another chance to take the lead. Mustafa Lawrence missed a running layup and the Bulldogs never got closer.
On the ensuing possession, South was fouled. He missed the front-end of the one-and-one, but Kelly scooped up the offensive board and did a baby-hook to put it back in. Kelly led the Bears in rebounding with six rebounds including four on the offensive side. The Bears rattled off seven straight points before Fresno would score again, pushing the lead to 66-58 with 34 seconds to go and pretty much ending the game.
“I thought we managed the last part of the game very much like we wanted to,” Fox said. “We didn’t make all of our free-throws, but we made a lot of them. So this was a good experience for us.”
Bradley added that he thought the team’s confidence in the last four or five minutes was at an “all-time high.”
Williams led the Bulldogs with 21 points. Fresno State’s leading scorer and rebounder, Nate Grimes was kept in check in scoring, only putting up seven points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field. He did, however, lead all rebounders with 14 including seven offensive rebounds. Cal had five total offensive rebounds.
Fox said the difference in playing at home versus away from Haas Pavilion could be inexperience with the system and coaches.
“I think that our team has a comfort level at home,” Fox said. “We have not played well outside of this building. And part of that is it’s not their fault they’re inexperienced in our offensive system and inexperienced in our defensive system. When you get away from home, those things kind of show up. You can’t blame them for that.”
Fox also said the energy fans can bring at Haas Pavilion could also propel the team. “We’re going to need our fans to break a sweat and fight with us,” he said. At one point, Fox even started looking into the stands and waving his hands and arms in the air, motioning for the crowd to get up and make noise.
“We need their energy. We have to create the energy in this building where when teams leave here, they say, “whoa, they’re ready to fight for their team,’” Fox said.
“I just tried to rally them a bit. I don’t do that often,” he later added.
The Bears return to action on Saturday night when Saint Mary’s comes to Berkeley. According to KenPom, Saint Mary’s the No. 46 team in the country and the best team Cal has played since Texas, which was ranked No. 45 in KenPom when the Bears played them in New York City.
While the Bears have yet to win away from Berkeley, Fox believes his team is showing progress.
“We were disappointed in how we played over the weekend,” he said. “And we practiced hard for a couple days. And we showed some progress tonight in several areas.
“We’ve got to go through the fire. And when you go through the fire, you’re going to get burned a few times. But you have to do that in order to grow.”