Cal Wraps Season at Oregon State

And just like that, the college hoops season is on its final weekend of the regular season. Our Cal Golden Bears have a chance to sweep the Oregon State Beavers (16-13, 6-11) and finish the season in sole possession of eighth place in the conference.

Since Cal beat Oregon State in Berkeley on February 1, Oregon State has gone 3-4 with wins over Oregon, Utah, and Stanford. During that time, the Beavers went 3-1 at home and 0-3 on the road. OSU’s one home loss since playing Cal was a 21-point loss to the Buffaloes.

Tres Tinkle continues to lead the Beavers, averaging 18.2 points and seven rebounds a game. In the Bears’ 69-67 win over Oregon State at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley, Tinkle was right on his averages at 19 points and seven rebounds. Junior guard Ethan Thompson is averaging 15.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game. And senior seven-foot center Kylor Kelley is the other OSU player averaging double-digit scoring at 10.8 points per game. He’s also averaging 3.5 blocks per game.

This is probably one of the most interesting pieces of this game. Oregon State has the least efficient and worst defense in the Pac-12 according to KenPom’s metrics. And Cal has one of the worst and least efficient offenses (it’s a tossup between Cal and Wazzu), according to KenPom, especially on the road. Cal was only able to put up 69 points against the Beavers at Haas Pavilion. But the Bears have also looked much better on offense as of late.

On defense, the only thing Oregon State does well is block shots, which it does really well (13.8% block rate, 15^th in the country). This has helped contribute to Oregon State’s decent two-point defense. Opponents are averaging just 48% from inside the arch against the Beavers, which puts them at 117^th in the country. 

But the Beavers haven’t done a good job at guarding three-point shots, creating turnovers, or keeping teams off the offensive glass.

Oregon State, does, however, have an efficient offense, ranked 40^th in the country in KenPom’s metrics. In particular, the Beavers make two-point shots, get to the free-throw line at a high rate, and knockdown their free-throws. When the teams met in Berkeley, the Beavers went 24-of-30 from the free-throw line, which kept them in the game.

Keys to the Game

Fouls and free-throws. They almost led to Oregon State squeaking out a win in Berkeley. Cal committed just 18 fouls in that game, but the Beavers shot 30 free-throws. That’s a lot of shooting fouls and a lot of driving and attacking by the Beavers. Oregon State ranks 34^th in the country of the percentage of points coming from the foul line (22.2%). If OSU is driving, getting contact, and getting to the line, it could be a tough game for Cal to win.

On the other hand, Cal’s offense has been at its best when guys like Matt Bradley and Paris Austin are doing similar downhill driving and attacking at getting to the line.

Knockdown outside shots. It’s such a huge way to build confidence early and build a gap over a home team. We saw Cal do just that at Washington State and the Cougars were never able to close. To be sure, OSU doesn’t have an offense that can stagnate like Wazzu’s. But they also don’t have a defense as good as Wazzu’s. If Bradley, Grant Anticevich, and Kareem South all see some outside shots go down early, it could really help build a lead that OSU has troubles catching up to.

Matt Bradley plus another one (or preferably two). One thing has been for sure this season. Cal is at its best when Bradley is playing well and is getting some help from a couple others. Again, it doesn’t matter who. When these teams met in Berkeley it was Andre Kelly and Paris Austin. That’ll do. Or South and Anticevich. Doesn’t matter. Cal just needs a couple dudes besides Bradley to score.

Minimize OSU’s contributors. In that same vein, Cal needs to minimize the impact of guys like Thompson and Kelley. They did just that in Berkeley, holding Thompson and Kelley to 15 combined points. Junior wing Alfred Hollins added 14 to Tinkle’s 19, but it clearly wasn’t enough. Similar to Cal, OSU needs contributions from others besides Tinkle. Cal needs to minimize that.

KenPom says … 71-63, Oregon State (win-chance 79%)

From a conference standings standpoint, Cal doesn’t really have anything to lose this game. The Bears are likely to be eighth or ninth in the Pac-12 tournament seeding. But winning is better than losing and it would sure help the confidence heading into the conference tournament in Vegas next week. So might as well win it.