Cold Shooting and Rebounding Woes Cost Bears in 71-60 Defeat to WSU

BERKELEY -As has often been the case when the team was missing leading scorer Matt Bradley, the Bears started hot but petered out, eventually losing to 9-1 Washington State 71-60 tonight in Haas Pavilion.

After getting down 7-0 out of the gate, the Bears battled back to score 11 straight and eventually take a six point lead, 19-13 with 9:40 left in the half, forcing eight Cougar turnovers during that span. 

After again falling behind by seven, the Bears battled back with seven straight points of their own to tie the game before WSU forward Kunc closed out the half with a three-pointer to give the Cougars a 31-28 lead going into the break.

They never trailed again, leading by as many as 14 before the final 11 point margin.

“I think tonight we didn’t rebound the ball the way we needed to and we didn’t defend the 3-point line (WSU 7-for-18 from 3),” said Cal head coach Mark Fox. “We gave them 38, almost 39% from the 3-point line and just got crushed on the backboards. We did take better care of it tonight (just seven turnovers) but we need to play more complete to beat a team that came in here with the record they had.”

The Bears (5-7, 0-5 Pac-12) were led by three double-digit scorers, including Andre Kelly (11 points, five rebounds), Lars Thiemann (career-high 10 points, five rebounds) and Ryan Betley, with 10 points and five rebounds but just 2-for-11 from the field.

Forward Grant Anticevich made a surprise appearance after missing four games due to an emergency apendectomy, scoring nine points on 4-for-8 shooting in 20 minuteso on the floor.

“Grant’s had very limited practice time,” said Fox. “He didn’t get officially cleared till before the game. He had some light practice time and I think it shows with his conditioning. To be honest, the little bit he practiced, he didn’t practice very well. He played better than he practiced. Obviously it’s going to take him some time to recover. He lost a significant amount of weight and conditioning but it was really nice to have him out on the floor and hopefully he can go up from where he was today.”

WSU’s length hurt the Bears all game. Though they won the turnover battle, 15-7, they were out-rebounded 45 to 29 and were out-shot 44 percent (23-of-52) to 34 percent (20-of-58).

“They’re a big team,” said forward Andre Kelly. “They’re tall and athletic. We needed to do a better job of boxing out.”

Washington State was led by their season scoring leader Isaac Bonton, who scored a game-high 21 points along with six assists and five rebounds on the night.

The Bears return to Haas Pavilion on Saturday with a noon start time against Washington. The game will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks.