Cal Basketball

Bears Struggle to Find the Bucket in 70-55 Loss to Stanford

By Jim McGill

February 4, 2021

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BERKELEY -The Bears’ rough patch of play continued tonight with a disappointing 7-55 loss to Stanford at Haas Pavilion.

You won’t win many game scoring 55 points while getting just 16 points of production from all but your top two scorers and such was the case tonight in Cal’s defeat.

Junior Matt Bradley held up his end of the bargain with a tremendously efficient night on the floor, going 5-for-7 from three and 6-for-12 overall to go along with a perfect 7-for-7 from the line on his way to a team-leading 25 points in the loss. Since coming back from injury, Bradley’s a scorching 13-for-21 from distance for the Bears.

The only other Bear to score in double digits was post Andre Kelly, who added 15 points to go along with a team-leading seven rebounds on the night. The rest of the team struggled, with the Bears shooting just 37% from the floor and 27% from behind the arc on the night.

“I think those two kids have played well offensively but we need some other guys to finish some plays,” said Fox. “Grant (Anticevich) didn’t play well tonight on the offensive end. Ryan Betley, I think was 3-for-12 and 1-for-6 from three. We have to get some more guys that can finish some plays around those two.”

Fox was also quick to praise Stanford’s role in tonight’s loss.

“I thought Stanford in the first half, their offense, especially on the interior, was really effective,” said Cal head coach Mark Fox. “I was extremely disappointed in our defense but I don’t want to take anything away from Stanford’s team.

“They shot nearly 61% in the first half and we had a very poor ending of the half with some turnovers that led to some baskets at the other end and you just can’t do that against a good team.”

The Bears had a tough time stopping Pac-12 leading scorer Oscar da Silva tonight with the senior matching Bradley with 24 points along with 11 rebounds in Stanford’s victory.

After their usual slow start where they got down 7-2, the Bears worked their way back and took a 16-13 lead on Bradley’s first trey of the night midway through the first half. The brief lead was the only lead the Bears would have throughout the night as they fell behind, 42-29 at the half, helping Stanford to a 54% night from the field along with a 40-22 advantage with points from the paint.

The Bears made a go of making the game competetive when Bradley heated up, hitting his fourth three pointer followed soon by a 4-point play to bring the Bears to within just three at 46-43 six minutes into the second half but it was all downhill from there as sloppy ballhandling and missed buckets doomed them on the offense end as Stanford steadily extended their lead.

The Bears fell to 2-11 in Pac-12 play and 7-13 overall in the 2020-21 campaign.

Next Game:

The rubber match between the conference rivals comes this Sunday at 7 from Maples Pavilion, where the Cardinal have finally returned after being forced to play much of their home schedule off campus due to Covid-19 restrictions. The game was moved up from March to potentially free up the schedule for any available non-conference games to make up for the shortened non-conference season. The game will be televised on FS1.