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Cal Basketball

Bears Drop Season Opener To UC San Diego

November 9, 2021
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BERKELEY – Jordan Shepherd tied his career-high with 27 points in his Cal debut and senior Andre Kelly had 17 points and 12 rebounds, but the Cal men's basketball team dropped its season-opener 80-67 to UC San Diego on Tuesday afternoon at Haas Pavilion.

Junior guard Joel Brown added 10 points for the Bears, who opened up an early 12-point lead but couldn't sustain it. Shepherd, a graduate transfer from Charlotte, drained four 3-pointers and added four rebounds to match his best scoring effort as a collegian. He also had 27 points against Valparaiso in 2019.

"I don't think we played to our strengths or our identity at all," Kelly said. "We just have to be sharper. It was the first time with this group together. We'll bounce back. We'll respond the right way."

Jarred Hyder's two free throws with 12:53 remaining in the first half gave Cal an 18-6 lead and the Bears still led 31-22 with 4:05 to go before the intermission. But a 7-0 run by the Tritons put them back in it, and it took Shepherd's 3-pointer with four seconds left to put the Bears up 37-33 heading into the break.

Shepherd's 3-pointer with 13:22 to play gave Cal its last lead at 48-47. UCSD followed with a 11-0 run and never trailed by less than seven points the rest of the way.

"I'm very disappointed in our team's play today," Cal head coach Mark Fox said. "Obviously, I didn't have them ready to go. Give (UC San Diego) credit – they outplayed us. It's my responsibility to get it cleaned up and make sure this doesn't define our season."

UP NEXT

The Bears will next travel to UNLV for their first road game of the season Saturday at 5 p.m. The contest will air on Stadium.

Related:

Cal Cruises Past Cal State LA, 92-58

Discussion from...

Bears Drop Season Opener To UC San Diego

4,456 Views | 12 Replies | Last: 3 yr ago by MoragaBear
joe amos yaks
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6:44p, 11/9/21
At least Coach Fox knows what he has to do. Now can he do it?
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GoOskie
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7:59p, 11/9/21
Was the b ball team hit with covid, too? How the @#&!@$&%!^@%#$ @#&!@$&%!^@%#$@#&!@$&%!^@%#$ @$&%!^@%#$@# do we lose to UC SD?
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upsetof86
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8:43p, 11/9/21
UCSD went 30-1-0 in 2019. Certainly granted a different level of competition but not a total cupcake program these days. This '21 Cal mens team interesting to me, too early to judge. Next game will be telling of course.
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calumnus
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In reply to upsetof86 • 9:15p, 11/9/21
upsetof86 said:
UCSD went 30-1-0 in 2019. Certainly granted a different level of competition but not a total cupcake program these days. This '21 Cal mens team interesting to me, too early to judge. Next game will be telling of course.


I like UC San Diego, my brother was their starting point guard, but they are not a good team.

Sure, they went 30-1 in Division 2 in 2019: Cal State Monterey Bsy, Cal State San Bernardino, Norte Dame De Namur, etc.

Last year was their first in Division 1. They came in 10th of 11 in the Big West. Ken Pomeroy ranked them #231.
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bearsandgiants
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6:20a, 11/10/21
UCSD looked good. They played tight defense. They shot the ball well. They hit 3s (which we have NEVER been able to defend). They rebounded and passed and controlled the ball. They're a very well-coached team and their coach ran circles around Fox. We simply can't shoot and are not disciplined. We also have ALWAYS sucked against a zone D because we can't shoot. We need a new coach who can recruit and understands the game of basketball. I'll take a young one who's unproven in terms of recruiting, but proven in terms of coaching. At least we can be respectable, immediately and hope for the best in terms of building a brand. Get a coach with some personality who understands the game. Cuonzo had personality but couldn't coach the game. Monty could coach but had no personality. Braun also could coach but had no personality. Fox doesn't have either.
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socaltownie
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In reply to upsetof86 • 6:24a, 11/10/21
upsetof86 said:
UCSD went 30-1-0 in 2019. Certainly granted a different level of competition but not a total cupcake program these days. This '21 Cal mens team interesting to me, too early to judge. Next game will be telling of course.


Give it a rest. We lost to a program, badly, that is transitioning to d1 AND is highly skeptical of granting athletic scholarships (I am guessing many of their players are only on half rides) . I am near sure as well that none are on special admits and had to get into what has become a highly competitive admission school. And fox, again, threw players under the bus with criticism of practice ethic. He is a 50 year old dinosaur.
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PtownBear1
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6:37a, 11/10/21
Saw the headline that we lost to UCSD and just laughed. Last year was sad, now it's just a joke.
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Dduster
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10:45a, 11/10/21
Mick Cronin is a 50 year old dinosaur at UCLA as well. Stop with the stupid age and race comments. Give Fox UCLA players and see how much better things go. The talent level of the Bears is below the Mountain West threshold.
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LateHit
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11:02a, 11/10/21
And the San Diego talent level was even lower. But they came into our house and outscored us by 16 in the second half.
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socaliganbear
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In reply to Dduster • 11:26a, 11/10/21
Dduster said:
Mick Cronin is a 50 year old dinosaur at UCLA as well. Stop with the stupid age and race comments. Give Fox UCLA players and see how much better things go. The talent level of the Bears is below the Mountain West threshold.
It's only gotten lower compared to what he inherited.
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CalLifer
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In reply to Dduster • 1:55p, 11/10/21
Dduster said:
Mick Cronin is a 50 year old dinosaur at UCLA as well. Stop with the stupid age and race comments. Give Fox UCLA players and see how much better things go. The talent level of the Bears is below the Mountain West threshold.
I'm not sure where race came in (is dinosaur a secretly coded racial epithet?), but Mick Cronin was an extremely successful coach at Cincinnati when he was hired at UCLA. Fox was an extremely unsuccessful coach at Georgia who was out of coaching for a year when we was given an amazing opportunity that I'm guessing no other P5 team would give him.

Second, I'm not sure if you are aware, but Fox is ENTIRELY responsible for the roster he has. We actually had a reasonably talented team when Wyking was fired, and 3 of our better players left right after Fox's amazing first speech. I know there are those who know that those players were gone already, but it was Fox's job to convince them why he was the guy to take cal to the next level. One of those who left was a key starter on a top 2 seed in last year's NCAA tournament. Fox also was not able to show any promise to the best player on the team the last two years. The level of talent on this team is 100% his responsibility, so if you say the talent level of the team is poor, then that's another reason for his dismissal, not an excuse.
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MoragaBear
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2:38p, 11/10/21
Staff
Cal looked like they were going to coast to a comfortable win when they were up 28-17 14 minutes into the game after 3 straight buckets. It was all downhill from there. They didn't defend well and good shots weren't falling, especially for Grant. It was like an invisible hand was reaching up through the cylinder to knock his shots out.

Just a really bad showing overall.
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