Huskies Overwhelm Bears, 84-63

Cal had the lead Thursday night against Washington at Haas Pavilion.

Grant Anticevich hit a short jumper to give the Bears a 2-0 lead with 19 seconds elapsed. And that was pretty much it for the Bears as the Huskies scored the next ten points and never trailed again as they routed weary Cal,  84-63.

Playing for the second straight game without injured forward Andre Kelly the Bears (9-14, 2-10 Pac-12) were no match for the Huskies (12-8, 7-3) and lost their ninth straight game. Washington is making an under-the-radar bid for an NCAA Tournament bid and, won for the sixth time in seven games.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Washington, they have been playing well,” said head coach Mark Fox said afterward. “But we played like a tired basketball team tonight. We were just a step behind, and our defense was nowhere to be found. When we allow that many three-point makes (12), we don’t have the firepower to match that.”

Playing for the fourth time in eight days, the Bears did seem heavy-legged. Because his team has to take the court again in less than 48 hours, Fox went with his younger players for most of the second half after the defeat was assured. Some good might have come out of that. Obinna Anayanwu, the freshman forward from San Diego who is listed at 6-7, saw his first extended playing time and was one of three Bears to score eight points and lead the team.

Bear Insider

Terrell Brown (23)

“Obinna has actually grown a little over an inch since he got to campus,” Fox said. “He’s bigger and he’s stronger and he will end up being more of a four than a three if he keeps growing. I thought tonight he showed his physicality, and his ability to play around the basket. I thought he had really good minutes that he can learn from.”

In all Fox used 12 players and 11 of them scored.

Jalen Celestine and Makale Foreman also had eight points for the Bears, who shot just 35.5 percent (22-for-62) from the floor. Washington head coach Mike Hopkins is a disciple of long-time Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and uses Boeheim’s zone defense concepts with a little man-to-man thrown in. The Bears were bothered by the tactic and more than once ran the shot-clok down without getting a decent look. 

Anticevich scored seven and his long-range woes continued. Once one of the top three-point shooters in the conference, Anticevich missed all five of his three-point tries and is 3-for= 24 on treys over the past eight games.

Fox said, “He's going to have to come to his own rescue to some degree" by continuing to shoot the ball when he's open.”

The Bears did some good work on defense for a while. They particularly concentrated on Terrell Brown, who came into the game leading the league not only in scoring (21.5 ppg) but his team in assists, (4.2.

Brown missed his first five shots but still finished with 19 points on 8-for-17 shooting. Jamal Bey wound up leading the visitors with 20 points, while Stanford transfer Daejon Davis also had 19, including 5-for-7 from beyond the arc.

Following the Huskies' initial burst, the Bears gave the sparse crowd some false hope with a couple of minor runs. They did cut the margin to two points midway in the half.

But the Huskies scored the next six and kept the Bears at arm’s length, building the lead as high as 14.

The Bears had one more bit of hope. trailing by 12 in the final half-minute, Cal worked the clock and Sam Alijiki hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer from the corner to pull the Bears within single digits at the half.

© Darren Yamashita USA Today

Wyking Jones returns

The Huskies took the starch out of the Bears early in the second half. They came out firing and before two minutes had been played they were up by 14 and on their way.

The Bears don’t have much time to lick their wounds with WSU looming Saturday afternoon. 

“These games are physical and there is a lot of concentration that’s required, mental energy,” Fox said. “We are going to have to decompress overnight and have a real quick prep because there won’t even be a shoot around on Saturday. This is a one-day prep and let’s hope we can give a much better effort on Saturday.”

Notes

• Kelly had played in 113 consecutive games before missing Tuesday’s game at Stanford.
• Fox said that Kelly definitely would not play Saturday and would be seeing another doctor immediately after the game.
• Former Cal head coach Wyking Jones was back at Haas Pavilion as an assistant on the Huskies staff.
• Fox had won both his previous home games against Washington.
• The Huskies swept the season series.