Cal Drops Road Battle At UC San Diego

LA JOLLA, Calif. – The California men’s basketball team could not pull off a second-half rally and dropped a 64-62 nonconference road game against UC San Diego on Tuesday night at LionTree Arena.

After facing a 10-point halftime deficit, Cal (0-3) made a late push for the second consecutive game but could never grab the lead down the stretch. Devin Askew finished with a team-high 13 points while Grant Newell (12), Kuany Kuany (11) and Lars Thiemann (10) added double-figure scoring efforts.

A 3-pointer by UCSD’s Bryce Pope – his fifth of the night – with 12 seconds left gave the Tritons (1-2) a 64-60 lead. After a UCSD timeout, Askew converted a layup to cut the deficit to two. The Golden Bears called timeout and fouled Jace Roquemore, who missed the front-end of a 1-and-1. Askew grabbed the rebound and was able to fire off a 3-point attempt, but missed the mark.

“I feel like we came in with a very poor approach with how we had to defend this team,” said Cal head coach Mark Fox after the game. “We did nothing in the first half that we wanted to do. We didn’t make one adjustment at halftime. We just tried to improve their concentration. 

“in the first half, we gave up 7 3’s (54%) and in the second half, we gave up only 2 at 22%. Our defense just completely flipped in the second half and offensively, we were much better in the second half.”

The Tritons shot 7-for-13 from 3-point range in the first half and led by as many as 18 points, 28-10, with 7:07 remaining before the intermission. Cal was able to score the final six points – all free throws – of the opening period to pull within 37-27 at halftime, but managed just six field goals (6-for-19, 31.6 percent) from the floor. Kuany scored nine of his 11 points while Newell added eight before halftime.

Consecutive layups by Joel Brown with 2:14 left and 58 seconds left to go brought Cal within one point both times, 59-58 and 61-60.

Cal finished 21-of-24 at the charity stripe, knocking down its most free throws in a single game since making 26-of-33 against Utah on Feb. 29, 2020. Newell was a perfect 6-of-6 and was one of three Bears who made six free throws, along with Kuany and Thiemann.

Pope led UCSD with 19 points while Emmanuel Tshimanga scored 12 points on 5-for-6 shooting off the bench and Roquemore scored 11.

UP NEXT

Cal will be back in action Friday when it hosts Southern University in Berkeley. The contest will tip off at 6 p.m. PT and will be televised on the Pac-12 Network.