Bears Fight Off Pesky Miami Squad in 98-94 OT Win

BERKELEY - Fresh off their first to ACC wins in their last two games, the Bears faced Miami without their leading scorer for the second straight game, with soph wing Andrej Stojakovic‍ on the bench with an injury but the Bears found new ways to light up the scoreboard in the first half before struggling to close out a too-close-for-comfort 98-94 OT win over the Hurricanes.

Frosh point guard Jeremiah Wilkinson‍ shook off a rough shooting first half for a career-high 30 points on 10-for-22 from the floor and 9-for-10 from the line in the win. Hurricanes guard Matthew Cleveland lit up the Bears for 30 and forward Brandon Johnson pitched in 16 before fouling out in OT. The Canes shot an impressive 14-for-27 from three to keep them in the game while the Bears hit just 9-of-28 from deep.

"Just know we can't panic," Wilkinson said after the win about how the Bears battled back. "You know, they don't have that many wins, but they're going to come out, they're going to play hard. And don't let us be the team that they beat. Just keep playing hard, no matter if they're hitting shots or not. And at the end of the game, they went on runs, but we weathered the storm. Went to overtime. We took care of business."

Guard DJ Campbell‍ also came up big for the Bears with 22 points, 4 assists, 2 steals and no turnovers in the win and center Mady Sissoko‍ led the Bears on the boards with 10. The 22 points were his highest as a Bear and 1 short of his career high of 23.

The first half was a high-scoring affair, with the Bears racking up 47 points with 7 three pointers and 48% shooting from the floor, led by Wilkinson’s10, including a thundering jam through traffic.

The Bears also got an impressive boost with back-to-back threes from forward Spencer Mahoney‍, 5 early rebounds by Sissoko‍ and 8 first half points my center Lee Dort‍ on 4-for-5 shooting.

An early 10-3 run put the Bears in the lead throughout the half after Miami opened with a 3 and the Bears protected the lead throughout the half, going up 47-39 by the break.

Facing a disciplined Miami zone with a suddenly cold perimeter offense on their end, the Bears struggled to score, netting just 8 points in the first nine minutes of the half. The Hurricanes took their first lead since the opening minutes, 57-55 on a Brandon Johnson layup.

It was a back-and-forth affair from there as both teams traded leads as the clock wound down, with four straight Wilkinson driving layups in traffic keeping the Bears in it.

With the Bears up 2 and the possession clock nearing zero and the crowd roaring, guard Matthew Cleveland hit a clutch jumper to tie the game at 74 with 1:05 left. The Bears were able to regain the lead after Wilkinson hit a pair of free throws to go up two with :50 remaining.

Stellar D on the next possession saw the Bears with a chance to extend the lead after Campbell was fouled. He missed the front end of the 1-and-1 but secured the rebound and calmly sank the next two to extend the lead to 78-74 with 18 seconds remaining but the Canes got a break on a questionable foul call and Cleveland sunk a pair of free throws.

After Campbell was fouled and hit only 1-of-2, Miami had a chance to tie coming out of the timeout.

Needing to foul on the bounce, instead the Bears let Miami’s top player Cleveland roam free on the perimeter and he responded by calmly hitting the trey and sending the game to OT.

Campbell was clutch for the Bears in OT, hitting five free throws and a layup to put the Bears up six, 87-81 with 2:30 remaining in OT. A clutch Blacksher trey with the possession clock winding down extended the lead to 7.

Miami responded with a Staton-McCray trey to narrow the lead to four with :16 left. After Campbell hit 1-of-2 on the next possession after a quick foul, Staton-McCray again hit a clutch 3 to narrow the Cal lead to 3 with 7.2 seconds remaining.

Deja vu.

Wilkinson was fouled on the inbounds and calmly sank both free thows, seeming to secure the win for the Bears but Cleveland came back for a quick bucket to narrow the score to 97-94. The Bears tried a fullcourt inbounds pass to run out the clock but the crowd had to nervously wait for an official review after the ball was deflected out of bounds on the play.

The Bears retained possession with less than a second left and Sissoko was fouled wtih no time running off the clock on the inbounds pass but the big man came through for the Bears, hitting the front end free throw and securing the win for the Bears.

"Got to give a lot of credit to Miami," Cal head coach Mark Madsen said after the game. "Miami is a tough team, and lot of you guys will look at the record and say something else, but that's a good team. They're gonna have some good wins in conference play. "I was proud of our guys for battling, for fighting. In this particular case, we were trying to foul at the end of regulation. I told the players a couple of keys on which I did not want to foul. And so those keys kind of developed in the play, and they knew not to to give up a four point play potentially. You've got to give a lot of credit to Miami for rising up and making that shot."

Cal moved to 11-9 (4-5) with the victory and Miami falls to 4-16 (0-9) with the loss.

Notes: 

After missing Wednesday’s game with the flu, leading scorer Stojakovic injured his hip in practice and could potentially miss more games, though Madsen said he hoped to have him back relatively soon.

Today’s crowd of 5,169 was an improvement on the attendance front but just a step in the right direction to getting back to filling up Haas.

The Bears will next be back in action in Dallas at SMU at 6 pm on the ACC Network, facing the 15-5 (6-3) Mustangs, who are coming off a close win over NC State.