The California Golden Bears lost, 95-89, to the Florida State Seminoles on Wednesday afternoon at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina in the second round of the T. Rowe Price ACC Tournament.
This was the second matchup between the two teams this season. FSU won the first, on Jan. 28, in Tallahassee, Fla. Cal faced a double-digit deficit early in that one but fought back in the second half and lost by just two.
Justin Pippen and Dai Dai Ames handled the ball in the backcourt with John Camden, Chris Bell on the wings and Lee Dort the big man down low. TT Carr and Milos Ilic got some early playing time as well. The Wednesday afternoon matchup was the first game of the ACC Tournament for both teams.
Florida State started strong with an early 8-0 run thanks to scoring bunches from Robert McCray (with 14 first half points, shooting 6-10 from the field) and Kobe McGee (16 first half points shooting 5-6 from beyond the arc).
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Cal struggled to find their rhythm offensively (3-11 from deep, 11-27 from the field in the first half), which in turn led to uncontested looks on the opposite end for FSU. The Seminoles dominated the paint in the late-January matchup and this March matchup was more of the same. They had 18 points in the paint during the first half.
Similar to the previous matchup, the Bears failed to take care of the ball which offered the FSU offense easy opportunities in transition. Cal had eight first half turnovers — some due to sloppy ball control and some due to FSU’s active hands as starting guard Lajae Jones had two first half steals — which FSU converted into 12 points. In contrast, FSU had zero first half turnovers.
Cal hung close for the first five minutes and led briefly but their perimeter shots weren’t falling and the FSU zone stifled much of the interior game. That aforementioned 8-0 run was part of a bigger, 17-2 run over four and half minutes at which point the Seminoles led 23-15. The Bears trailed 30-16 before showing some sparks of life; two successive Ames threes put them within eight points. But FSU’s interior attack, physical and tenacious, collapsed the Bears’ defense which in turn opened up shots for FSU’s McGee.
A McGee step back and a Jones three from the wing put the Bears down 46-32 at the break. Ames had ten points at the break.
The second half started similarly for the Seminoles, as McCray found Jones for a dunk then Martin Sommerville hit a three from the wing, giving FSU its largest lead of the night at 17. A Jones driving slam followed by a steal by him on the other end put the Seminoles up 21 with just under 15 minutes left in the game.
Throughout the second half, FSU was able to maintain, and at times, stretch their lead with a smothering perimeter defense and unrelenting interior attacks. The Bears’ turnovers (12 in all) gave the Seminoles extra and easy looks. But FSU had a hot hand all night (57 percent from the field, 48 percent from three) and the Bears were unable to contain them defensively. FSU had four players in double figures and got good looks the majority of the game.
Cal managed to make a push in the final five minutes to make it a bit more competitive. They cut the lead to six in the final seconds but FSU’s lead throughout the game proved too much to surmount.
The Seminoles dominated both ends of the floor for most of the game, crowding Cal on exterior shots and challenging them in the paint defensively while getting and netting tons of good looks both inside and outside of the key.
This frustrating loss is largely due to the plethora of first half turnovers, and the stagnant Bears’ offense. When they initially fell behind in the first half, the Bears stopped moving off-the-ball and relied heavily on one-on-one matchups to score. Such a strategy has not worked well for the Bears this season and it didn’t work on Wednesday.
Cal was successful this year when they utilized quick, off ball screens for Bell and Camden on the wing, in conjunction with high pick-and-rolls for Ames and Pippen.
With the loss, Cal loses any chance for an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament, but the Bears are still a likely contender for the National Invitation Tournament. The NIT starts Tuesday, March 18.
This was a disappointing end to a promising season in which the Bears rattled off 15 wins by November but failed to maintain that momentum through the toughest part of their schedule. This was head coach Mark Madsen’s first 20-win season at Cal and there was a lot of potential in the winter months, especially after the Chase Center upset over UCLA.
Looking ahead to next season, Chris Bell, DJ Campbell, Lee Dort and Rytis Petraitis are all seniors, though Dort and Petraitis could return. John Camden, Milos Ilic and Nolan Dorsey are graduate students.
