|
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Duca on Cal Bears Basketball
By Michael Duca
January 2, 2011
|
|
|
|
Sportstalk: It's not the way Cal (7-6) wanted to open the Pac Ten schedule and the new year but they took a tough loss to the Cardinal (8-4) Sunday night losing 82-68 at the farm. It was just too much Jeremy Green 21 points and Dwight Powell 20 points of Stanford as the Cardinal won a 14 point victory not exactly the way Cal wanted to open up the Pac Ten season?
Oh, darn, I would have asked Monty if he was looking forward to a loss to start the season if only I had known this was the opening question.
Certainly, Cal did not plan to allow Stanford to shoot 72% in the second half -- but that's what happened. It was a poor defensive effort with a poor result.
Sportstalk: Harper Kamp 16 points and Gary Franklin 15 points needed to get a little more on the board to keep up with Stanford. How much do you credit Stanford's defense from avoiding this game to get closer than what the score indicated?
Not all that much. The real problem was the 16-5 run that Stanford put on the Bears when the score was 48-43, breaking a close game wide open. As Monty said, "from that point to the end of the game we didn't seem to be able to get a defensive stop."
Sportstalk: The Bears Mark Sanders-Frison had 14 points and nine assists and Jorge Gutierrez had 11 points eight assists while it was nice to see some of the top Cal shooters in double figures talking about Sanders-Frison and Gutierrez' game in what way did they really need to do step it up in this contest if they were going to make any difference at all?
Sanders-Frison played a very nice game, with 14 points and nine rebounds. His biggest problem was being whistled for two technical fouls in the game, which cost Cal about 8 points they could not afford to allow. Meanwhile, Jorge Gutierrez has been lost on offense ever since being pulled feet-first from the scrum in the Kansas game. He was out to lunch against a bad Hartford team, and tonight, although he did contribute 8 assists, he shot only 33% from the field and committed four turnovers, most all of them at crippling times, including two on fast breaks when the Bears had numbers and could have closed the gap in the second half.
|
|
|
|