Oregon rolls over Cal in Eugene
CalBears.com
On Thursday night, Cal men’s basketball got crushed by Oregon 86-63 up in Eugene. Oregon junior forward Jordan Bell led the way for the Ducks with 26 points and 6 rebounds on 11-12 shooting from the field while Jabari Bird delivered for Cal with 21 points and 5 rebounds on 5-9 shooting from beyond the arc.
Oregon pretty much controlled this game wire to wire with only the first few minutes being close. During the final 11:49 of the first half, Oregon extended a 16-12 lead to a 44-30 lead and never looked back. A big key to the Ducks’ first half success was junior guard Casey Benson going off for 12 points on 4-4 shooting from 3-point range. Cal wasn’t able to prevent Benson from unleashing all of those threes and they suffered dearly for it.
One of the things that were noted in the preview was that Cal could not win this game if Oregon went on any sort of a major run. Allowing Casey Benson to get hot early was really a kiss of death. Cal simply cannot allow anybody to heat up like that, especially a kid who averages 4.5 points per game. Benson finished with 15 points on 5-5 shooting from the field, all five shots coming from beyond the arc.
In the second half, it was Jordan Bell that caught fire for the Ducks, scoring 18 of his 26 points on 7-7 shooting from the field. It was almost as if Casey Benson passed the torch to Jordan Bell for the second half. Once Casey Benson was no longer bothering Cal, Jordan Bell assumed the roll of flamethrower, scoring at will and getting to the line.
In addition to letting Casey Benson and Jordan Bell go wild, Cal turned the ball over 20 times, which lead to 20 points for the Ducks. On Tuesday, Cuonzo Martin said the biggest key to staying in this game was to take care of the ball and Cal did not do that. As a result, Oregon got a lot of free possessions and made Cal pay in the process.
The nail in the coffin in all of this is that Cal was never able to get Ivan Rabb going. After having some big games as of late, Rabb finished with 4 points and 6 rebounds on 2-10 shooting from the field. While it’s easy to criticize Ivan Rabb for not doing more, one has to give the Oregon defense a lot of credit for the way they defended him. He didn’t have very many easy looks and he was double-teamed all night. When those double teams occur, other players have to step up and knock down shots.
Outside of Jabari Bird, the only real bright spots for Cal were Charlie Moore and Don Coleman. Moore finished with 10 points on 4-8 shooting from the field while Coleman finished with 9 points on 3-5 shooting from the field and 3-3 shooting from the foul line. Both of those guys should feel good about how they played. They found ways to score and they remained aggressive throughout the game. The rest of the Cal team was rather inert, never able to get into any sort of a rhythm.
The main takeaway from this game is that if Cal is going to put themselves in the discussion for an NCAA Tournament bid come March, they have to find ways to get Ivan Rabb rolling when he’s struggling and also get more offensive production from their role players. Ivan Rabb has been carrying this Cal team and he cannot be expected to be the only guy who steps up every night. If he has an off night, that shouldn’t kill Cal like it did tonight.
Going forward, Cal has to move on from this game and look ahead to a very winnable game up in Corvallis against Oregon State on Saturday night. If Cal can get a split on this road trip, they’ll go into their home game against Stanford on the 29th with a lot more confidence. Losing this game tonight won’t be a big deal if they take care of business on Saturday. Saturday’s game at Oregon State will tipoff at 7:30 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks.
