I know we’re mad, but that header is a bit Nestorish…

Did Harper Kamp play tonight? According to the ESPN.com boxscore, he had a turnover. I must have missed this. Did he play or is this false?

Again, from my blog Since 59
Disappointment- Bears fall into Beaver trap
It’s been a good season for the Bears. They’ve won quite a few games and are looking at the first conference title since the 1960, and they controlled their own destiny to just that. Now they will need help.

The first half started out okay, with the score 6-7 Beavs. However, OSU would go on an 8-0 run to make it 15-6. They would close the gap to 15-13, and the Bears would hold close for most of the half. OSU would have a 6 point lead, and the halftime score would be 39-36.

Early on in the second, it would be 40-43 OSU. However, they would make their run and rush to a 42-52 lead. Somehow, the Bears just never recovered from that run. They would never recover and would lose 80-64. The offense really seemed to sputter in the second half. All in all, an abysmal performance in the second.

As mentioned in the pre-game preview, the Beavers are great at shutting down guards. This game was no different. Jerome Randle, normally an unstoppable force on the offensive end, was held to 6 points. He shot 2-9 from the field and 0-5 from 3. His lack of scoring was probably one of the most important things in the loss. Patrick Christopher was shut down similarly, scoring a mere 12 on 4-9 shooting.

The Beavers didn’t only do a great job on the guards, but they did a great job on all around defense. The Bears, who shot 50% or above in both games against the Washington schools, was held to 45% shooting and 25% from 3.

Roeland Schaftenaar, who I mentioned in the pre game as a key, proved to be just that. The big man scored 22 points. He got to the free throw line 15 times (!) and sunk 12 of them. If Boykin and Sanders-Frison cannot step up the defense against Oregon, I can easily see the Bears falling. Schaftennar was able to put up the best game of his season tonight.
 
Obviously, this loss is disappointing. But we still have a chance to win an outright conference title and make the NCAA Tournament. It was an obvious trap game and we fell right in. Now we just have to win out and hope the chips fall in our favor.

Go Bears!

Craig Robinson Outcoaches Mike Montgomery Again; Cal Puts Up Embarrassing Effort in Corvallis

I didn’t watch the game, I don’t really have nothing to say about it, but I want to discuss the headline to this post. Basketball is very different from football. With football, you spend a week preparing for your opponent, watching film, coming up with a game plan and the plays ahead of time, and on gameday it comes down to executing the gameplan, adapting it based on what the opposition is doing….basically, the point I’m making, is if this was football, that would be a fair headline. Not so in basketball. Basketball coaching is all about teaching players to properly read and react within the offense, there’s much less gameplanning, much less tailoring your strategy to your opponent. You don’t spend a week watching film, preparing a gameplan, practicing certain plays….you might spend a couple of days, but the majority of coaching in basketball is about preparing your players to play the right way in the flow of the game, regardless of the opponent, and regardless of what straetgy the opponent is losing.

You can’t really get outcoached for a game in basketball, and that’s the issue I take with the headline. It’s a very football-oriented view to say that. If Cal was outcoached, it was because Monty hasn’t done a good job of preparing them to play zone offense – but that’s not a coaching job for one game, that’s something he hasn’t prepared them well for in general. It’s like if the offensive line in football isn’t using proper technique and consistently gets beat in a game because of it – it’s not the coaches are being outcoached for a game, it’s that the players aren’t properly prepared to use the right technique to be effective and so aren’t as good – that’s more along the lines of what basketball coaching is like.

As I said, I didn’t watch the game, but sounds like OSU was playing zone….dunno why every team doesn’t zone up Cal, every time I’ve watched them play against a zone, it’s been a struggle for their offense. Nobody but Randle penetrates effectively, their team passing leaves a lot to be desired, they don’t have a post presence to collapse the zone….it just might be that they either aren’t coached well to play the zone or just aren’t talented enough to beat it as well as we’d like….