We can talk about officiating all we want, but this one came down to defense.The Bears did not rotate to their men, did not help well, did not play great off the ball, while Syracuse did, in almost every measure. Cal's offense looked sloptastic, mostly because of the zone, partly because everyone seemed to throw their passes off-target and get into set shots, and more because the Orangemen athletes were just better.
On almost every level, the Orangemen were the better team. Hopefully this trend for every Cal loss this season ends soon.
- It's hard to say how much of an effect Theo would've had in this game. It would've been far more competitive than it actually was.
- Jerome Randle and the rest of his starting lineup is starting to remind me a little too much of Jahvid Best and the offensive line. Hopefully Randle doesn't start racking up the minutes as the season goes on.
- Jamal Boykin again doing all the little underrated things. But other than Boykin and Randle, rest of team shot 30 percent. Yuck.
- Every Orangeman shot over 50 percent. Double yuck.
- Wesley Johnson looks like a pro.
- We could've used Kamp on Onuaku. Just saying.
- Patrick Christopher must've catched a late flight, because he wasn't really showing anything until the final minutes. It's becoming hard to discern if he really has any talents other than slashing and an occasional 3 point shot.
- Salvage a split tomorrow and it's still a good trip. Not many of us thought we'd go 2-0, so hopefully a good rebound tomorrow will put us back where we need to be.
This is your postgame thread. Feel free to watch the Ohio State-North Carolina game to see who we end up facing, or the Thursday Night game (Colorado 14 Oklahoma St. 10 right now), or whatever else catches your fancy this Thursday night.
nickle had a good postgame comment that I wanted to share here.
In the end, the result of this game doesn’t really matter (well not too much, it still sucks). Lavin and co. might be surprised at the result of this game but I don’t think any of us are. Biggest surprise is Theo being out at the last second, and along w/ Kamp’s injury, we didn’t have a chance from the start. If we get those two back it’s a completely different team.
Cal didn’t schedule these games primarily to build an impressive resume, although that woulda been a huge plus had we won today. But we got a real good look at the Syracuse zone and this experience will help tremendously when it counts most in the tournament (assuming we don’t pull an epic fail this season). Throw that in with the matchup tomorrow against either a very very experienced team or a very very athletic team and we’re getting a huge dose of what to expect from what will be our toughest competition from here on out.
Not a great outing by the bears, but I think it was fine. PC really needs to find a way to get his own shots though.
I think we’ll be fine. I hope…