Recap: Cal loses to Washington

Washington started off pretty much as poorly as Cal could have hoped, and that meant Cal was down by only 1 points heading into the half.

To put into Washington’s poor start into perspective, here is a text conversation that I had with my sister (a UW student) during halftime):

Me: It won’t happen

Me: But if you lose to us

Me: In basketball

Her: Bruh I’m at the game. UW played the *expletive* half of basketball I’ve ever seen.

Me: It won’t happen

Me: But if you lose to us

Me: In basketball

Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen.

To put Washington’s poor start in numbers, just consider this: They started 1-11 from 3 and then went on a run where they made 8 of their next 9. Cal had a great opportunity to take a pretty big lead in the first half, especially considering that they actually won the turnover battle (18-13), but unfortunately that was about the only statistic that they were superior to Washington in despite a relatively even, albeit borderline unwatchable, first half of basketball.

Cal simply didn’t do enough to win a basketball game, as they shot poorly (30.5%), were even worse from 3 (1-15), and were out-rebounded like always (40-32).

They literally shot 12 more shots than Washington did, and I assure you it wasn’t because of offensive rebounding, but got simply out-shot, as Washington made 10 threes to Cal’s aforementioned 1 and bounced from a terrible first half to shoot a respectable 44.7% from the field. Washington also had 11 blocks. Cal had 1.

Justice Sueing (2-11, 0-5) and Matt Bradley (1-11, 0-4) especially felt the shooting struggles while Andre Kelly (12/4/0) and Paris Austin (12/7/3) served as lone bright spots for the Bears. Nothing too atypical here, folks.

If you haven’t guessed, Washington won the game pretty convincingly by a score of 71-52, pickup up their 1000th win in Hec Edmundson Pavilion because why not.

If that wasn’t enough, here was what I consider to be the low point of the game. With 3:59 left to go in the game, Washington was up by 16 points. The announcers were talking about how uneven the second half had been, as Washington had shot a ridiculous 68% in the half up to that point while Cal struggled to a measly 27%.

As Cal took the ball up the floor, the Washington student section began to chant “Airball! Airball!” in hopes of forcing one. Matt Bradley then took a three. He shot an airball. I turned off my TV.

Sigh.