Cal Bears Upset Utah, Advance to Pac-12 Tournament Semifinals

Coming off a 30-point drubbing against the Utah Utes last week, the Cal Bears bounced back with a big upset win to advance to the Pac-12 tournament semifinals.

The Cal Bears had a fight on their hands on Wednesday, when they were given the Oregon State Beavers’ best shot in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament. They escaped with a victory, but were right back on the court Wednesday for round two, facing the fourth-seeded Utah Utes. Cal was barely a week removed from a 30-point beating at Utah’s hands in the regular season, but the Bears looked like a completely different team than that Cal team from the opening tip.

Cal was aggressive on the offensive end right from the get-go. Instead of settling for bad-look jumpers, as they have done so often this season, they were intent on attacking the rim. Their first three buckets of the night all came at the rim, with Kameron Rooks’ tipping in a miss and Charlie Moore driving and scoring twice.

The two teams traded buckets in the early going, with Kyle Kuzma and David Collette doing the heavy lifting for Utah. Rabb showed off some of his range by hitting a long two-pointer to put Cal up 15-13 about eight minutes in, but the lead was hot potatoed a couple more times. The Bears were able to push their advantage up to four points in the first half, the biggest lead for either side, but Utah fought back as Cal got a bit sloppy with the ball.

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Three straight Cal turnovers allowed Utah to tie the game up before Jabari Bird followed his own miss with an offensive rebound and lay-up to put his squad back in front with about four minutes to go in the half. Utah scored four in a row to take their own lead, but Grant Mullins drilled his first three of the day to steal the advantage back.

Two more lead changes would occur before the half, the 12th and 13th lead changes in the first half. Bird’s old-fashioned three-point play put Cal ahead by two, but Lorenzo Bonam’s lay-up with 40 seconds left tied the game at 30. When the buzzer sounded to end the exciting half, the tie stood strong.

Cal was able to run with the Utes because of their dominance on the boards. Utah shot a staggering 56.5 percent from the floor in the first half while Cal struggled to 37 percent, but the Bears grabbed eight offensive boards. Utah pulled down nine rebounds altogether, none off the offensive glass. That lead to a 12-0 second-chance points advantage in Cal’s favor.

The Bears came out of the locker room aggressively again. They scored the first four points after the break, on a Moore floater and another Rabb jumper. Mullins’ second triple put Cal up by six, the largest lead for either side to that point. A few minutes later, Bird hit on a wide-open three from the top of the key to put Cal ahead by nine.

While Cal’s offense tried to keep the advantage, 7’1″ center Kingsley Okoroh began to take over the game on the defensive end. He recorded two blocks in the first five minutes of the half, and made Utes’ players think twice before coming down into the paint.

Rabb picked up his third foul early in the half, and coach Cuonzo Martin was forced to sit him to preserve his status for later in the game. While their star forward sat, the freshman Moore would pick up the slack. He scored 10 points in the first nine minutes of the half, including hitting a long three to put Cal back ahead by eight.

Utah cut the lead back to five, but Cal scored five straight of their own capped by another Bird triple, giving Cal the first double-digit lead of the game. Every time Utah made a run, Cal was able to drain another three, something that had been missing from their game for a long time. When they cut it to seven, Moore tickled the twine. When the Utes cut it to six, it was Bird’s turn again. But it was a pair of free throws by Rabb, back on the court after foul trouble, that gave them an 11-point lead with four minutes to play.

Utah turned to the foul game, hacking Cal players in an effort to overcome the deficit. They cut the lead down to five, and trapped on defense. Moore was able to dribble through it, but made a freshman mistake at drove to the rim with 18 seconds left on the shot clock. He missed the shot, and Kuzma was true on a three at the other end to make it a two-point game with under a minute to go. A Utah free throw made it just a single point.

With the shot clock off, the Bears got past mid-court and got the ball in Bird’s hands. Bird drove around his defender and got into the paint, taking an ill-advised shot that, somehow, found the bottom of the net while Bird was fouled. He hit the extra point to make it a four-point game, and Kuzma did it again on the other end. His third three of the game sliced that lead back down to one with only 6.7 seconds on the clock.

On the inbound, a risky pass found its way into Bird’s hands, and he was subsequently fouled with 5.5 seconds. Two made freebies brought the lead back to three and gave Bird 26 points on the night, matching his career-high. Utah’s last-second three-point attempt to tie the game fell short, and Sam Singer spiked the ball down the court to prevent any more opportunities and seal the game as the buzzer sounded.

Next: Cal Holds on in First Round

With this victory, Cal is still alive in the chase for a spot in the NCAA Tournament. They are guaranteed nothing, however. They still have to get through this tournament first, and standing in their way is the top-seeded, and fifth-ranked nationally, Oregon Ducks. The last time these two teams met, Cal looked poised for an upset. They led by 14 at the half, but Ducks came back and Dillon Brooks’ buzzer-beating three was all she wrote.

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