Cal Basketball Storms Back to Beat Stanford in Conference Opener

The Cal Basketball team opened conference play with a huge comeback, overcoming a 17-point deficit to beat the Stanford Cardinal.

There were a lot of question marks surrounding the Cal basketball team heading into Pac-12 conference play on Saturday. They went 6-7 out of conference, and lost those seven games by an average of 17 points. Those losses included a 24-point drubbing at the hands of Division II Chaminade, and giving up 106 points to Portland State out of the Bid Sky Conference.

The Bears clearly had a lot of work to do under first year head coach Wyking Jones, and things weren’t going to get easier with conference play right in front of them. The slate opened with their archrivals, the Stanford Cardinal, and it looked like the Cardinal would handle their area enemies easily form the start of the game.

Cal came out of the gates well, opening a 6-2 lead in the first two minutes with Marcus Lee scoring twice and Darius McNeil also getting on the stat sheet. After the early burst, the Cardinal went on a 13-point unanswered run over the next four minutes. By the eight-minute mark of the first half, Stanford had opened the lead to double digits and would maintain that control.

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That advantage would stretch to as large as 17 points before the half came to a close, but Cal made it a bit closer in the final minute after Don Coleman drained a three-pointer to make the deficit 14 after 20 minutes.

After the break, Cal put together what was probably their best offensive half of the season to this point. They shot a scorching 61 percent from the floor to score 51 points, but still had trouble keeping Stanford off the board. The lead hung around the 10-to-15 point mark for most of the half, and it looked like Cal would have no chance at a comeback for a long time.

As the clock ticked away, so did their chances at a win. ESPN’s win probability gave them virtually no shot, giving Stanford a 99.3 percent chance of winning with eight minutes to play as they led 66-50. With three-and-a-half minutes to go, Stanford led 70-59 and had a 98.2 percent chance of victory.

The Bears didn’t let those numbers get in their way. Once Stanford reached the 70-point mark, Cal took over and erased that 98.2 percent mark. McNeil began the final burst with a three-pointer, and Justice Sueing followed with two layups and a free throw to cut the deficit to three, as close as Cal had been since 16:20 remained in the first half.

Stanford scored three straight after, but Cal roared back again. Lee hit a short jumper before Grant Anticevich made it a one-point game by dropping in a three, his first and only of the game, with 1:19 to play. After a defensive stand, Sueing made his way to the basket again for another layup, and added a free throw to give Cal a 75-73 lead, their first advantage since the very early goings of the first half.

The Cardinal had a chance to tie the game, but Reid Travis could make only one of his two free throws. On the other end, Coleman made a pair from the line to push the lead to 77-74, which would be the final score.

Sueing, the freshman forward from Hawaii, led the charge in the second half, scoring 14 of his 18 points in the final 20 minutes. Lee, the senior transfer from Kansas, added 18 points and six rebounds, three of which came on the offensive glass. He scored 13 in the second half. McNeil scored 13, 11 in the second half, and made three of his six shots from beyond the arc. On the season, the freshman guard is shooting 46.3 percent from three-point range.

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There is still work to do with the Golden Bears, but this game proved that they aren’t complacent under Jones. They aren’t perfect on either side of the floor, but they are fighting for the entire 40 minutes. Stanford isn’t a great team in their own right (they also finished 6-7 out of conference), but this is a good win for the Bears either way. There are plenty of positives to take away, and a lot to build on.

Go Bears.

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