Cal hopes to get more out of a high-scoring road loss than three previous lopsided home wins when the Golden Bears return to their home in Berkeley, Calif., to face Presbyterian in a non-conference basketball game Tuesday night.
After beating Cal State Bakersfield, Wright State and Cal State Fullerton by a combined 65 points, the Golden Bears (3-1) saw a late rally fail in a 99-96 loss at Kansas State on Thursday.
Dai Dai Ames scored 25 points against his former team, but the most encouraging aspect of Cal’s loss was the play of Chris Bell. The Syracuse transfer shot 7 of 9 on 3-point attempts en route to 27 points, 12 more than in any previous game for the Golden Bears.
Cal, which ranked just 311th in the nation in 3-point shooting percentage at 31.5 percent last season, connected on 15 of 28 (53.6 percent) from deep at Kansas State.
While coach Mark Madsen was happy with his team’s shooting, he was disappointed with their start. The Golden Bears gave up 55 points in the first half and trailed by 21 at the break against the Wildcats after averaging a 10.7-point halftime lead in their first three games.
“I was proud of our guys. We won the second half by almost 20 (points),” he said after the Kansas State game. “But we can’t have a bad start like that against a top team. We will improve from this.”
Presbyterian (3-3) will play its fourth straight road game, its second during a six-day, three-game trip to California.
After a 20-point loss in South Carolina, the Blue Hose took Sacramento State to the wire on Sunday before losing 64-62 in the Californian capital. Jonah Pierce had 12 points and 14 rebounds in the loss.
Presbyterian led by nine at halftime, then 44-33 in the fourth minute of the second half before scoring just 18 points the rest of the game, finally succumbing to 3-for-21 shooting from beyond the arc.
Blue Hose coach Quinton Ferrell insisted afterward that the goal of the cross-country trip — Presbyterian visits No. 19 UCLA on Friday — was to face adversity and, hopefully, grow from the experience.
“Obviously we didn’t make any threes. They were uncontested, wide-open threes. You have to take advantage of opportunities on the road,” he said. “Even though we won, there were mistakes that we didn’t like. When you lose, the same thing applies. You have to improve.”
–Field level media
