Cal endures another embarrassing loss, 106-81 to Portland State
By Rusty Simmons San Francisco Chronicle Updated 11:36 pm, Thursday, December 21, 2017
UC Riverside on Nov. 10.
Chaminade on Nov. 22.
Central Arkansas on Dec. 6.
Portland State on Thursday.
Cal keeps adding contenders for the honor of most embarrassing game of the season. Thursday night has a pretty solid case — a 106-81 pasting by Portland State in the Bears’ nonconference finale at a half-full Haas Pavilion.
“We’re disappointed. We’re mad. Nobody wants to lose like that,” Cal junior guard Don Coleman said. “That’s a good team, but we’re supposed to beat them. We know that. To lose by 25, that’s disappointing.”
The Bears (6-7) had a season-high 26 turnovers and didn’t make a three-pointer in their third 20-point loss of the season. They allowed a season-high point total and 48.1 percent shooting, not quite the way they wanted to conclude their first losing nonconference season since 2003-04.
The Vikings (10-3) have won six of their past seven games, including an 87-78 victory over Stanford on Nov. 26. The Bears and Cardinal, who are also 6-7, hadn’t entered conference play with losing records in the same season since 1971-72.
After Wyking Jones was hired in March, he promised to guide a tenacious, full-court-pressing defense that led to faced-paced, high-scoring offense. Ten months later, the team he was describing finally arrived in Berkeley, but it was wearing visiting uniforms.
Portland State, which leads the nation with 13 steals per game and is second with a plus-9.3 turnover margin, scored 40 points off Cal’s turnovers. The Bears were averaging a turnover a minute during a long stretch of the first half, struggled to get the ball across the timeline and already had coughed it up a season-high 23 times with 7½ minutes still to play.
The Vikings secured a 10th win before Christmas for the first time in program history and did it in style. They did not trail and led by as many as 28 points while playing an entertaining brand of basketball. Portland State got 23 points from Bryce Canda, 20 from Deontae North and 12 points and 13 assists from Holland Woods.
Cal, which had won three straight — and had scored more than 80 points twice in a row — had more turnovers than field goals (25), and was almost as bad on defense. Coleman scored a team-high 19 points, but had six turnovers and zero assists. Marcus Lee added 15 points and nine rebounds.
“I’m just generally very disappointed in our effort, because I was so pleased with how we had played the past three games. I felt like we were making progress,” Jones said. “… For our guys to kind of, I wouldn’t say quit, but to kind of not find it in them to dig ourselves out of holes and continue to fight is disappointing.”
Portland State made three straight three-pointers to extend its first-half lead to 39-16 and then scored on six consecutive possessions to push its advantage to 28 points with just more than three minutes to play in the opening half.
Cal did not trail by fewer than 19 points the rest of the way. The few, from an already sparse crowd, who stayed for the entirety of the game must have been hanging around to see if the Bears would ever connect on a three-pointer.
Portland State reserve Michael Mayhew (5-for-10) easily outshot the Bears (0-for-8) from deep, Woods’ 13 assists were more than the entire Cal roster’s (six). It marked Cal’s sixth game this season with fewer than 10 assists.
“I don’t think we were focused,” Coleman said. “We had won three straight, and I think we got the big head. We thought we were going to come in and blow them out, and you saw the outcome.
“We can’t do that.”
Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email:
[email protected] Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron
