Oregon State's Calvin Haynes scores past
California's Jamal Boykin during the first
half of an NCAA college basketball game
in Berkeley, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 22,
2009. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
If you were told that the Golden Bears (15-4, 4-2 Pac-10) would have an 11 point lead and all of the momentum against the Oregon State Beavers (7-10, 2-5 Pac-10) with only 9:27 left to play, you'd probably have no trouble thinking that the Bears were only 9:27 away from notching another win.
As Lee Corso likes to say on ESPN's College Gameday, "Not so fast my friend!"
The Bears, who had shot nearly 50% from the floor and over 50% from beyond the arc, went completely cold after getting up 62-51. At the time, they had just completed an 11-4 run on the strength of two three's by Patrick Christopher and Jerome Randle dominating from the point.
They would only score one more bucket the rest of the way - a Randle three that gave Cal their final lead at 65-63. The Beavers would go on to score six more points and win the game 69-65.
In that span, the Bears shot 1-12 to suffer their second straight defeat. This defeat will sting for a while after losing a game that most publications, including this one, said they should win easily. That's why the Las Vegas strip is such a pretty place, because games aren't played on paper (or the web).
Mike Montgomery, understandably, wasn't happy after the game. He may not have the right stats for the last nine minutes, but he does know why they lost. When asked what it was that caused the loss, he bluntly stated:
If you want to simplify it, we went 2-for-11 the last seven minutes of the game and we weren't able to get stops. Put very simply, it was no more complex than that. The last 10 minutes of the game they did everything they needed to do and we didn't.
Beavers head coach, Craig Robinson, just got back from Washington DC on Wednesday after watching his brother-in-law sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Robinson is the brother of Michelle Obama. After the game, he was elated, saying:
I guess I can say this now, Tuesday was really something special. But for those guys in the locker room, to come and play the way they did on the week of distractions they had, that shows a heck of amount of maturity and it shows a heck of amount of confidence. I can't be more proud of those guys.
Robinson may want to take another trip to DC before their next game.
NOTES:
- Randle came out with 2:49 left in the game due to an injury that was diagnosed as a hip-pointer. He returned to the game, but Montgomery said he'd probably be pretty sore tomorrow. They plan on reevaluated later.
- Jamal Boykin got his third double-double of the season scoring 15 points and pulling down 10 rebounds.
- The last time that Oregon State beat Cal was during the 2005-'06 season.
- Randle moved into ninth all-time on the school's career list for three-point field goals made with 123.
- Randle recorded his 10th 20-point+ performance of the season.
Check back tomorrow for more thoughts on this loss and a game preview of the Oregon game on Saturday.
| 1 | 2 | T | |
| OREGON ST. (7-10) | 36 | 33 | 69 |
| CALIFORNIA (15-4) | 43 | 22 | 65 |
Final
| OREGON STATE BEAVERS | |||||||||||
| STARTERS | MIN | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS |
| Seth Tarver, G-F | 28 | 3-5 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| Roeland Schaftenaar, F-C |
32 | 8-15 | 4-4 | 2-3 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 22 |
| Daniel Deane, F | 18 | 2-3 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Rickey Claitt, G | 38 | 2-3 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Lathen Wallace, G | 8 | 2-5 | 1-2 | 1-1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| BENCH | MIN | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS |
| Calvin Hampton, F-C | 3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Josh Tarver, G | 14 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Calvin Haynes, G | 37 | 7-11 | 3-6 | 4-6 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 21 |
| Omari Johnson, F | 22 | 1-5 | 0-2 | 1-2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| TOTALS | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS | |
| 26-49 | 9-17 | 8-13 | 23 | 12 | 6 | 3 | 12 | 15 | 69 | ||
| 53.1% | 52.9% | 61.5% | |||||||||
| CALIFORNIA GOLDEN BEARS | |||||||||||
| STARTERS | MIN | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS |
| Jamal Boykin, F | 35 | 6-10 | 0-0 | 3-3 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 15 |
| Theo Robertson, G | 37 | 1-7 | 1-5 | 1-2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| Jordan Wilkes, C | 12 | 0-3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Jerome Randle, G | 37 | 6-11 | 5-10 | 3-4 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 20 |
| Patrick Christopher, G |
36 | 5-15 | 4-7 | 1-2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 15 |
| BENCH | MIN | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS |
| D.J. Seeley, G | 5 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Jorge Gutierrez, G | 16 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| Omondi Amoke, F | 3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Harper Kamp, F | 19 | 2-3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| TOTALS | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS | |
| 22-52 | 11-24 | 10-13 | 28 | 16 | 5 | 0 | 12 | 13 | 65 | ||
| 42.3% | 45.8% | 76.9% | |||||||||
Technicals: None
Officials: David Hall ,Bob Cartmell ,Glen Mayberry
Attendance: 8,236
Oregon Ducks at California Golden Bears
Date: Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009
Location: Haas Pavilion, Berkeley, Calif.
Time: 3:00 p.m. PST
Coverage
TV: Comcast SportsNet California
Radio: KYOU (1550 AM)
Comments
OSU was clearly not a good scoring team, but pretty much everything went wrong tonight and the bears blew what should have been an easy game.
We had a bunch of big mental lapses when OSU ran the high pick and roll with Haynes and Schaftenaar, leaving one of them open and the two were a combined 7-10 from three.
Schaftenaar could also drive at will against Wilkes and Kamp. He normally scores just 7.0 per game. We defended their back door cuts very well, so they mostly just stuck to the pick and roll in the second half.
The officiating stunk and probably cost us 8-10 points in non-calls when we were obviously fouled.
Cal was very sloppy against the 1-3-1 and had a half dozen turnovers just trying to pass it back and forth around 6'5" Seth Tarver.
When the team was focused and crisp with their passing we could get a good look every time. Most of the turnovers were just carelessness, expecting the pass to be easy.
Montgomery said in his radio interview that Cal's players weren't trying to attack the zone, but when Randle tried to drive early he got stripped and when Christopher took it baseline he got cut off. We took 24 3-pt shots and needed to take more because Randle and Christopher were getting good looks and knocking them down.
Wilkes was worthless on both offense and defense. Kamp didn't do much good. Boykin was great in the first half, especially when we went with a small line-up, but in the second half we stuck with two bigs and couldn't get the ball moving around. That's too games in a row where Boykin has showed nice moves to score in the paint, and this time he also made nice kick-out passes.
We put on a nice run late in the first half with a line-up of 4 excellent shooters (Randle, Christopher, Robertson, Seeley) and Boykin. In the second half we never tried that because Montgomery had too much faith in Kamp and Guttierez and not enough in Seeley (or Miller).
If Randle's hip pointer ends up being a nagging problem, then we're in really big trouble at the point. Guttierez can handle it when there isn't much pressure, but in a fast paced game he's a turnover machine. He had 4 turnovers in 16 minutes tonight, and it was really ugly when Randle wasn't in the game.
Theo couldn't hit the clutch open three pointers down the stretch when we needed them. He missed an important one late against Stanford too. Throw in his three turnovers and it was his worst game all year.
We went cold in both these losses under pressure late, just when our opponents got hot. Basketball games tend to be streaky like that when one team gets nervous because the other starts making a run. This was the worst I've seen the team choke in a long time.
Forgot to add that we were badly out-hustled for 4 or 5 loose balls. OSU played hard. We didn't.
Also have to add that Christopher missed two relatively easy dunks, got the rebounds and missed the put backs. He never misses those...
A really ugly night.
Great posts Rodger!
This team took a much bigger blow to their confidence than we had thought when they lost to Stanford. That's the only thing that would explain the desperate way they played the last nine minutes.
Rodger, you said, "We took 24 3-pt shots and needed to take more because Randle and Christopher were getting good looks and knocking them down."
I think it would've helped had Boykin and Christopher been able to make a couple of the four layups they missed down the stretch. Who knows? That one missed layup could've changed the way the Bears played afterward.
Thanks for stopping by!
Yep. If they could have done just one of a number of things a little better it would have made the difference. Because it got close late, OSU had the confidence and we got tense.
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