That Cal team that beat Virginia like a drum Wednesday night/Thursday morning on the Left Coast is not a good team.
The Bears had lost six of seven coming in.
They’re going to lose a bunch more before this season is over.
But they dominated this one, getting to the foul line 33 times, holding the ‘Hoos to six makes at the rim.
Maybe now the last few holdouts who had been emailing me to tell me I was being too hard on Ron Sanchez and Tony Bennett for putting this team together will start to see the truth.
When a team with one win since Thanksgiving (in a guarantee game, no less) beats you by 14, and let’s be real, Cal led by double-digits for 16 minutes in the second half, so, it wasn’t that close, the writing is on the wall.
The hard thing to figure now is the 10-point win in November over a Villanova team that beat two-time defending national champ UConn Wednesday night.
That ‘Nova team is now 11-5, 4-1 in the Big East, and KenPom projects the Wildcats to finish 19-12, which will get them into the NCAA Tournament.
Wednesday/Thursday’s beatdown in Berkeley has Virginia at 8-7, 1-3 in the ACC, and on the way to a KenPom-projected 14-17 finish ahead of playing on a Tuesday in the ACC Tournament.
I would never have guessed leaving Baltimore after the win over Villanova that that UVA team would turn out to be this bad.
How it happened
The offense continues to suck – sorry, but somebody needs to say it.
Virginia shot 32.8 percent (19-of-58), was 7-of-23 from three, and could only manage six makes on its 16 shots at the rim.
Translated: couldn’t make threes, couldn’t finish, settled a lot for midrange twos, couldn’t make those (6-of-19).
As hard as this is to say, the defense sucks, too.
Virginia let a Cal team that lost to Cornell at home last month dictate the game on that end of the floor.
Cal made 12-of-22 at the rim, and was 27-of-33 from the line – Virginia was whistled for 23 fouls; coming in, the Cavaliers averaged 13.9 team fouls per game, the 13th-lowest per-game nationally, and opponents averaged 12.7 free-throw attempts per game, ranking eighth-lowest nationally.
This was basic: Cal is more athletic, is more physical, and they wanted it more.
How our guys did
Andrew Rohde continued his recent run of solid play, with 14 points (6-of-13 FG) and six assists vs. one turnover in 33 minutes.
Jacob Cofie had 12 points (5-of-9 FG) in just 18 minutes due to foul trouble, and Sanchez being overcautious after the talented but chronically underutilized 6’9” freshman picked up a third foul at the 19:15 mark of the second half.
Cal, which had led 35-32 at the break, had extended the lead to seven, at 39-32, in the opening 45 seconds of the second half, when Cofie picked up a cheap foul after turning the ball over.
By the time Sanchez subbed Cofie back in with 11:23 to go, Cal was up 55-40, and UVA would not get closer than nine the rest of the way.
Cofie was the only Virginia player with a positive plus/minus for the night (at +4).
Alas.
Elijah Saunders had the oddest double-double you may ever see – 11 points with one made field goal (1-of-8), and 10 rebounds.
Saunders was 8-of-8 at the line.
Freshman Ishan Sharma had nine points (3-of-8 FG, 3-of-7 3FG) and two assists vs. no turnovers in 25 minutes off the bench.
Blake Buchanan had six points (1-of-5 FG, 4-of-4 FT) and five rebounds in 17 minutes.
The 18 points and seven boards he had in his second college game, the win over Florida last year, feels like an eternity ago.
Isaac McKneely, Virginia’s leading scorer (12.3 ppg) coming in, had just three points – on 1-of-8 shooting from the floor, 1-of-4 from three, and he also missed the front end of a one-and-one with 3:04 to go and a chance to get the margin down to single-digits.
How’s this for 37 minutes of floor time: iMac had three points, two rebounds, an assist vs. a turnover, a steal and two personal fouls.
Taine Murray started, got 19 minutes, made a three, and had a rebound and two turnovers.
Anthony Robinson got four second-half minutes with Cofie on the bench, put up a nice and-one and had a rebound.
Speaking of barely there, TJ Power, the former five-star recruit and Duke transfer, got 12 minutes off the bench, which shocks me to learn upon reading the box score, because I honestly don’t remember him getting that much – and he recorded one missed shot, one rebound, an assist vs. a turnover, and a personal foul.
A mouse farting on cotton makes more noise.
And finally, to Dai Dai Ames, who we can now say is officially in the doghouse, after starting 11 games at point – Ames got four minutes off the bench, and it might be fair to wonder aloud if the Kansas State transfer will still be with the program this time next week, given the sudden fall from grace for a guy who’d averaged 10.3 points per game on 45.6 percent shooting from the floor and 56.3 percent shooting from three in his first six starts.
Video: The writing is on the wall
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Chris Graham
