Some thoughts:
Tough loss. Hate to see a 7 point halftime lead go to waste like this, but we just clearly didn't get it done in the second half. Frankly, this was a poorly played game by both teams. Sure, there was some strong defense by CU in the first half and Cal in the second, but both teams were just woeful on offense. We shot 15/47 tonight (31.9%) along with 17 turnovers (Cal had 8) and nearly knocked off one of the top 3 teams in the Pac on the road. Yes, this is another clear indication of how ****** this conference is, but it shows that CU has a chance to win a nice amount of road games this year if the Buffs can find a way to be even halfway effective on offense.
Dufault deserves some props for bringing it tonight w/ 19pts 6 rebs. Andre had another double/double with 11pts 12 rebs. After that, however, it was brutal. Carlon only had 9pts - it goes without saying that we need much more from him in order to beat decent teams on the road. Dinwiddie was completely off with only 2pts. This happens to freshmen, but it's going to be crucial that he's able to quickly put this behind him and give us a big game at Maples Pavilion on Saturday. Tomlinson was back to normal with no points and 1 assist. And....to cap things off...We got minimal production from our bench. Ski had 3pts and made some bad freshman mistakes tonight. Chen, Adams and Cain all gave a few minutes each. Unfortunately Dufault's foul trouble led to SHT playing many of the most crucial parts of the second half. SHT comes across as being either clueless or downright scared ******** whenever a pass comes his way.
Even with the win tonight, Cal certainly didn't look like a team that deserves an at-large bid to the Dance. It's definitely not out of the question that this will be a 1 bid league come March. That atmosphere in there also looked lame as **** tonight, even for winter break standards. Cal certainly needs a lesson in how a raucous Pac-12 arena looks, and they'll be lucky enough to receive said lesson on Feb. 26th in Boulder. We'll beat these guys at home and hopefully get a shot at a rubber-match in LA.
Now it's on to Stanford. Of these 2 games, this was always our better shot at a win. They won a hard fought battle against Utah tonight, 68-65 :lol:. On top of that, they had another close win over USC at home, and also beat UCLA by 1 at home. While they've been winning, it certainly has been anything but impressive. If Carlon and The Mayor are able to hit the broad side of a barn, we win this game. This is a huge game for us, a win and keep ourselves atop the Pac, a loss and we fall into that second tier with the Oregon's of the conference.
