ASU Basketball: 2019 Pac-12 Week 10 Power Rankings
By Trevor Booth
12. California Golden Bears (5-9, 0-2 Pac-12) Last Week: 12
To end conference play, California dropped two of three against mid-major schools, finishing with a 5-7 record. The Golden Bears’ fortunes haven’t turned around much since then.
Against the Los Angeles schools, Cal lost both of its games, falling to 5-9 overall on the season.
In spite of the three-game losing streak the Golden Bears are currently riding, there were some positives against USC and UCLA. Cal was competitive in both of the losses, losing by 15 points or fewer.
The first of last weekend’s matchups was against the Trojans. In a nine-point loss, Cal shot fairly well from the field at 45 percent.
But USC shot better.
The Trojans were near unstoppable from the field, posting a field-goal percentage of 53.4.
Rebounding was even and the Golden Bears shot better from beyond the arc, but a disciplined game from USC proved too much for Cal to handle.
A game later, Cal traveled to Westwood for a contest against an up-and-down UCLA squad. This time, the Golden Bears fell by double digits in a 98-83 defeat.
Though Cal shot the ball well for the second game in a row (42.0 percent), it once again struggled defensively. UCLA shot a stellar 53.1 percent from the field while making almost 40 percent of threes.
The Golden Bears, on the other hand, took too many threes for how inefficiently they were shooting. Cal finished the game 4-of-20 (20 percent) from behind the three-point line.
Three of those were made by Darius McNeill. A sophomore guard, McNeill finished the game with 23 points (8-of-16 FG).
Next up for Cal is a home series against the Arizona schools. That kicks off Wednesday when the Golden Bears host Arizona State.