In his sophomore campaign, Cal head coach Cuonzo Martin has crafted what is arguably the best defense in the Pac-12.
Behind lengthy, switch-heavy perimeter units anchored by a hyper-aware paint presence in Ivan Rabb, the Bears’ defense limits Pac-12 opponents to just 67.8 points per game and 40.4 percent from the field, the latter figure good enough for tops in the conference. The low field goal percentage is a product of Martin having his big man sag into the paint on pick-and-rolls, allowing the ball-handler to take low-efficiency midrange shots or challenge Cal’s frontcourt at the rim. This has resulted in conference opponents taking a paltry 249 three-point attempts on the year and converting just 79, or 31.7 percent, of them. And most impressively, Martin has maintained an elite defense while managing the defensive boards — the signature indication of an elite defense. No one is questioning Cal’s performance on the defensive end this season. Those criticisms are saved largely for its performance on the other end of the court.
While Cal’s defense has been consistently excellent for, more or less, the entire season, the offense has come and gone in waves. The Bears broke the 75-point barrier just once in their first nine conference games as their offense crippled their way to a sub-.500 record. They started to hit their stride against then-No. 11 Oregon on Feb. 11 when Tyrone Wallace first returned from a wrist injury, going on to win seven in a row and eight of their next nine while exceeding 75 points five times in that span.
Cal’s offense looked the best it has all season during the squad’s seven-game win streak late in the season, even scoring 78 and 80 points against Washington and Washington State on the road. But the two most recent games against Arizona and Arizona State tell an entirely different story.
Cal was on the wrong end of an instant classic Thursday night when Arizona rallied from an eight-point deficit with less than two minutes remaining to beat the Bears at home. The Bears’ defense was able to make the trek from Berkeley to Arizona, but the same can’t be said for their offense.
While Cal did surrender consecutive Gabe York three-pointers to close the game, it’s tough to blame the defense that limited the high-scoring Wildcats to 61 points on 41.4 percent shooting. The loss is more a result of poor spacing on offense than it was defensive lapses.
Jaylen Brown only got to play around five first-half minutes with two fouls and was benched early in the second because of more foul trouble. He would check in on one of Cal’s last possessions to ice the game only to foul out on an offensive foul. During the time between when Brown was riding the bench, Martin went to a lineup of Wallace, Jordan Mathews, Jabari Bird, Ivan Rabb and Kameron Rooks.
Although the Bears found themselves up big with those five on the floor, Martin should have exercised more lineup creativity to space the floor more effectively. Rooks had no business playing for such a long stretch that late in the game against one of the best scoring offenses in the conference. Rooks often fumbles the ball in the pick-and-roll and is most effective on offense when he catches the ball in the low post, but at that point in the game, Rabb was the go-to option on the block. Having Rooks in with him simply suffocated the paint and made it easier for Rooks’ man to double off of him and onto someone else. Martin could have kept him in to crash the offensive glass as he was relatively successful finding second chance opportunities for Cal, but center Kingsley Okoroh was better suited for that role, recording four offensive rebounds compared to Rooks’ three.
It made less sense to keep Rooks in the game for defensive purposes. He struggled contesting York pull-ups out of the side pick-and-roll and didn’t fare much better wrestling against the twin towers of Arizona’s frontcourt for boards. The redshirt sophomore center simply sagged too far into the paint to compensate for his limited mobility, allowing York and the Arizona guards to step into far too open midrange jumpers. Even when York was nailing three after three late in the game, Rooks stayed in despite his inability to switch onto shooters off of screens and close out on shooters effectively. Knowing Arizona needed three-pointers to come back, Martin should have sacrificed a little bit of rebounding in Rooks for the ability to switch off-ball screens and guard three-pointers in Brown. Nursing a small but sizable lead magnified by the few possessions left on the clock, it might have been a good idea to play Okoroh in place of Rooks for an offense-defense substitution if he was afraid of going small with a lineup featuring Brown at the four. The result of Martin’s traditional lineup was three consecutive Arizona three-pointers to clinch the game and a stagnant offense relying on individual talent to score.
Two days later, a dispirited Cal squad struggled with many of the same issues against an upstart Arizona State team. Luckily enough, Wallace went off for 19 second-half points to secure Cal a first round bye in the Pac-12 Tournament. Brown again struggled getting the ball through the hoop, scoring 10 points on 10 shots. And again, Rooks played heavy minutes down the stretch while Bird, albeit struggling, only logged 18 minutes on the entire game. He contributed little on offense outside of his four offensive boards and even less on defense, allowing Eric Jacobsen to score 20 points on just 12 shots. If not for Wallace’s individual brilliance down the stretch, Cal could be starting the Pac-12 Tournament coming off of a pair of devastating losses on the road.
The Arizona road trip is a telling sign of Cal’s potential but inability to fulfill it. Its defense combined with Wallace’s hot shooting was enough to beat the middling Sun Devils, but its stifling offense, despite its stingy defense, cost the Bears a much-needed win on the road. If Cal is to score against some of the elite defenses at neutral sites in the NCAA Tournament, Martin may find some success in nonconventional, matchup-dependent lineups.
Winston Cho covers men’s basketball. Contact him at wcho@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @winstonscho