Dec 21 2008
Bears get lucky against the Wolf Pack
“They’re good defensively, particularly on the perimeter. They’ve got good athletes, good concept. They run all the stuff we used to run [at Stanford]. You look at it and you can see how they’ve tweaked it based on what they want to do. They run four or five things which we are running. It’s all my stuff: 2-3, basic. They’ve done some different things out of it that they like a little bit better, but yeah, they run cutters off posts and post-duck. They’ve always been a little more open. They run a five-man spread game. They’ll go small and [Luke] Babbitt will then be their small guy at 6-9.”- Mike Montgomery on Nevada, prior to the game
Mike Montgomery couldn’t have guessed that the Wolf Pack would be as difficult to beat as they were on Saturday. The Bears start five juniors while Nevada starts two freshman and two sophomores. The Pac-10 Bears are more athletic while Nevada in the WAC scrapes by on players that larger Div I schools don’t want. The Bears were at home and leads college basketball in three-point accuracy while the Wolf Pack is built around defense.
None of the pregame factors leading me and others to pick the Bears to win easily meant much when the game was being played. When it came down to the two teams playing the game, for 35 minutes the Nevada Wolf Pack looked to have a leg up on the Bears. Unfortunately for Nevada, they lost in 40 minutes to the Bears 75-66 .
During that time, they were able to force Cal into playing a slow, methodical half-court game in which Nevada was the aggressor and the team in control. Even with the Bears leading for much of that time, Nevada made it look as though they were a cat toying with the mouse that was Cal. It wasn’t until the Wolf Pack began being called for penalties and losing track of Jerome Randle that the Bears were able to jump in front and cruise to the finish line.
At 4:17 left in the game, the Bears led 54-51. Just a little over a minute and a half later, the Wolf Pack had fallen behind by 14 points with the score at 65-51. It started when Randle drew the defense into the post and dished to Patrick Christopher standing beyond the three-point arc. Christopher sank the shot and the Bears were up 57-51.
When Nevada didn’t answer back on their next possession, Randle took it down the court and shot a three of his own, making the score 60-51. The next score by either team was a Theo Robertson three, assisted by Randle. With the score 63-51 and Nevada reelling, Randle dealt the death-blow by sending a perfect pass to Christopher for an alley-oop dunk.
“Unfortunately we weren’t able to get much inside, so we kind of had to go small. We had to make a switch, put Patrick on [Armon] Johnson. I thought he did a pretty good job. Obviously at the end Johnson hit two or three 3s and got to the basket. He had a great game for them. And Babbitt is very good, freshman. Two players we knew were good, tried to highlight in our preparation. But we didn’t shoot the ball very well.”
- Montgomery after the game about what did and didn’t work
The Bears next face Colgate on Monday night at 8pm PST.
