Cal’s rally collapses with a loss to Cornell

Cal’s road loss to Missouri last week was tolerable. The Bears’ home loss to Stanford on Saturday was disappointing. But Cal’s 88-80 home loss to Cornell on Tuesday was troubling.

The Bears made a valiant comeback from a 23-point deficit in the second half, but that didn’t disguise the fact that they lost to a Cornell team that was picked to finish fourth in the Ivy League and had its best win in this season was against Samford.

Cal (6-4) was the nine-point favorite in this game at home and was almost able to prevent the upset with a strong second half. Still, it was the Bears’ third loss in a row.

The Bears trailed by 18 points at halftime, and Cornell (7-3) extended its lead to 23 points 18-14 into the second half. In the next 9:17 minutes, Cal outscored Cornell 32-13 and got within 65-61 with 8:57 left in the second half.

With 5:53 left, Cal cut the lead to two points on Jeremiah Wilkinson’s fast-break basket, and Andrej Stojakovic’s three-pointer at 5:16 gave the Bears a one-point lead. This excited the crowd of 3,035 spectators. But the lead didn’t last long as Cornell regained the lead on the ensuing possession.

The score was 74-74 before Cornell’s Cooper Noard scored from close range to give the Big Red a 76-74 lead with 3:19 left.

Cornell’s Jake Fiegen converted a three-point play to extend the Big Red’s lead to five points with 1:34 left, and AK Okereke scored with 58 seconds left to extend Cornell’s lead to 80-74. That ended Cal’s chances.

Joshua Ola-Joseph scored a season-high 21 points to lead Cal, while Andrej Stojakovic added 13, all in the second half. Wilkinson scored 12 points, all after halftime, and Mady Sissoko had 13 points. Cal committed 18 turnovers, including 13 in the first half.

Okereke scored 24 points for Cornell and Noard had 21.

Cal did little right in a first half dominated by the Big Red. Cal committed 13 turnovers before halftime and made just 35.7% of its field goal attempts. Meanwhile, Cornell shot 55.4% from the field in the first 20 minutes and committed just six turnovers. At halftime, Cornell had a 47-29 lead.

Joshua Ola-Joseph scored 16 points in the first half for Cal, already Ola-Joseph’s season high for a full game.

However, Cal’s Andrej Stojakovic, who entered the game as the Bears’ leading scorer with 19.5 points per game, went scoreless in the first half and missed his only field goal attempt before halftime. Due to foul trouble, he only played eight minutes in the first half.

NOTES: Cal’s BJ Omot and DJ Campbell were unavailable for Tuesday’s game due to injuries. Omot missed his sixth consecutive game after starting two of the four games he played. Campbell started the first four games of the season, then missed the next four due to injury before playing just three minutes in Saturday’s loss to Stanford.

Cornell entered the game leading the country in assists per game (20.9) and ranked ninth nationally in 3-pointers made (11.3) and attempted (31.3). But Cornell ranked 94th nationally in three-point percentage (36.2%).

Cornell, picked to finish fourth in the Ivy League in the preseason media poll, suffered losses to LaSalle, Robert Morris and Syracuse before the Cal game. Cornell entered Tuesday with five players averaging double-digit points, led by Nazir Williams, who scored 20 and 22 points, respectively, in the Big Red’s two previous games. He was a second-team All-Ivy selection in the preseason.

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