What I see: California

Check out what I’ll see tonight in the match between Missouri (6-1) and the California Golden Bears (6-1).

We finally did it. It’s the tough part of the non-conference schedule that begins tonight with the SEC/ACC Challenge.

Cal enters tonight’s matchup after winning the Cal Classic the week before Thanksgiving.

Beat the Golden Bears air force (78-69), Sacramento State (83-77) and Mercyhurst (81-55) in their home tournament.

Cal played and defeated former Pac-12 rival USC 71-66, and the Golden Bears’ only loss this year came on the road on November 13 at Vanderbilt 85-69.

Cal is averaging 79.9 points per game and allowing 71.1 while shooting 47.9 percent from the field, 36.1 percent from 3 and 71.5 percent at the free throw line.

Cal sits at No. 116 in the KenPom rankings heading into the matchup, while Missouri sits at No. 54.

The Golden Bears are led by Andrej Stojakovicson of Peja Stojakovic who played 13 seasons in the NBA and won one title Dallas Mavericks in 2011 and made three All Star Games as a member of the Sacramento Kings.

The younger Stojakovic (6-foot-1, 220 pounds) scores 17.7 points per game while grabbing 5.1 rebounds per contest as a sophomore forward.

The Golden Bears will likely be without their second-leading scorer Jovan Blacksher (a 5-11 graduate guard) who hasn’t played since the match against USC, as well as the third-leading scorer BJ Omot (a 6-8 junior forward) and junior guard DJ Campbell.

Without these three, newly minted security guard Jeremiah Wilkinson (6-1, 185 pounds) scored 23, 16 and 25 points off the bench Rytis Petraitis (a 6-7, 210-pound junior forward) and Joshua Ola Joseph (a 6-7, 215-pound junior forward) has moved into the starting lineup.

This will be my first time actually looking at matchups this year, so bear with me.

The first and biggest problem is definitely Stojakovic against the Tigers’ central defense.

Stojakovic can shoot 3s and does a lot with nine attempts when needed Cal Poly and seven against Air Force, but he gets to the rim more often and the free throw line frequently.

Stojakovic has three games with at least six free throw attempts, including 15 attempts from the line against Sacramento State.

The interior defense has to hold up without fouls for Mizzou. The Tigers have now dominated the free throw line standings in some games because they were playing against undisciplined teams that didn’t have the strength to attack the rim against an SEC team. Stojakovic has the strength and will to try. If the Tigers get fouled, it could be a long night.

The other big play will be Wilkinson against the Tigers zone.

Wilkinson has been the Golden Bears’ leading scorer over the past three games, filling in for injured starters. In the last three games, he took 12, 10 and 12 shots and made six three-pointers on eight attempts against Mercyhurst.

If Mizzou can control his performance inside the 3-point line and force him to make longer attempts, I don’t think he’ll be able to hit 75 percent against better close-out defenses.

A full 40 minutes from the Tigers.

The problem of flatlining in the second half has disappeared for Mizzou in recent weeks because the Tigers were far more talented than the team they were facing, so a break here or there didn’t matter.

We’re back with the opponent where it all counts.

The Tigers will be without one Caleb GrillSo someone else has to provide the spark that keeps the team from falling into a long doldrums. If I had to guess, it would be like this Marques Warrick.

This is still as easy as the more difficult games will be, and Vanderbilt beat Cal by 19 points, so this should still be a pretty easy win for the Tigers. We’ll see.

If it’s a comfortable win, I’ll feel a little better on Saturday.

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