Bears Drop Season-Opener To UC San Diego

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Next game:

at UNLV

11/13/2021 | 5.00

Stadion

BERKELEY – Jordan Shepherd tied his career high with 27 points on his Cal debut and senior Andre Kelly had 17 points and 12 rebounds, but the Cal men’s basketball team dropped their 80-67 season opener at UC San Diego on Tuesday afternoon at the Haas Pavilion.

Junior Guard Joel Brown added 10 points for the Bears, who opened an early 12-point lead but failed to hold it.

Shepherd, a Charlotte graduate, drained four 3-pointers and added four rebounds to achieve his best goal performance as a colleague. He also had 27 points against Valparaiso in 2019.

“I don’t think we’ve played out our strengths or our identities,” said Kelly. “We just have to be sharper. It was the first time with this group. We will recover. We will react correctly.”

Jarred Hyder’s two free throws with 12:53 remaining in the first half gave Cal an 18-6 lead and the Bears were still leading at 31:22 with 4:05 before break. But a 7-0 run by the Tritons brought them back, and it took Shepherd’s 3-pointers with four seconds to go to get the Bears into the break with 37:33.

Playing Shepherd’s 3-pointers at 13:22 gave Cal his final lead on 48-47. UCSD followed with an 11-0 run and was never less than seven points behind the rest of the way.

“I am very disappointed with the performance of our team today,” said Cal head coach Mark Fox. “Obviously I didn’t have them ready. Give (UC San Diego) credit – they played us out. It’s my responsibility to clean it up and make sure this doesn’t define our season.”

NEXT

The Bears will travel to UNLV on Saturday at 5 p.m. for their first street game of the season. The competition will be broadcast in the stadium.

STAY SET UP

For full coverage of Cal Men’s Basketball, please follow the bears on Twitter (@CalMBBall), Instagram (@CalMBBball), and Facebook (/ CalMBBall /).

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