UC San Diego @ California preview
Haas Pavilion
California hopes to demonstrate the loss of transfer Matt Bradley won't be a major setback in the rebuilding process when it opens the basketball season Tuesday night against UC San Diego in Berkeley, Calif.
The Golden Bears (9-20, 3-17 Pacific-12 last season) are coming off four consecutive losing seasons, the last two under coach Mark Fox.
Now Fox must figure out a way to overcome seeing Bradley take his team-high 18 points per game with him to San Diego State. Cal already was the Pac-12's lowest-scoring team last season (65.4 points per game).
Fox's plan: stress quantity over quality, with more numbers leading to more action.
"We've played much slower than I want to play the first two years, but it's the only pace we could play really to give ourselves a chance to be in games," he said. "We anticipate the ability to play faster. We're much faster than we've been."
Cal returns four players who started at least 11 games last season, including big men Grant Anticevich (8.9 points per game), who had 23 points in a 92-58 exhibition win over Cal State Los Angeles, and Andre Kelly (10.3 ppg).
Fox also is counting heavily upon newcomers Jordan Shepherd, a graduate transfer from Charlotte, and freshman Sam Alajiki from Ireland.
UC San Diego (7-10, 4-8 Big West) begins its second season at the Division I level led by forward Toni Rocak (12.8 ppg), the team's top scorer last season. Rocak played for Switzerland's national team over the summer.
The Tritons led the Big West in 3-pointers per game (11.1) last season but saw two of their best long-range shooters -- Gabe Hadley and Hugh Baxter -- move on, Hadley to an Australian professional team, Baxter as a transfer to Point Loma.
Jake Killingsworth, who ranked second on the team with 34 threes at a 41 percent success rate, returns.
UC San Diego dropped an exhibition game 57-44 against Loyola Marymount on Friday in Los Angeles. Freshman Francis Nwaokorie paced the Tritons with 10 points, and Rocak grabbed 13 rebounds.
"It was good for us to get that experience of playing under the lights and in front of fans for the first time in forever," UC San Diego coach Eric Olen said. "It was an ugly game both ways, but I thought we competed, and our defensive execution was very good.
"If we can build on our defensive effort and find our pace and rhythm offensively, then we're going to be fine. We're just scratching the surface with this group."
--Field Level Media