California's Lackadaisical Play Is a Concern for Both Tournaments

If the last game of the season is any indication of what will happen to the California Golden Bears in the Pac-10 tournament and the NCAA tournament, then they are in deep trouble. Their play against the Arizona State Sun Devils was flat-out despicable.

Let's start off with the defense; it just wasn't there. The Bears allowed one wide-open three after another, and the defense forgot the most important thing and that is making sure to get a hand in the face of a shooter.

It seemed like anytime Cal got any kind of momentum to get back into the game Arizona State moved the ball very well and found a wide open shooter for a three; each time, it was a dagger to Cal. 

Offensively, the only player who bothered to show up was Jerome Randle, who should be in the running for Pac-10 player of the year. He scored 24 points, had four rebounds, and two assists. Still, the problem right there is that Randle only had 2 assists. 

For the game call shot a miserable 42 percent from the floor. From beyond the arc the best three point shooting team in the country shot just 26 percent, the only good news was that the Bears shot 88 percent from the line the only problem is that there were only eight attempts from the free throw line. 

California's main problems were exposed and Arizona State did a great job at attacking those weaknesses. California got to face the matchup zone and they did a horrible job against it. 

Unlike the last game against the Sun Devils the Bears did not attack the middle of the zone and attempted too many jumpers, which lead to a jump shooting contest that the Bears lost. 

More importantly for the Bears was the fact that they could not grab a defensive rebound. Due to the Bears being tremendously undersized, the Sun Devils did an excellent job of using their height advantage to pull down offensive rebounds and defensive boards with ease.

At the end of the game, it may show that Cal outrebounded Arizona State, but that was until the game was well out of hand.

The last problem for the Bears is that Randle can't do it alone. Patrick Christopher has disappeared since the triple-overtime win against Pac-10 conference champion Washington.

Since that time, there has been 14 games for California and nearly half those games Christopher has been held to single digits.

Since that time, he's shot 42 percent from the floor, 36 percent from three, and 77 percent from the free-throw line. His numbers have declined substantially from earlier in the season.

Part of the reason lately is because Christopher has been getting into foul trouble. In a couple of those games, though, it was a couple of horrendously awful offensive foul calls against Christopher. This includes today's game against Arizona State, which actually started the run that the Sun Devils went on.

Patrick Christopher is going to have to pick up his game and stay out of foul trouble for Cal to win any games during the Pac-10 tournament as well as once the NCAA tournament starts.