BERKELEY – Basketball teams typically make adjustments because they find themselves at some kind of disadvantage.
The fact that the Cal men's basketball team made one Friday night with already a double-digit lead clearly illustrates the dominant performance it had over South Dakota State in its 2016-17 season-opener.
The Bears held the Jackrabbits scoreless for almost the first seven minutes of the game, then bettered that with a 24-0 run in a game-deciding second-half stretch en route to an 82-53 victory at Haas Pavilion.
Cal, which led the Pac-12 in scoring defense last season (67.3 ppg), suffocated South Dakota State during a 9-0 run to begin the game. The Jackrabbits finally scored with 13:25 remaining in the first half, but the Bears extended to a 24-6 advantage after
Roger Moute a Bidias' three-point play with 8:12 left before halftime.
The Jackrabbits crept within 40-32 early in the second half, but that's when Cal unleashed its torrid run that saw South Dakota State go scoreless for nearly 11 minutes.
Cal coach
Cuonzo Martin said the Bears were limited in their preparation for the Jackrabbits because South Dakota State features a new head coach in T.J. Otzelberger.
"The tough part of a game like this is there's really not a chance to see them on film," Martin said. "You have film of them last season, but they have a new coach. Our guys did a great job of making adjustments in the second half, and we built off that."
The Bears had their own internal adjusting to do as they played the season-opener without Preseason All-American Ivan Raab, who sat out the game with a sprained toe. But Cal got tremendous play from wings like Moute a Bidias,
Jabari Bird and
Grant Mullins, and posts
Kameron Rooks and
Kingsley Okoroh dominated the paint.
Cal outrebounded South Dakota State 54-26 and the Bears recorded 10 blocked shots, one shy of the school record. Okoroh and Rooks had four blocks apiece.
"I thought we had a lot of energy," said Mullins, who had 13 points and seven rebounds in his Cal debut. "I thought we played well on the defensive end, and Coach always preaches that. That was a good starting point for us."
After South Dakota State's Reed Tellinghuisen made a 3-pointer to cut Cal's lead to 46-35, the Bears scored the next 24 points, getting offensive contributions from a variety of players. The Jackrabbits missed 16 straight shots from the floor during the sequence.
South Dakota State shot just 29 percent from the field overall.
Seniors
Sam Singer and
Jabari Bird led the Bears with 14 points apiece while Singer added six rebounds and five assists. Moute a Bidias had career-highs of 12 points and five assists while also adding six boards.
"We have a lot of guys who work hard, but Roger works extremely hard," Martin said. "When I first got the job, he had a lot of work to do. He was an athlete. To his credit, he has put a lot of work and time into it."
The win was Cal's 20
th in a row at home, a streak that dates back to March 1, 2015. It's the second-longest home winning streak in school history and is tied for the seventh-longest active streak in the country.
The Bears return to action Wednesday against UC Irvine at Haas Pavilion. Tipoff is at 8 p.m. and the game will be televised by the Pac-12 Networks.
