BERKELEY -- The California men's basketball team took its first loss at Haas Pavilion tonight at the hands of No. 16/13 Louisville, falling 90-70 to a hot-shooting Cardinals squad in both teams' Atlantic Coast Conference opener. Louisville had five players hit double digits while Cal had four Bears in double figures, led by
Chris Bell's 20-point outing. The Bears are now 12-2 overall and 0-1 in ACC play, and Louisville is 11-2, 1-0.
Louisville landed eight first-half 3-pointers and was shooting 54.3 percent from the floor overall in those first 20 minutes to keep the Bears at bay early. Cal trailed by as much as 21 in the opening half, but carved things down by getting to the free-throw line and finding some key buckets, making it a 48-34 margin at halftime. The Bears were shooting 33.3 percent overall and also trailed on the boards 21-14 at the break. Louisville cooled comparatively in finishing up at 46.4 percent overall, but the Cardinals benefitted from 14 threes made in the game and a rebounding advantage of 50-31. Cal wrapped up at 33.9 percent, making nine 3-pointers and going 21-of-27 from the free-throw line.Â
Bell's 20 points led the Bears, who also had
Justin Pippen scored 17,
Lee Dort 12 and
Dai Dai Ames 11. Dort was just one board away from a double-double, pulling nine rebounds on the night. Louisville received a game-high 26 points from Ryan Cowell, who hit six 3-pointers. He was joined in double figures by fellow Cardinals Adrian Wooley (21 points), Sananda Fru (12 points, 14 rebounds) and Issac McKneely and J'Vonne Hadley with 11 points apiece.
"They did a good job of executing their game plan," Cal head coach
Mark Madsen said of Louisville. .They came in here and beat us fair and square. We've got things to work on. I was proud of our guys for fighting back."
Louisville jumped out to a 10-0 lead before
Dai Dai Ames interrupted things with a jumper for Cal at 17:20.
Justin Pippen hit the Bears' first 3-pointer of the night at 13:55 to make it a 14-7 margin. Only free throws were falling for the Bears in the next stretch. Although the foul count was tipped against the Cardinals 8-2, they were clicking on the offensive end and made another rally with a 9-0 push to lead it 28-11 with 9:00 on the clock. Pippen broke up that run with a tough finish in the paint at 8:25, only to see Louisville answer with its fifth 3-pointer of the half to make it 31-13 soon after. A
Chris Bell 3-pointer got the Bears a boost a few minutes late, as Cal followed that bucket with a series of trips to the stripe and a score down low from
Lee Dort to carve the deficit down to 36-25 at 3:15. Again Louisville had a responding attack, burying back-to-back threes on its next two possessions to build a 42-25 lead entering the final two minutes of the half. Pippen and Bell both got into double digits key threes in that last stretch, and it would sit as a 48-34 Louisville lead at the break.
The gap widened to 66-41 just over six minutes into the second half thanks in part to a 9-0 run by the Cardinals. TT Carr snapped that with a fancy finish in the lane. A 14-0 Cal rally got the Bears back in the game, down 73-62 at 7:00 on another big 3-pointer from Bell. Louisville answered back, though, netting three 3-pointers in the final three minutes to help the ranked Cardinals get to 90 points en route to a final 90-70 decision.
NEXT:Â Cal will ring in the new year with its first ACC action of 2026 when Notre Dame comes to Berkeley for an 8 p.m. meeting on Friday (Jan. 2) at Haas Pavilion.
NOTABLE:
- With 20 points,
Chris Bell scored in double digits for the 11th time this season and recorded his fifth 20-point game of the year.
-
Justin Pippen (17 points) hit double digits for the 10th time, and
Dai Dai Ames (11 points) did so for the 12th time this season.
- Cal is now 1-1 against ranked opponents this season.
