California Golden Bears

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photo via @calmbball twitter

Mady Sissoko has very quietly had an excellent all-around season in his one year in Berkeley, and on senior day he had probably his best game of the season in Cal’s 82-71 win.

Sissoko has had to fill a very challenging role on this team. On offense, he’s a secondary option who mostly scores on dump-offs and put-backs, and Cal expects him to fight hard for offensive rebounds on a team that relies on second chances to create offense.

And on defense, Sissoko is asked to provide rim protection on a team that struggles to prevent penetration, meaning that he is asked to make many high difficulty shot contests.

He has responded to all of this responsibility by putting together the best year of his career. His offensive rebounding rate is the best of his career and he’s one of the very best second chance creators in the ACC. He’s shooting 65% from the field on the highest volume of his career and rarely turns the ball over. He’s blocking more shots than ever before. And considering how frequently he has to play recovery defense, his ability to avoid serious foul trouble is impressive. In short, he’s the glue holding this team together.

All of that came together against Boston College, as Sissoko exploded for 21 points (on just 12 shot equivalents) to go along with 15 total rebounds. Boston College didn’t have anybody who could compete with his physicality and control down low, and as a result Sissoko was able to feast all game long.

He was joined by fellow senior Jovan Blacksher, who went for 18 points and 4 assists without a single turnover. Blacksher’s single year in Berkeley has been a challenge as his shooting touch has ebbed and flowed all season long, but against BC the jumper was falling and he was making good decisions with the ball.

Thanks to excellent games from their seniors, Cal didn’t need huge contributions from their usual lead scorers. But Andrej Stojakovic and Jeremiah Wilkinson chipped in 15 and 14 points respectively against BC’s iffy defense, and Cal was able to outscore the Golden Eagles with relative comfort.

Perhaps the biggest moment of the game felt like a stroke of luck to me. Cal held a 13 point lead inside the final minute of the first half, but a 17-3 BC run put the Golden Eagles briefly ahead. After pulling down a defensive rebound, Jeremiah Wilkinson went coast to coast for a spectacular layup over a couple of defenders, and got wacked in the head for what should have been called a common foul and-1 . . . but the refs just missed it.

Wilkinson was hit hard enough that the refs reviewed it and ended up calling a flagrant foul. I have no way of proving this, but I can’t help but suspect that the refs would never have awarded a flagrant foul if they had correctly called for the common foul they should’ve called, but that oversight gave them the opening to call SOMETHING to acknowledge the fact that Wilkinson got smacked on the follow through of a block attempt.

Wilkinson sank both free throws, then assisted on a Rytis Petraitis layup, meaning that Cal pulled off the rare 6 point possession. BC would keep the game going back-and-forth for a bit and would briefly retake the lead, but that sequence allowed Cal to stabilize the game. The Bears would finally take full control late with an 11-0 run highlighted by threes from Stojakovic and Wilkinson, and two emphatic put-back buckets by Sissoko.

This win clinches Cal’s spot in the ACC tournament, as it is no longer possible for the Bears to finish in the bottom three that are left out. Cal currently sits tied with Notre Dame and Syracuse, and one game back of Virginia, Florida State, and Pitt. It’s technically possible that Cal could climb all the way up into a tie for 9th place (and the last bye into the 2nd round of the ACC tournament) but I’m pretty sure Cal would lose most tie-breaker scenarios and that would require that Cal beat red-hot, tournament-bound Louisville on the road next Wednesday.

The most likely scenario is that Cal’s final regular season game on the road against Notre Dame next weekend is a battle to avoid the 15 seed. In short, you should prepare to see Cal playing on Tuesday afternoon once the ACC tournament comes around.

But the exact permutation is mostly minutia - we know that the last two weeks of this season is mostly about trying to end the season on an emotional high note. The goal? Carry some positive feelings into an off-season that will, hopefully, be about augmenting and tweaking a roster rather than having to completely rebuild a roster. Sadly, we have to say goodbye to Mady Sissoko and Jovan Blacksher. I’ll be crossing my fingers that we don’t have to say goodbye to many other players.