Complacency doesn’t figure to be a concern for Cal. At 8-1, the Golden Bears are off to their best start since 2014-15.
If anything, Cal will be laser-focused when hosting Division II member Dominican University of California (5-1) on Tuesday in Berkeley, Calif.
The Golden Bears have won five straight games, including a 67-61 win over visiting Pacific on Saturday. Justin Pippen scored 16 points and Dai Dai Ames added 15 as Cal led wire-to-wire and improved to 7-0 at home.
Cal continues its eight-game homestand with a matchup against Dominican, which was picked to finish 11th in the Pacific West Conference preseason coaches poll.
Dominican leads the conference in scoring at 91.2 points per game while shooting 52.2% from the field and 34.5% from 3-point range.
The Penguins have five players averaging in double figures, led by senior guards Darius Best (14.8 ppg) and Nick Medeiros (13.2 ppg). Junior forward Sargent Jeffery had 15 points and four rebounds in Dominican’s last game, a 104-77 home win over Pacific Union on Nov. 29.
Dominican has had eight days to prepare for the matchup against Cal, which is eager to address a few issues from its win over Pacific.
The Bears led by as many as 14 in the first half before Pacific rallied in the second half and missed a 3-point attempt to tie in the final seconds.
“I don’t think as a team we played that well,” Pippen said. “But you know, this is one of those games where you live and learn. Go back to the drawing board and see what we can fix. I know we can play way better than we did (Saturday).”
Ames averages a team-high 18.6 points for the Bears, whose only loss came in a 99-96 road defeat to Kansas State on Nov. 13.
While pleased with his team’s early success, coach Mark Madsen knows the Bears are far from a finished product.
“There’s areas where we’ve made big steps as a basketball team, and there’s areas that we have to clean up,” Madsen said. “Our communication on the court can really improve, so we’ll work on that. We had a couple lapses in the second half (against Pacific), and communication will tighten those up.”
