No. 10 Houston’s Defense, Physical Play Too Much For Cal

Facing by far its stiffest competition of the young season, the Cal men’s basketball team suffered its first defeat with an 86-68 setback to 10th-ranked Houston at the Caesars Lake Tahoe Classic at Stateline, Nevada on Sunday evening.

The Bears never led against a Houston team that has won at least 30 games for five consecutive seasons and has advanced to the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament seven years in a row.

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Coach Kelvin Sampson’s program has more victories than any school in the country over those seven seasons.

Cal (2-1), down by 17 points midway through the first half, rallied to get within seven points but got no closer against the Cougars’ ferocious defense.

“We got a bad start. No. 1, in terms of transition defense, they ran us and got layups, they got dunks. And on the offensive glass, they really hammered us,” coach Mark Madsen said on his post-game radio show.

“We shored it up a little bit in the second half, but very poor start and we were playing from behind from there.”

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Houston (2-0) bumped its lead to 20 points for the first time when forward Joseph Tugler converted a post move for a 56-36 advantage with 15:25 to play.

The Bears have now lost 22 consecutive games to AP Top-10 opponents, dating back to a 60-58 win over No. 1 Arizona on Feb. 1, 2014 at Berkeley.

Madsen said facing teams the caliber of Houston will pay off for the Bears.

“We scheduled this game, knowing Houston is a top-10, top-15 team based on the belief in our team and in our players,” he said. “Honestly, there’s a number of things that happened on the court that are controllable, that are preventable that we can correct.”

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The story of the game was Houston’s aggressive defense and interior play. Cal averaged 99.5 points in wins over Division II Adams State and Radford in its first two games, but never could find a consistent offensive rhythm against the a team that is annually one of the best defensive clubs in the country.

Houston scored 22 points off 16…

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Publish date : 2026-11-09 03:58:00

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