BERKELEY — A once-promising Cal basketball team that already had steered off course must navigate the next four to six weeks without all-Pac-12 point guard Tyrone Wallace, sidelined by a broken bone in his right wrist.
Picked to finish second in the Pac-12 before the season and ranked No. 14 nationally in November, the Bears will try to snap a three-game losing streak Thursday night at home against Arizona State without their leading scorer (15.4 points per game) and only scholarship senior. Wallace suffered the injury during a 5-on-5 drill in practice Saturday.
Cal then faces Arizona on Saturday at Haas Pavilion in a nationally televised matchup of teams picked to finish first and second in the Pac-12. The Bears (12-6, 2-3) enter the week in a four-way tie for seventh.
Junior guard Jabari Bird said none of his teammates has lost hope.
“We’re a confident team. We’re still positive,” he said. “We’re a team for a reason. We can’t just rely on one guy. We have to come together as a team and figure this out.”
Junior backup Sam Singer, who played season-high totals of 27 and 29 minutes in the Bears’ two most recent games, will move into the starting role. Singer averages 4.1 points and has an assist-to-turnover ratio of nearly 2-to-1.
Seldom-used sophomore Brandon Chauca becomes the No. 2 point guard.
Coach Cuonzo Martin said Singer has his full confidence.
“No problem at all,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity for Sam. I think he’s ready to go. The guys will rally around him and Brandon.”
Perhaps, but the Bears have so far failed to live up to expectations that soared after Wallace announced last spring he would bypass the NBA draft to remain at Cal, joining top-10 national recruits Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb.
Cal fell out of the top 25 after poor performances in a pair of losses at Las Vegas over Thanksgiving. The Bears showed encouraging signs in an overtime road loss to a Virginia team ranked No. 5 at the time, then opened Pac-12 play with impressive wins over Colorado and Utah to improve to 11-0 at home.
Since then, the Bears lost road games to Oregon, Oregon State and Stanford in which they had 49 turnovers and shot 58 percent from the free-throw line.
The freshmen are making progress. Brown has scored at a 15.8 clip in Pac-12 play, including 20 vs. both Oregon and OSU. Rabb had 19 points and 10 rebounds against Utah, although he fouled out in three of the other four conference games.
Singer has run the point extensively in recent games, allowing Wallace to play on the wing. Wallace, a 6-foot-5 left-hander from Bakersfield, is an inconsistent perimeter shooter but attacks effectively off the dribble and can finish with either hand.
“You can give him the ball anywhere on the court and he can get to the rim and make a play. Not many guys can do that,” Martin said.
Given the timetable provided by Cal, the best-case scenario has Wallace returning for the team’s game at Washington on Feb. 18. If out six weeks, Wallace would not be back until the final week of the regular season, when the Bears visit the Arizona schools.
Wallace, who came to Cal as a shooting guard, ranks 11th in school history in career points (1,474). He joins Kevin Johnson as the only Cal players among the school’s top 15 in scoring and top 10 in assists and steals.
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