Cal head coach Wyking Jones has been begging his upperclassmen to take the initiative and lead, and there might be no more important time than now for the seniors to get the message.
Mired in a four-game losing streak, the Bears on Wednesday host No. 14 Arizona and freshman forward/center Deandre Ayton — a player the likes of whom Cal hasn’t faced this season.
Heck, the Bears might not have faced this type of sensation in a decade.
“There’s nobody,” said Jones, when asked Tuesday for a player comparable to Ayton. “You’re talking about a guy who’s probably going to be the No. 1 pick in the draft, and he’s a freshman. His skill set. His size. His strength.
“He’s an animal. He’s a monster.”
Ayton is averaging 20.2 points and 11.3 rebounds per game, while shooting 63 percent from the field. The 7-foot-1, 250-pound Bahamian joins Duke’s Marcus Bagley III and St. Mary’s Jock Landale as the only players in the nation averaging at least 20 and 10 while shooting 60 percent.
The first No. 1 high school overall recruit to commit to the conference in a decade (Kevin Love to UCLA in 2007 was the last), Ayton made an instant impact, becoming the first Arizona player to open a season with five consecutive double-doubles. He already has tied the school’s freshman mark for double-doubles (12) and stars in his own mixtape of highlight dunks along the way.
“In my eight years in the league, we’ve never seen a guy like that before,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman told local reporters after Ayton had 24 points and seven rebounds against the Ducks’ double- and triple-teams Saturday. “I think he is the best player I’ve seen in the Pac-12.
“He’s a unique talent. … He’s very special, and I hope that people in the Pac-12 are enjoying him, because it may be a while until we see somebody like that.”
For all its troubles during the first season of a program rebuild, this is the rare matchup when Cal was supposed to actually have an advantage. Sure, the Bears have one of the country’s youngest rosters with seven freshmen, but their seniors are big and have plenty on their resumes.
Marcus Lee, a 6-11, 225-pounder was considered a top-25 recruit when he headed from Deer Valley-Antioch to Kentucky in 2013, and he expected even more from himself than the lofty scouting reports suggested after transferring back home for his senior season.
Kingsley Okoroh — a 7-1, 267-pounder who made the preseason short list for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Award — set Cal’s single-season record with 74 blocks in 2016-17 and dropped 4 percent body fat in two months to prepare for his final season.
But the idea of the big men playing together hasn’t worked.
In the most recent of a season’s worth of direct public pleas to Lee and Okoroh, Jones asked the seniors for “mental toughness,” “hunger,” “fight” and “edge” during a series of comments after Saturday’s loss at Washington State dropped Cal into the Pac-12 cellar (with the Cougars).
Okoroh hasn’t scored double digits in a game for more than two months and didn’t recognize that he wasn’t guarding anyone when Washington State shifted to a five-out, three-point onslaught Saturday. “It’s just simple math, and he’s had to hear about it quite a bit from me the past couple of days,” Jones said.
Lee has fouled out of four games and has been diminished by four fouls in seven others. In his past 16 games, foul trouble has limited him to fewer than 30 minutes 13 times, and he averaged only 21.5 minutes during the Washington swing last week.
“It’s on him to play smarter. One hundred percent,” Jones said. “It’s on him to make the right decisions, being a veteran and being able to feel after the first foul: ‘Let me not put myself in a situation to draw a second one. Let me continue to play defense. Let me continue to compete and work, but let me not try to take a charge that’s a 50-50 play.’ …
“He’s got to be smarter in those situations.”
Despite his minute restraints, Lee has been productive. He’s averaging 12.4 points on 60.4 percent shooting, 7.8 rebounds, a blocked shot and a steal in five Pac-12 games.
Just don’t try to convince him that that’s enough.
“Us upperclassmen need to help our coaches out and our team out by acting like upperclassmen and taking charge,” Lee said. “… I think I’ve been playing pretty terrible. That’s according to my expectations and my team’s expectations. …
“I do have great numbers for a normal person, but we’re not normal here at Berkeley.”
Neither is the young man coming to town in the No. 13 Arizona jersey.
Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rsimmons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron
Wednesday’s game
Who: Arizona (14-4, 4-1 Pac-12) at Cal (7-11, 1-4)
When: 6 p.m. TV/Radio: P12Net/810