BearTalk

 In the 100th season of Cal basketball, we continue our countdown of the greatest teams in school history. Today: No. 2. 

2. 1959-60.
   Team’s record: 28-2.
   Achievements: NCAA runnerup. AAWU champion. Bears win 19 straight games before a 75-55 blowout loss to Ohio State in NCAA title game at Cow Palace.
   Record vs. Stanford: 2-0.
   Record vs. UCLA: 2-0.
   Coach: Pete Newell.
   Top players: C Darrall Imhoff (13.7 ppg, 12.4 rpg), F Bill McClintock (11.9 ppg).
   Bottom line: This team is more consistent, more dominant than ’59 champion, but is badly outplayed by Buckeyes’ squad featuring Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek and Bob Knight. Newell retires from coaching afterward, exiting Berkeley with a six-season record of 119-44, including 10-3 in four NCAA tournament appearances. In the other 93 years of Cal basketball combined, the Bears have won just eight NCAA games.

********

   News of the world: Four black students in North Carolina begin sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter; TV series “Twilight Zone” debuts on CBS; “Ben Hur” wins 11 Academy Awards.
   U.S. president: Dwight D. Eisenhower.
   U.S. population: 180 million.
   Elvis sighting: Sgt. Presley is discharged from the army and records “It’s Now or Never.”
   AP Athletes of the Year: Rafer Johnson (track and field) and Wilma Rudolph (track and field).
   Elsewhere in Bay Area sports: Newell coaches the 1960 U.S. Olympic basketball team, featuring Oscar Robertson and Jerry West, to a gold medal in Rome.