BearTalk

Had some internet problems late last night, so here are a few tidbits on Call’s 77-62 win I wasn’t able to pass on sooner. I’ll have more later today after press conferences with Cal and Duke:

– The 15-point final margin is the largest by Cal in an NCAA Tournament victory since a 70-49 win over Oregon in the West Regional final back in 1960. The Bears had played 18 NCAA games since then. The Bears’ average margin of victory in their seven wins over that span: 4.0 points.

– Mike Montgomery on the victory: ”I just am really happy for our baskeball team. It’s a long way to come and we had a lot of respect for Louisville. I think our guys were really ready to play. We got off to a tremendous start and probably caught them off guard. We gave them a pretty good hole. To their credit, they came back. Theo hit a huge 3 from the corner.

“It’s a very satisfying win for us. We don’t have a lot of depth. I was worried about fatigue. I thought Max did a tremendous job.  They know what it’s like to win in the NCAA Tournament now. We’ve got a tremendous challenge on Sunday and it’s one we’re really looking forward to.”

(I believe the key word here is “tremendous,” but perhaps the occasion calls for it).

– Without suspended forward Omondi Amoke, Montgomery used his reserves just 18 minutes, 13 of them by Max Zhang, who had two rebounds, two big free throws, a block and an assist. All five starters played at least 32 minutes, with Jerome Randle going 40 and Patrick Christopher and Theo Robertson 38 apiece.

– The senior threesome of Robertson (21 points), Randle (21) and Christopher (17) totaled 59 points. Randle hiked his career point total to 1,823, moving into sixth place on the all-time Bay Area Division I list. Christopher now has 1,698 points. He passed Lamond Murray (1,688) and is third all-time at Cal. Robertson has 1,308 points and is 16th on Cal’s list.

– Those three combined to shoot 20-for-35 from the field, 8-for-14 from 3-point range.

– Cal shot 8-for-15 from 3-PT as a team, improving to 15-1 this season in games it converts at least 40 percent from the arc.

– Senior Jamal Boykin had nine points and a career-high five assists and did most of the heavy lifting against Louisville’s 6-9, 260-pound center Samardo Samuels. He got nice double-team help from Robertson or Zhang virtually every time Saamuels got the ball on the low block, and the result was Samuels had five of Louisville’s 15 turnovers.

– The game was the latest piece of evidence that the Bears have become more comfortable against zone defenses. Now, this wasn’t Syracuse, and the Louisville zone wasn’t as problematic as Oregon State’s, but the Bears handled it. “We knew they were going to extend the zone a little bit,” Randle said. “Instead of us backing off and  being on our heels, we just wanted to penetrate the ball and find the open man.”  Mission accomplished: 26 field goals, 17 assists.

–  Robertson on the Bears’ ability to close the game even while Louisville was making a run midway through the second half: “At that point in the game everyone was really focused on winning. Our concentration was there. We  just had to be smart with the ball and close the game out.”

– The only area where Louisville hurt Cal was on the boards, where the Cardinals held a 37-28 advantage. They converted 15 offensive boards into 18 second-chance points.  But Louisville shot just 5-for-19 from 3-point range and Cal outscored them 17-5 from the FT line.

– On defending the Pac-10′s honors after the league got so much grief nationally this season, Randle said, “People was talking bad about the conference, but I honestly felt two other teams could have come here and got a win as well. We really wasn’t worried about what people were saying. We just wanted to come in here and get a win.” Added Christopher: “It’s a brand news season for us. No matter what happened in the past . . . now we’re 1-0.”

– Montgomery improved to 11-3 in first-round NCAA games. He won 10 straight first-round games from 1995 through 2004 with Stanford. Louisville lost in the first round for just the second time in seven NCAA appearances under Rick Pitino. Overall, including stints at three other schools, he is 12-3 in first-round games.

– Louisville freshman Rakeem Buckles, probably not even on the Cal scouting report, came off the bench to score a career-high 20 points on 10-for-11 shooting. (The rest of the team shot 16-for-49). His previous best was 10 points and he came in averaging 3.3.