BearTalk

Click here for a video of Mike Montgomery’s post-game interview.

Here’s our correspondent’s game story.

FINAL SCORE: Cal 60, Oregon State 59. Ahmad Starks missed a shot at the buzzer and the Bears (18-9, 10-5) held on to win in Corvallis, Ore. Cal has won five in a row and seven of eight. Justin Cobbs scored 18 points and the Bears got a weekend road sweep despite a 2 for 12 shooting performance from Pac-12 scoring leader Allen Crabbe. Crabbe wound up with six points and nine rebounds. Freshman Tyrone Wallace had 11 points as the Bears completed their conference road schedule.

UPDATE: Washington beat Arizona State 68-59 in Tempe, dropping the Sun Devils to 9-6 in Pac-12 play and giving Cal sole possession of fourth place. If USC beats UCLA on Sunday, the Bears would move a half-game ahead of the Bruins into third place.

HALFTIME SCORE: Cal 29, Oregon State 20: The Bears led 22-8 with 7:43 left, then watched the Beavers creep back within nine by halftime. Cal shot just 35.5 percent in the half, including 2 for 7 by Justin Cobbs, who led the team with 7 points. Cal got a lift from its bench, which contributed nine first-half points. The Beavers, who made just 4 of their first 24 attempts, wound up at 21.6 percent in the half. Eric Moreland led OSU with 6 points on 3 for 6 from the field; his teammates combined to shoot 5 for 31.

*****

In the latest RealTimeRPI.com rankings were out Saturday morning and Cal’s win at Oregon lifted the Bears eight spots from No. 53 to No. 45.

Oregon State freshman guard Langston Morris-Walker is unlikely to play Saturday against Cal after being suspended and sitting out the Stanford game.

Morris-Walker, a Bishop O’Dowd HS grad, was cited for misdemeanor theft by the Oregon State Police for allegedly shoplifting a Nike T-shirt from the OSU Beaver Store, according to the Corvallis Gazette-Times.

Morris-Walker was given a court date and released.

TIPOFF: 3 p.m. Saturday at Gill Coliseum, Corvallis, Ore. TV/Radio: Pac-12 Networks/910-AM.

 With six wins in their past seven games — and four in a row — the Golden Bears are not only the hottest team in the Pac-12 … 

They may now be the favorites to win the regular-season crown.

Just one game back of co-leaders Oregon and Arizona, the Bears boast a combined 3-0 record against the Ducks and Wildcats. For starters, that means they own the tiebreaker against both.

Then there’s the remaining schedule. Cal is the only team among the top eight teams in the standings with just one more road game — Saturday against an Oregon State team that is 3-11 in league play. A gimme? No, but a game the Bears should win.

Cal also has potentially the easiest remaining schedule, with no games remaining against the top five teams in the Pac-12 standings. Yes, the Bears lost last month to Colorado and Stanford, but both games were on the road. The rematches will be at Berkeley.

If Cal wins out — and that suddenly seems possible — it finishes 13-5. Only four other teams can even mathematically match that record.

Here’s a look at what lies ahead for the Pac-12′s top seven teams:

– ARIZONA (10-4): vs. WSU, at USC , at UCLA, vs. ASU.

– OREGON (10-4): vs. Stanford, vs. Oregon State, at Colorado, at Utah.

– UCLA (9-4): at USC, vs. ASU, vs. Arizona, at WSU, at Washington.

– CAL (9-5): at Oregon State, vs. Utah, vs. Colorado, vs. Stanford.

– ASU (9-5): vs. Washington, at UCLA, at USC, at Arizona.

– COLORADO (8-6): at Stanford, at Cal, vs. Oregon, vs. Oregon State.

– USC (7-6): vs. UCLA, vs. Arizona, vs. ASU, at Washington, at WSU.

Read the rest of this entry »

Click here for our game story.

FINAL SCORE: Cal 48, Oregon 46. Justin Cobbs hits game-winning jumper with 0.7 seconds left and Bears completed a comeback from 11-point first-half hole to knock off the No. 23 Ducks. Cal improves to 17-9, 9-5 in the Pac-12 and pulls within one game of the conference lead. Cal has beaten Oregon 11 straight times and has won six of its past seven games — including Oregon twice, Arizona and UCLA once apiece. The NCAA tournament is a big step closer to reality. Cobbs had 14 points, eight rebounds, seven assists and eight turnovers. Allen Crabbe scored 12 points and Richard Solomon has eight points and 11 rebounds. Oregon (21-6, 10-4) gets 11 points and 18 rebounds from Arsalan Kazemi, but shoots just 27.6 percent, including 2 for 15 from 3-point range.

TIPOFF: 6 p.m. Thursday at Matthew Knight Arena, Eugene, Ore. TV/Radio: ESPN2/910-AM.

Four days after “The Shove” kidnapped the spotlight from a Cal team that has won five of six games, the Golden Bears’ ability to focus will be tested as perhaps never before.

Cal visits Pac-12 Conference leader Oregon on Thursday night, and cannot afford to be sidetracked by anything related to coach Mike Montgomery’s sideline push of star junior Allen Crabbe against USC.

The Ducks will be eager to avenge a 58-54 loss in Berkeley 19 days ago, and they are at home, where they’ve lost just once in 16 games this season.

Cal has shown an improved ability to sharpen its focus in recent high-profile games, elevating its play in wins over Arizona and UCLA.

Thursday night’s game involves all sorts of baggage the players must discard. Crabbe said the team will concentrate solely on the game itself.

“It is the focus,” he said. “Nobody cares about the situation. It’s over with. It’s in the past.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Click here for my game story.

FINAL SCORE: Cal 76, USC 68. Bears outscore USC 25-7 over the final 5:35 to win their fifth game in six. Cal improves to 16-9, 8-5 in the Pac-12. Crabbe had 23 points and 10 rebounds and Cobbs scored 22. Bears pull into a tie for fourth place with Arizona State.

Crabbe and Montgomery both confirmed an incident during a timeout with 16:31 left when the coach gave his star player a little shove and yelled, “Do you want to play?”

“Just coach using his way of motivating me,” Crabbe said. “Just spur of the moment. It was a emotional game at the time. He was trying to motivate me. Everything’s fine. It’s under the bridge. He’s my coach.”

So, it was effective? “Yeah, obviously,” Crabbe said. “He motivated me well.”

Said Montgomery: “It worked, didn’t it? We were standing around. Nobody was ready to play. Allen had come down twice and went to the wrong side of the floor and his guy hit two 3-pointers.

“I was trying to get him going … it was probably over-exaggerated.”

Read the rest of this entry »

TIPOFF: 7 p.m. Sunday at Haas Pavilion, Berkeley. TV/Radio: KICU/910-AM.

UPDATE: Senior guard Brandon Smith cleared to play today.

The Golden Bears are executing and playing with confidence.

The trick Sunday against USC is maintaining the edge they have taken into recent wins over Oregon, Arizona and UCLA.

“We played two ranked teams — no reason not to be excited,” coach Mike Montgomery said of the games vs. Oregon and Arizona. “We’ve got to stay excited against everybody. That’s going to be the key for us.”

The Bears certainly don’t want to sleep on the Trojans, who have won four in a row and are 5-3 since replacing coach Kevin O’Neill with Bob Cantu.

“They’ve got the same record in conference as we have,” sophomore David Kravish, noting that the Bears and Trojans are tied for fifth place, one-half game back of Arizona State. “I don’t know if people aren’t noticing them. We’ve got to go into that game with the same intensity as Oregon and Arizona.”

Montgomery said this will be a tougher assignment than a month ago, when Cal beat USC in Los Angeles.

“No question,” he said. “When they started the year they thought they had a team that could contend for the conference championship.

“They feel like they have talent. Bob’s gone in said, `When you’re open, shoot it. They seem to have thrived on that. We’re going to have to be ready to play.”

The Bears have thrived, as much as anything, because they have learned how to play hard.

“When we beat Oregon,” Kravish said, “that game showed us how we had to play. We’ve got to play hard as a team every game, every minute.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Click here to ready my game story.

FINAL SCORE: Cal 76, UCLA 63. Bears improve to 15-9 overall, 7-5 in the Pac-12 and are part of a four-way tie for fourth place. They have beaten all of the league’s top three teams — and all in the past 13 days. David Kravish had a career-high 18 points to go with 13 rebounds. Richard Solomon scored 17, Crabbe had 16 (15 in the first half) and Cobbs had 12 points and nine assists. Cal had three different players with at least five assists, as Wallace contributed six and Crabbe five. Mike Montgomery said he expects senior G Brandon Smith (left knee) to be OK. Adams led UCLA (18-7, 8-4) with 15 points. Muhammad had 13 points and 11 rebounds, but shot 4 for 13 as the Bruins converted just 37.7 percent. 

4:52 2nd H: UCLA within 70-56 after 3-pointer by Adams, who has 15 points. Brandon Smith hit his left knee on the basket standard moments earlier and was helped from the floor. Crabbe has not scored in the second half.

7:35 2nd H: Bruins doing just enough to keep the Haas crowd a bit nervous. Cal lead now 67-50. Thurman has three PFs. Solomon, who already has three, just limped to the bench for the timeout.

11:01 2nd H: UCLA got within 51-36 before the Bears ran off nine straight points for a 60-36 lead after a putback and free throw by Kravish. UCLA came back again, riding a pair of 3-pointers by freshman Jordan Adams, but a jumper by Cobbs made it 64-45.

16:22 2nd H: You didn’t really think it was over, did you? UCLA has opened the second half with a 12-4 run and has pulled within 51-34. Monty calls a timeout. Cal has turnovers on its past two possessions.

HALFTIME SCORE (Honest): Cal 47, UCLA 22. The margin was 28 a moment ago before David Wear hit a 3-pointer. Bill Walton, that famous UCLA alum and outspoken Howland critic, must be exploding about now. Crabbe with 15 points and Cobbs, Solomon and Kravish with 10 apiece. Wallace is shooting 1 for 5 — the rest of the Bears are 19 for 29! Cal outrebounding the Bruins 24-14. Cal shooting 58.8 percent, UCLA 30.3 percent. Cal informs us this is its biggest halftime lead of the season — no kidding. (The football team probably figures every game is like this — they’ll probably be back). Cal honoring Andy Wolfe (Class of ’48) as winner of Pete Newell Career Achievement Award winner.

Read the rest of this entry »

 

Allen Crabbe #23 and David Kravish #45 of the California Golden Bears celebrate after defeating the Arizona Wildcats 77-69 in the college basketball game at McKale Center on February 10, 2013 in Tucson, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

 

* * * * *

ABOUT THE BRUINS: UCLA features one of the nation’s most productive freshmen classes, led by wing player Shabazz Muhammad, who ranks second in the Pac-12 in scoring at 18.5 ppg. Along with Kyle Anderson and Jordan Adams, the three UCLA rookies have combined to average 42.6 points, 17.7 rebounds and 6.3 assists. … This is just the fifth true road game for the Bruins, who did not play a nonconference game on an opponent’s floor. … Senior Larry Drew II ranks fourth nationally in assists per game at 7.9. … The Bruins lead the Pac-12 in scoring (76.0 ppg) and turnover margin (plus-3.3), but rank 11th in scoring defense (68.4) and last in rebound margin (minus-0.2) .

THE SERIES: UCLA leads 133-100. The Bruins won 79-65 in Los Angeles on Jan. 3, led by 19 points and 12 rebounds from freshman Kyle Anderson and 16 points from freshman Shabazz Muhammad. Allen Crabbe scored 21 for Cal. The Bears have won three of the pasts four meetings and five of the past seven.

Read the rest of this entry »

Allen Crabbe was honored Monday as Pac-12 Player of the Week after scoring 31 points to spark Cal’s win over then-No. 7 Arizona on Sunday at McKale Center.

Crabbe shot 12 for 15 from the field, had seven rebounds and five assists as the Bears beat the Wildcats in Tucson for just the second time since the 1994-95 season.

Crabbe continues to lead the Pac-12 in scoring at 19.8 ppg.

Other notes related to the Bears and their big win:

– Cal vaulted 16 spots from No. 75 to No. 59 in the latest RPI computer rankings. That still leaves them very much on the outside of the NCAA tournament bubble, but it’s a nice bump with the opportunity for another jump on Thursday againsst UCLA.

– With wins over then-No. 10 Oregon and the Wildcats, the Bears have beaten two top-10 opponents in the same season for the first time since the 1998-99 season, when they did it three times. That season, an unranked Cal team d. No. 9 North Carolina 78-71 at the Pete Newell Challenge in Oakland, and No. 9 UCLA 85-69 and No. 7 Arizona 89-76, both in conference home games.

– Cal had not beaten an Arizona team ranked as high as No. 7 since the aforementioned win in 1998-99. The Bears hadn’t scored a road win over a Wildcats squad ranked as high as No. 7 since a 98-93 overtime win over the No. 6 Cats on Jan. 13, 1994 in which Lamond Murray scored 33 points and Jason Kidd had a triple-double with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.

– The victory was coach Mike Montgomery’s 266th in a conference game, tying him for No. 4 all-time with Washington’s Hec Edmundson (1921-47). Next up: Oregon State’s Slats Gill (1929-64) with 276 conference victories.

– Crabbe passed Roy Fisher and Ansley Truitt on Cal’s career scoring list and now ranks No. 13 with 1,385 points.

– The Bears played about as well as possible in the second half at Arizona, missing just eight shots and committing five turnovers while limiting the Wildcats to 36.7 percent.