BearTalk

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FINAL SCORE: Cal 77, Arizona 69. Crabbe finished with 31 points, seven rebounds and five assists and the Bears (14-9, 6-5) beat the No. 7 Wildcats (20-3, 8-3) in Tucson for just the second time since 1994-95. Justin Cobbs added 21 points, and the two combined for 36 second-half points. Cal defeated a top-10 opponent on the road for the first time since beating No. 9 Washington State 69-64 on Jan. 31, 2008. The Bears hadn’t beaten a team ranked so high since a 76-69 overtime win vs. No. 3 UCLA in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 tournament on March 18, 2007.  And yet, it was the Bears’ second win in eight days over a top-10 foe, on the heels of knocking off then-No. 10 Oregon 58-54 at home.  

2:00 2nd H: Cobbs and Lyons exchange 3-pointers and Cal’s lead is 71-69. Great game. Cobbs has 17. Bak Bak has six points. Honest.

4:51 2nd H: Crabbe hit a step-back 3-pointer for a 64-57 lead, but Arizona has scored back-to-back baskets and trails just 64-61. Crabbe has 29. His career high is 33.

7:46 2nd H: Cal lead is 61-55. Crabbe has 26 points, six rebounds, five assists. One of the best games of his career. Is shooting 1o for 13 from the field. And playing aggressively.

12:00 2nd H: Ain’t over yet. Crabbe made his FT and it was 50-40, but Arizona has outscored the Bears 9-2 since and Cal’s lead is down to 52-49. Place is VERY loud.

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TIPOFF: 4 p.m. PT Sunday at McKale Center, Tucson, Ariz. TV/Radio: Pac-12 Networks/910-AM.

What do Arizona point guard Mark Lyons and former Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson have in common?

Both utilized NCAA bylaw 14.1.9.1 to transfer to a new school and play one final season without delay as post-graduate student-athletes.

Wilson left North Carolina State before the 2011 football season and threw 33 touchdown passes for the Badgers, leading them to the Big Ten title and a spot in the Rose Bowl. He now is a bright young star for the Seattle Seahawks.

Lyons graduated last spring from Xavier and took advantage of the rule to transfer to Arizona. He also was immediately eligible and has been a key to the No. 7 Wildcats’ rise to the top of the Pac-12 Conference.

On Sunday, he is Cal’s problem, and Bears coach Mike Montgomery doesn’t like the rule that allowed the Cats to instantly plug in a floor leader who had played in three NCAA Sweet 16s and scored more than 1,000 points his first three seasons.

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FINAL SCORE: Arizona State 66, Cal 62. The Bears, down 15 points with 8 minutes left, battled back to within 2 points but couldn’t get it done in Tempe. Freshman Tyrone Wallace scored nine of his career-high-equaling 16 points in the final 7:06 to spark the rally and Justin Cobbs hit a 3-pointer with 1:13 left, then another with 22.9 remaining as Cal cut it to 64-62. Evan Gordon, who scored 23 points for ASU, made one of two FTs. But Allen Crabbe lost the ball out of bounds with 10.9 seconds left — his second turnover in the final 40 seconds — and ASU held on.

Crabbe scored 16 points, 12 in the first half, along with seven rebounds, six assists and five turnovers. Cobbs had 13 points. Wallace had eight rebounds and three steals before fouling out in the final minute. Cal had 18 TOs and dug itself too big a hole in each half.  

From Robert Thurman’s Twitter account: “If we didn’t dig ourselves into a hole we would be such a hard team to play. Gotta get better and get that split.”

Cal dropped to 13-9, 5-5 in the Pac-12 and missed a chance to move into a tie for fourth place. It only gets tougher, as the Bears visit No. 7 Arizona on Sunday, then return home to face UCLA on Valentine’s Day. ASU improved to 18-5, 7-3 in the conference. 

HALFTIME: ASU 37, Cal 27.  The Sun Devils used a 15-1 surge over 8 minutes to build a 25-9 lead, fueled by seven Cal turnovers. The Bears answered with their own 10-0 burst, sparked by nine points from Allen Crabbe. That got Cal within 25-19, but the Sun Devils got 3-pointers from Evan Gordon and Jonathan Gilling to rebuild their lead before halftime. Cal shot 50 percent in the half, but turned the ball over 10 times. Crabbe, who attempted only one shot in the first 12 minutes of the game, would up with 12 points at the break. Gordon led the Sun Devils with 13 and center Ruslan Pateev scored eight off the bench.

NOTE: I am not in Tempe with the Bears for tonight’s game vs. Arizona State. But I will provide halftime and postgame wrapups.

TIPOFF: 6:30 p.m. PT Thursday at Wells Fargo Arena, Tempe, Ariz. TV/Radio: Pac-12 Networks/910-AM.

Having won two games in a row for the first time since December, the Bears try to add to their momentum Thursday night against the most surprising team in the Pac-12 Conference.

Cal has beaten Arizona State five straight times, but these Sun Devils are much more formidable. They have six wins at the halfway point of the Pac-12 schedule for just the sixth time since joining the conference in 1978-79, and they are 13-2 at home.

The key, Cal coach Mike Montgomery said, is freshman Jahii Carson.

“They haven’t really had a point guard. They’ve had some talent, but really havent had a guy who can run it,” Montgomery said. “They say he can get in the paint when he wants to. He’s small and he’s quick with the ball. He’s got a nice game around the basket.”

So does 7-foot-1 junior center Jordan Bachynski, who has become a defensive force in the middle. He leads the Pac-12 in blocked shots with 91 — more than seven conference teams have totaled and just one fewer than Cal has as a squad.

But this is an opportunity for the Bears to build on their home wins last week over Oregon State and Oregon. A win over ASU could vault the Bears as high as a tie for third place in the Pac-12, depending on the outcome of the Washington-UCLA game.

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FINAL SCORE: Cal 58, Oregon 54. The Bears enter the second half of the Pac-12 schedule still in the mix after handing the No. 10 Ducks their second defeat on the Bay Area trip. Cal (13-8, 5-4) will be no worse than tied for fifth place entering the second half of the conference calendar. Cal hadn’t beaten a team in the top 10 of the Associated Press poll since a 69-64 win over No. 9 Washington State on Jan. 31, 2008. Montgomery is now 10-0 vs. Oregon as coach at Cal, 23-0 against Ducks in game played in the Bay Area: 18-0 while at Stanford, now 5-0 with the Bears. Richard Solomon completed best weekend of his career with 13 points and 12 rebounds — giving him 25 and 19 for two games. Freshman Tyrone Wallace had 12 points, Allen Crabbe scored 13 — but 10 on transition layups and dunks — and David Kravish had eight points and eight rebounds. Monty thrilled with team’s defense. Bears helped force Oregon into 22 turnovers and held Ducks scoreless over the final 3:58.

4:25 2nd H: Cal answered with a 6-0 run, including a breakaway layup by Crabbe to make it 50-48 with 5:25 left. A dunk by Kazemi pushed Oregon’s lead back to 52-48.

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TIPOFF: 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Haas Pavilion, Berkeley. TV/Radio: FSN/910-AM.

Biggest game of the season for Cal so far.

That’s right: This is a moment the Golden Bears must seize if they expect to create any real momentum toward making something out of their season.

So far, the year has been a disappointment. Picked to finish third in the Pac-12, the Bears climbed into a four-way tie for fifth (and sixth and seventh and eighth) place only after escaping with a three-point win over an Oregon State team that now is tied for last.

It was a great comeback win for the Bears, an emotional victory.

But it won’t mean a thing unless Cal can assemble back-to-back wins for the first time since before Christmas.

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FINAL SCORE: Cal 71, Oregon State 68. A critical win for the Bears, who trailed by as many as 12 points in the second half. Coach Mike Montgomery won his 100th game at Cal, which improved tp 12-8, 4-4 in the Pac-12. OSU fell to 11-10, 1-7. Cobbs nailed the go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:48 left, then wrapped a pass around a defender to Richard Solomon for a dunk with 17.6 seconds left that iced it. Robert Thurman blocked a shot by Eric Moreland with 7.3 seconds left and the Beavers never could get off another shot. Crabbe shot just 5 for 16 but led the Bears with 15 points. Cobbs had 14 points and seven assists. The big men played well — Solomon with 12 points and seven rebounds, Kravish with 12 points and Thurman with eight points and six rebounds. The Bears had 25 assists on 30 baskets.

Thurman said the Bears are excited about Saturday afternoon’s game against first place Oregon. The 10th-ranked Ducks are coming off a 76-52 loss at Stanford. “The way wins are coming around, any win at this point is just great momentum,” Thurman said. “Stanford obviously showed Oregon is not invincible. We’re going to have a great crowd, I’m guessing. That game is going to be huge.”

– Montgomery said he had no news on the status of Jeff Powers, who injured his left knee in first-half collision with OSU’s Jarmal Reid.

3:35 2nd H: Thurman spike-tips miss by Crabbe and it’s 64-all. Thurman has eight points. Crabbe 13, Cobbs 11, Solomon 10. Nelson has 25 for OSU.

6:29 2nd H: A pullup jumper by Cobbs and Cal leads 60-59.

7:32 2nd H: A 3-pointer by Cobbs and Cal trails just 59-56.

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

Mike Montgomery didn’t exactly say this week that his team — tied for seventh place and four games out of first place — no longer is playing for the Pac-12 regular-season championship. But he sort of accepted that likely reality.

Asked about a remark by senior Brandon Smith that the Bears need to approach each game with a sense of desperation, Montgomery declined to go with the flow.

“I don’t know why there’s a sense of desperation. We are who we are,” he said at his Tuesday press conference. “We’ve got to finish in the top four. I guess if you’re thinking we’re going to win (the title), maybe there’s desperation.”

Finishing in the top four, of course, lands a team a bye into the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas. Teams that finish fifth or below must play a first-round game, meaning they would need to win four straight to capture the event and the league’s automatic NCAA tournament bid.

“We’ve got to get better,” Montgomery said. “Hopefully that sense of urgency’s there. When you’ve got a chance to win a game, you’ve got to win it.”

Thursday night provides the Bears one of those chances.

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FINAL SCORE: Colorado 81, Cal 71. The Bears never overcame their early hole. They got within eight points in the final minute, but CU made eight straight free throws to ice the win. Cal drops to 11-8, 3-4 in the Pac-12 and has beaten Colorado in Boulder just once in nine tries — way back in 1974-75. CU improved to 14-6, 4-4 in the Pac-12, after starting 1-4 in the league. CU is 41-5 at home in 2 1/2 seasons under Tad Boyle. Cobbs and Crabbe had 22 and 21 points, respectively, but had just 10 points at halftime. Cal shot 20.6 percent in the first half, 60.5 percent in the second half. But CU converted 59.6 percent for the game, including 71.4 percent in the second half. Askia Booker had 20 points for CU, freshman Xavier Johnson a career-high 18 to go with 12 rebounds, Spencer Dinwiddie 16 and Andre Roberson 15, 12 of them in the second half.

2:04 2nd H: Cobbs and Crabbe have Cal’s last 15 points, but CU still leads 71-61. Crabbe 21, Cobbs 17. Booker 18 for CU.

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TIPOFF: 12:36 p.m. Sunday at the Coors Event Center, Boulder, Colo. TV/Radio: KICU-36/910-AM.

There are several things standing in Cal’s way of a victory Sunday at Colorado. Foremost among them is 6-7 junior forward Andre Roberson, who had 20 rebounds Thursday in a win over Stanford and leads the nation at 11.9 per game.

Roberson’s ability to control the defensive boards allows the Buffaloes to run, which gives them an advantage over visitors gasping for air at 5,345 feet above sea level.

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