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		Cal atop the Pac-10 after nail biter with OSU By Morris Phillips January 23, 2010

	Twelve guys in orange uniforms—a group that normally constitutes a team had they remembered to pack jump shots in their traveling knapsacks—snuck into Haas Pavilion on Saturday and almost pilfered lunch from twelve Bears, presumed to be the most adept climbers in the territory. The Bears, normally prone to triumphant roaring, instead settled for a few mild groans, in celebration of fending off the threat against their food supply. And so goes the story of the watered down Pac-10 conference in the wake of the great NBA exodus of 2008-2009. Cal, the leader of the pack at 5-2, is having trouble feeling good about themselves, when they, like everyone else in the conference, is having trouble putting together two representative halves of basketball. “We just can’t stand prosperity,” said a frustrated Coach Mike Montgomery, who then whittled off a list of problems his Bears encountered down the stretch of a narrow 65-61 win over Oregon State, in which a 15-point lead was sliced to just two points in the final seven minutes. “That 1-3-1 really gives us problems, there’s no question about that. We just lose our aggressiveness.” “This league is wide open for people to take their shot, so I have to examine what I’m doing at practice to get these guys ready for an effort like this all of the time,” Coach Craig Robinson said, lamenting the fact that his Beavers big finish didn’t result in a big win. Cal and OSU were tied at halftime, after which the Bears opened the second half on an 11-4 run that turned out to be the difference. Theo Robertson contributed five consecutive points in the run, and led the Bears with 14 points. Jerome Randle finished with 14, and Jamal Boykin, who contributed a pair of jumpers in the decisive stretch, finished with 12 points and nine rebounds. With the Beavers committing four turnovers and shooting 0 for 3 during a five minute stretch without a field goal, Cal increased their lead to 55-40 with 7:47 remaining. At that point, OSU looked slightly more capable than they did in their 35-point performance at Stanford on Thursday, in which they shot 36 percent and committed 19 turnovers. Although their overall shooting was better Saturday, the Beavers faltered from long range, needing 31 minutes to hit their first three, after missing their first eight attempts. Still the Beavers managed to make a game of it, reminiscent of their visit to Berkeley last year in which they held the Bears to just three points in the last nine minutes to win 69-65. That win led to a sweep of the Bears, the difference in Cal finishing third in the Pac-10 regular season, instead of first. This time the Beavers unleashed their jumping, trapping zone that forced the Bears into a bushel of poor shot attempts and allowed OSU to climb within 63-61 with 15 seconds remaining. Calvin Haynes, as he did in last year’s upset, led the charge, scoring 13 of his game-high 25 points in the run. But this time, the Bears held on with Robertson making a pair of free throws and Haynes missing a three attempt with six seconds remaining. “It was nice to see that we could come back after a flat Thursday and play really well early on Saturday. We felt that if we kept them on their heels, we could keep the pressure on them. We had a little bit of a lull right after halftime where they came out and hit some big shots. That was the difference in the game,” Robinson said. While the Bears averted disaster in an 11am start to accommodate CBS, the other Pac-10 contenders did not in the games that followed Saturday. Arizona State, riding a four-game win streak, opened a critical three-game stretch at home with a loss to Arizona, by a whopping 19 points, 77-58. Washington, followed up its impressive win over Cal with a one-point loss at UCLA and 26-point defeat at USC on Saturday night. As a result, half the league sits a game back of the Bears at 4-3, with the Washington and Oregon schools bringing up the rear. And with every Pac-10 team currently saddled with at least six losses, the predictions of a one-bid conference are starting to have merit. The Bears have to hope that they’re that one—although it would mean they would like to top a first-ever regular season championship with a 3-0 mark in the conference tourney, goals that require they play at a level far above the one they’re operating at now.