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		Bears pushed around in another narrow loss By Morris Phillips February 4, 2010

	The frustration in Mike Montgomery’s voice was multi-layered and obvious. The coach, who built his extraordinary reputation fielding physical, tough-minded teams at Stanford, had just endured watching his Bears back down, then falter in the stretch of a 66-63 loss to USC. The emotion with which he spoke revealed how difficult the ordeal was to watch. In the aftermath, talking to broadcasters Todd McKim and Roxy Bernstein, Montgomery bemoaned the similarities to the loss at Arizona last week and the home loss to UCLA, where the Bears also folded late. But surrendering 25 consecutive points to an opponent? Montgomery couldn’t recall ever having that happen to one of his teams. “It’s like a broken record. It’s like the same old thing, although I can’t remember the last time we allowed a team to go on a 25 zip run,” Montgomery said. “We just lost our poise. SC is physical, SC gets after you, SC defends and we fell apart. Jerome had his way early, he was doing a great job, and they made a switch and brought Simmons in.” Randle spearheaded Cal’s quick start with 12 points and a pair of assists as the Bears jumped to a 30-17 lead with 6:48 remaining before halftime. Early on, the Bears were putting pressure on the Trojans in transition as they capitalized on USC’s ball handling mistakes. But as soon as the Bears started to surge—and soon after USC defensive stopper Marcus Simmons entered the game—the whole thing came to a crashing halt. Over the final minutes before the half, and then in a more concentrated burst after halftime, the Trojans used their physicality to change the game. With Randle contained by Simmons, and the Bears being torched on the backboards the game turned completely. During the Trojans’ surge, the Bears went scoreless for almost 11 minutes. “Well, maybe we should send a memo to our opponents (telling them) not to compete. That’s the reality of the thing. People aren’t just going to sit there and let us do what we want to do. You’re going to make adjustments; you’re going to get physical. The only thing SC can do is get physical and play harder. That’s what they do with the team that they have. They don’t score easily, but they can defend you, they can get physical, they’re good at point of attack. And we just fell prey.” Right before halftime, Patrick Christopher stormed toward the hoop only to have his layup attempt sent flying by USC’s Dwight Lewis. The block started a fastbreak that ended with Lewis converting a layup with just six seconds remaining. Consequently, USC went into the locker room feeling good about themselves, down just three points. It was feeling that really caught hold in the opening minutes of the second half as it took just three-and-a-half minutes for the Trojans to take and build a 12-point lead. From that point the Bears stabilized, beginning with back-to-back threes from Randle. At the five minute mark, the Bears drew even at 50, and then took two one-point leads, the last at 57-56 with 2:23 remaining. But then Mike Gerrity, USC’s slumping point guard who had made just 11 threes on the season, hit a pair of bombs to put the Trojans up five. And while the Bears responded, with a chance to tie with 10 seconds remaining, Theo Robertson, an 80 percent free thrower, missed the first of two freebees. The Bears were forced to foul and the Nikola Vucevic hit a pair of free throws to close the door. Randle’s heave at the buzzer, which would have gotten the Bears to overtime, fell harmlessly short.