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		Morris Phillips on Cal basketball By Morris Phillips March 7, 2010

	Sportstalk: Cal 21-9 (13-5) did something historic wrapping up the Pac-10 title for the first time in 50 years. It was a long time coming, but as you have talked about in previous shows and articles, was this was Cal's best team in all of that time? Not even close, but that's the beautiful thing about this club, they took advantage of their opportunity to win big in a down year for the conference. And if it took 50 years to win this one, how long will it take to win it again? All things considered, quite an accomplishment. Still, this is only the third time a Pac-10 champion has won as few as 13 conference games. And when was the last time a Pac-10 champ wasn't nationally-ranked? The 2003 Bears, featuring Brian Wethers and Joe Shipp, finished 13-5 and only got third place. Jason Kidd's second and final Cal team finished 13-5 and finished in a tie for second place. And two other teams, Kidd's first year team, which also featured Lamond Murray, and the '97 Bears with Ed Gray and Alfred Grigsby made NCAA Sweet 16 appearances. With Jason Kidd at the controls at the Rosemont Horizon Arena, Cal's upset of two-time defending NCAA champion Duke in the second round of the '93 tournament would have to be Cal's biggest basketball moment since 1960, even surpassing this year's conference championship. Because as we all know, it's all about March Madness in college basketball these days. In terms of individual players, Kevin Johnson, Kidd, Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Phil Chenier were bigger standouts than any of the players on this year's team. But Murray, Leon Powe, Ed Gray, Mark McNamara and Ryan Anderson would have to rate above any of this year's players also. But that's no slight, all nine of those players were NBA draft choices, and all but Gray have enjoyed successful pro careers. Remember, Anderson would have been a senior on this team, had Mike Montgomery convinced him to return for his junior and senior year. Anderson averaged 21 points a game as a sophomore before leaving as a first-round pick in the 2008 NBA draft. One the other hand, Jerome Randle, despite his struggles in the last two games, should surpass Sean Lampley as the school's all-time leading scorer in the next two weeks. Randle was a non-starter in 36 games as a freshman and sophomore, and many felt that Coach Ben Braun gave him too much responsibility, allowing him to start 15 of 18 conference games as a sophomore, when he shot just 39 percent from the field in those games. But from then until now, Randle has grown by leaps and bounds, leading the team with his scoring and decision-making, ascending to the point that he is likely to be named Pac-10 Player of the Year. But after playing of the bench in so many games, to climb the scoring list at a school with a rich basketball history is quite unusual. But because so few Cal standouts had four successful seasons in Berkeley, the school record for scoring is set at a relatively low number. In fact, if Randle does surpass Lampley's 1,776 career points, he might not even crack the top 35 of all-time leading scorers in the Pac-10. Coming into this year, Lampley's total ranked only 37th with UCLA's Don McLean on top with 2,608 points in his career. Sportstalk: Talk about the year that Patrick Christopher and Jamal Boykin had and they're value to this team going into post season? Both players have been consistent and productive, exactly what you need to have on a championship-winning club. Boykin has grown tremendously from last year, when he often started, but didn't finish, when Montgomery often favored Harper Kamp. Boykin gives Cal its only regular interior presence, and his defense and scoring have been so good lately, he was named Pac-10 player of the week for his play against Washington and WSU two weeks ago. On top of that, he's the team's emotional leader and a real teammate, in every sense. Christopher, among all the other things he done this year, was amazing on Saturday at Stanford. He played with sore knees, so sore that you could see him moving gingerly throughout the game. But with the game in doubt, he came up with a key steal and a huge 3-pointer to seal it. In addition, to the scoring, Montgomery often asks Christopher to guard the opposition's best perimeter threat, and more often than not, he's stopped them cold, most recently stopping Arizona State's Ty Abbott. Sportstalk: Was there a point in the season that Cal was going to win this thing by seizing momentum and keeping it all the way to the conference title? Conference champions have to avoid bad losses, which lead to losing streaks, lingering doubt and diminished confidence. The Bears avoided that bad loss on February 13 when they came from behind to beat Washington State at home. Trailing by 11 points at the half, the Bears broke open a close game by scoring the game's final 15 points win 86-70. Christopher shut down the conference's leading scorer, Klay Thompson, in the second half, and Boykin had a double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Remember, Washington State handed Jason Kidd's Bears a critical late season loss as well as Ed Gray's '97 team. This year, that didn't happen.