Cal demolishes rival Cardinal, take Bay Area supremacy

Sometimes, there are guys that are mismatches from the start. This was one of them. From the start, the Bears were the better team offensively, defensively, rebounding, and with effort. Stanford had no chance. All in all, it adds up to the beautiful 74-55 final score.

Cal jumped on Stanford from the start. A 19-4 run to start the game set the tone nicely, and it continued for most of the afternoon. Stanford did close to 9 at one point in the second half, but a 14-2 run by Cal put the nail in the coffin.

The Cal defense was terrific. With a full week of rest, Mike Montgomery opted to go with a man to man defense. It paid off. The Cardinal shot 38.2% from the field and 19% from beyond the arc. They turned the ball over 14 times, including on Jorge steals. It’s clear to me that this team’s best defense is the man, even if they can’t run it very often. Hopefully the team can have fresh enough legs to run it next week, because the Bears will need their best showing to win the Pac-10 Tournament.

Markhuri Sanders-Frison was a little too amped up for his final home game at Haas Pavilion, but he still turned in a fine performance. The lone senior scored 13 points and nabbed 13 rebounds, although he did shoot just 4 of 12 from the field. While we’d love for him to come back to Haas for an NIT game, we can still harbor hopes that he will never play another game at home and instead get to take his skills to the NCAA Tournament.

The other Bears also turned in great performances. Harper Kamp played another great game, as his sweet lefty hook netted him another 20 point game. Allen Crabbe was quiet in the first half but was essential in the second, putting the Cardinal away with 24 point game where he shot 10 of 13. Richard Solomon jammed twice and scored 6 points while providing quality minutes off the bench. Jorge Gutierrez was great on defense. It was a team effort.

I can’t say enough about this performance. Cal dominated Stanford. Other than Jeremy Green, no Cardinal Player reached double figures. Cal was able to shoot 56% against in the game. This will definitely go down as one of the best performances of the season. One can only hope the momentum is carried into the Pac-10 tournament and a potential postseason run. Go Bears!