By Morris Phillips

Knowing it could happen didn’t make it any easier to watch happen over almost all 40 minutes of basketball Wednesday night at Haas Pavilion.

Mike Montgomery warned his Bears that momentum could swing dramatically if they weren’t the most engaged team for the opening tip in their next assignment against Stanford.  But Cal played lethargically early as the national-story Bears from Saturday night morphed into lesser lights around campus in a 80-69 loss to Stanford.

Montgomery’s expressive face filled with hurt laced with befuddlement during the post-game rounds told the whole story:  his guys weren’t jacked from the start for the fourth time in the last five games just days removed from pulling the biggest upset of the season in beating Arizona.

“If you play well, if you play hard you can beat anybody,” Montgomery said.  “If you don’t, you can get beat by anybody.  It’s no more complex than that.  We have breakdowns and those hurt us.”

In fact, the difference between Wednesday’s game and those at UCLA and USC previously was probably no bigger than a matter of minutes.  Cal (15-8, 6-4) played eight quality minutes against the Bruins, maybe 10 or 12 against the Trojans, and only six plus against Stanford—right before halftime, and after they fell behind 38-20 to the Cardinal.

The Bears traded buckets early in the second half but faded late, failing to cut Stanford’s lead to single digits in the final ten minutes.  To be fair, Cal got the absolute most out of what little good basketball they’ve played lately by beating Arizona.  But in a balanced, deep Pac-12 race that won’t cut it, especially when Cal’s problems, according to starting forward Tyrone Wallace, are numerous.

“When we miss layups and they come back down and score, then obviously we’re going to be at a disadvantage,” Wallace said.  “They isolated a lot and we couldn’t really help off the shooters; so it hurts us there.  We just have to play better and people who are capable of making plays have to make plays.”

Against Stanford, what began as uninspired play and an 18-point deficit, then turned into Cal players pressing, probably leading to the missed shots.  The Bears shot 40 percent after halftime, and most of those were from outside the paint.  Once again, the freshman—basically half the rotation—were non-contributors.  Jabari Bird and Jordan Mathews fared worst, combining to shoot 1 for 11.

Meanwhile, Stanford continued their improvement over the last three weeks by challenging Cal in the paint just like they did at Maples, but much more effectively.  The disparity in free throws shot and made bore that out as did the overall shooting percentage, but the physicality of the visitors really hit home with Montgomery.

“We didn’t handle that very well.  As a result we got ourselves in a huge hole,” he said.

Dwight Powell paced Stanford (15-7, 6-4) with 22 points, six assists giving the Cardinal a little bit more half court creativity than in the first meeting.  Chasson Randle added 19, and Anthony Brown had 16.  Randle skillfully announced the night as Stanford’s with a pretty lay-in around Richard Solomon that put Stanford up 56-47 with 11:20 remaining.

Justin Cobbs had 24 for Cal and Wallace added 21.  Solomon missed his first six shots after making his first six against Arizona.  The Bears also missed nine of their 21 free throw attempts.

Ricky Kreklow returned after an 11-game absence to heal his broken hand and played nine minutes without scoring.

Cal fell to 11-2 at Haas Pavilion with both losses coming on this completed 3-game home stand.

Cal has a week off before traveling to Pullman to meet Washington State, then on to Washington on that Saturday.