By Morris Phillips

This time Cal’s sluggish start didn’t result in an undesirable outcome.

The Bears stormed back from a 13-point, first half deficit and shocked Washington, winning 72-59 in Seattle behind Tyrone Wallace’s 20 points.

Cal rebounded from a poor stretch of four losses in five games by sweeping the Washington schools on the road despite the challenging weather and travel issues transpiring in the Northwest.   Had the Bears lost either contest to teams in the bottom half the standings, their NCAA aspirations would have taken a severe hit. Now with four of their final six games in Haas Pavilion, the Bears could follow a reasonable and logical path to a berth in the field of 68.

The critical minutes before halftime were the pathway to an eighth conference win for Cal just as they were on Wednesday at Washington St.  The Bears closed on a 14-2 run Wednesday and followed that up Saturday with a 19-2 burst before halftime that allowed them to catch and past the Huskies.

“Any road game is big–we need wins—and they jumped on us like you said,” Wallace said.  “They were rebounding the ball, pushing us around but we got back aggressive and made it happen at the defensive end.”

“We got some loose balls, we created some turnovers and got out on some breaks and that made a huge difference for us,” Coach Mike Montgomery said.

Washington did their part to fuel the closing run by coughing up 10 turnovers in the first half.  The Bears converted those into 14 points and didn’t look back.  In the second half, the Huskies did a better job holding onto the ball, but missed all 10 of their 3-point attempts.  For the game, UW missed 17 of 21 from distance blunting any chance for a comeback or a spark to ignite their home crowd.

Once Cal got going, Justin Cobbs began to stuff his stat sheet as the team’s reliable ringleader.  Cobbs finished with 10 points, seven assists and six rebounds.  Post threats Richard Solomon and David Kravish were often the recipients of Cobbs’ passes as the pair combined for 26 points on 12 of 20 shooting.

Sophomore guard Andrew Andrews led UW with 21 points.  But according to Montgomery, C.J. Wilcox was the guy to stop, and the Bears did, holding the senior to 8 points and 0-6 shooting from distance.

The Bears improved to 4-0 when starting their “veteran” lineup of Cobbs, Kravish, Solomon, Wallace and Ricky Kreklow.  The Missouri transfer looked healthy after missing more than a month and returning for the last three games.  Kreklow played 32 minutes but missed six of his seven shot attempts.

Cal hosts UCLA and USC next week and probably needs to win four of their final six to grab an NCAA spot.  But it’s just as important to avoid bad losses as it is to win so Cal’s meeting with the last-place Trojans will be just as important as their March 1 tangle with Arizona State.

The Sun Devils are currently tied with Cal for third place, and like the Bears, they own an eye-catching victory over No. 2 Arizona.