By Morris Phillips

Last place USC without their leading scorer versus NCAA tournament hopeful California sounds like a 40-point win for the host Bears. Right, Mike Montgomery?

“That’s a natural expectation,” Montgomery sarcastically opined.

The iconic coach was dropping his one-liners upon entry to the post-game press room as usual. But his game plan for the Trojans was dead serious. Montgomery’s Bears need all the wins they can get, having lost five of their last eight, including an embarrassing 20-point loss to UCLA on Wednesday. On top of that, USC, a big, physical opponent sensed an opportunity against the Bears, the last team USC beat over a month ago.

So throw out the records. In this one Cal (18-9, 9-5) had to make the adjustments to pull out a 77-64 win that keeps them in a third-place tie with Stanford in the Pac-12 race.

The Bears trailed at the half, 30-27, and things were still tight with 10 minutes remaining, when Cal took off behind Justin Cobbs and Jabari Bird, who contributed eight, quick points to create some separation late. A subtle adjustment by Montgomery was the answer to USC’s not too subtle size and strength.

“We spread the court,” Montgomery said. “We changed what we were doing. We opened up the court a little bit and it made it easier for (Cobbs) to go. In the stuff we were trying to do earlier, they were really jamming the paint. We got the post up away from the basket and it opened up some driving lanes.”

On the defensive end, the Bears needed to find away to keep USC from running their offense through 7’2″ Omar Oraby, a Ben Braun recruit at Rice, who left after two seasons to come to Los Angeles. With David Kravish fronting, and a quick double team when Oraby touched the ball, the Bears limited the Trojans’ big man to one basket and two assists.

Cal’s 60 percent shooting in the second half produced 50 points and the Bears ran away late. The majority of the Bears’ nine blocked shots and 10 steals came after halftime as well as Montgomery got the jump on Andy Enfield, the breakout coach of the 2013 NCAA tournament who got his Florida Gulf Coast squad to the Sweet 16. While the Trojans were engaged and capable, ultimately their lack of offense in the absence of leading scorer Byron Wesley who served the second game of a team-imposed suspension led to their demise on Sunday.

The Bears were led by Justin Cobbs with 22 points on 8 of 10 shooting. Ricky Kreklow added 12 and Tyrone Wallace and Jabari Bird chipped in 10 each.

Point guard Pe’Shon Howard led USC (10-17, 1-13) with 17 points. The Trojans fell for the eighth straight game since beating Cal 77-69 on January 22.

The Bears travel to Arizona this week where they will face potential No. 1 seed Arizona and NCAA-bubble team Arizona State.