by Michael Duca

BERKELEY–The UCLA Bruins (10-7) made a pretty strong come back in the second half of Sunday’s game to hand the Cal Bears (11-6) a 73-54 loss. It was discussed in the locker room after the first half that Cal had to have more than just one person scoring and they had one person scoring and that was Jordan Matthews who finished up with 23 points.

UCLA’s Kevon Looney finished up with 15 leading the Bruins in offense and it was frustrating for the Cal defense and the starting five for UCLA finished in double figures. In the first half and the Cal offense was meniscal with Cal scoring two points and UCLA opening up a 10-2 run midway in the first half. Matthews in the second half had 12 points and the rest of the team had no more than two.

It meant that no one was going to the basket and trying to draw a foul and there was a book that was written called “the Gang that couldn’t shoot straight” it was a humorous book that was written about the mafia about a guy who was so inept that he couldn’t make a profit at a gas station if he stole a lot full of cars. Well I’m not sure if the Bears could score 60 points now and if they stole the basketball everytime down against the other team.

Conference play is a whole different animal for the Bears after having a 10-1 success look at the other NCAA teams that found that out this past week once conference play started up. Wisconsin shocked the nation Wednesday with a big win over Purdue 62-55 and a close game losing 67-62 to Rutgers when Frank Kaminsky was out of the line up for Wisconsin.

Duke also lost this weekend to North Carolina State 87-75 and there were four top ten teams that went down over the weekend. It’s a competitive scene in college basketball you get into conference play all bets are off. Pretty much any team can rise up and smack you as evidence by Cal’s terrible loss to Washington State 69-66 on Sun Jan 4th and nobody expected the Cougars to win except maybe the Cougars.

The Bears have done something amazing when you think about it how often can you imagine a 10-1 team two weeks into the conference schedule have put themselves into the position that they have to win their conference to win the NCAA Tournament. That’s a pretty astonishing negative accomplishment. If this tells you something about head coach Cunozo Martin and coaches, it tells you that former head coach Mike Montgomery saw this coming and decided to retire and let someone else preside over it.

Michael Duca does Cal Golden Bears commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com