by Michael Duca

BERKELEY–My guess the folks who are coming home from that Cal Bears(13-9)-Washington Huskies(14-7) game on Sunday were probably the only people on the streets in Seattle at the time of the game during Super Bowl Sunday. There were only 6,300 in attendance at Alaskan Airlines Arena which is half the capacity but a decent crowd all things being considered.

Cal’s Tyrone Wallace who finished with 21 points hits some important baskets he had seven rebounds in the first half but couldn’t manage the double double had nine rebounds and four assists in the Bears second straight victory 90-88. He had an all around solid game he was the only one of the Cal scoring players that finished the game up to his neck in foul trouble with two personal fouls.

This was an interesting game after the Huskies had dismissed one of their star players Robert Upshaw who is now in the D League earlier this week. Upshaw averaged nine rebounds a game and was leading the nation in shots and was an aircraft carrier in the paint. With Upshaw out Shawn Kemp Jr is the only big man that the Huskies had left. Washington challenged the rim a little bit and Washington was already a small team to begin with.

The announcers were joking in the game at some point they might introduce five on five with ten guards on the floor the way the two teams are constructed and the Huskies took the ball inside a lot and they challenged a lot. Cal finished the game with Jabari Bird with four personal fouls coming off the bench. Jordan Matthews had four fouls on the floor, David Kravish had three fouls.

Sam Singer had four fouls, and Singer played the last nine minutes with four fouls and Singer was the key to this game and hit the game winning three pointer for the gamer to get Cal the three point win. It was by far Singer’s best game as a Cal player. The Bears have got more timely with Bird on the floor, his foot is now healthy they can give him significant minutes. Bird is back in game shape and he’s able to give them better spacing and give them more spacing on the floor a little bit.

Once again going back to Singer without him they don’t win the game and because of what he does he allows Wallace to not have to be a point guard on the floor Wallace is a lot better creating without the ball, working off ball screens, and using his height advantage down low and posting up smaller players. If your distributing your starting out on the top of the key and you can’t always do that you got to pass and cut, pick and roll and it’s not that difficult to defend that if your the only guy out there doing that.

Michael Duca does commentary on the Cal Bears each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com catch his podcast below