by Morris Phillips

SEATTLE–Sunday was an interesting game for the Cal Bears and the Washington Huskies as both teams are struggling as they opened conference play back on January 2nd against each other and were flying high at that point and both teams had gone into the tank. There was not a lot of defense played in the Bears three point 90-88 win and that really played into Cal’s favor.

The Bears have struggled before and basically for a month and half now and for Sunday a win and a big shot with ten seconds left in the game by the Bears Sam Singer to get the gamer a three pointer to win it when they were in position to lose it. It was a good weekend for Cal as they beat Washington State Thursday and got the big win on Sunday against the Huskies.

This is further proof that this coaching change from former Cal coach Mike Montgomery to Cuonzo Martin looks to be really good going forward when a team can gather more talent and become a little bit more experienced the coaching change is really going to benefit the program. The Bears can’t help looking forward on building on two road victories in conference and they will.

Will it translate into a bunch of wins? Clearly the Bears are on the same page and their still fighting and the season is not over and they’ve got a lot to accomplish if they can continue to play good basketball. One thing for sure if you have to play in Seattle, Super Bowl Sunday with the Seahawks involved is the day to play in Seattle. The thing that really benefitted Cal was there just wasn’t a lot of fans there and their all at home in Seattle getting ready for the Super Bowl and not watching Washington basketball.

With the Seattle fans getting ready for the Super Bowl it took the crowd out of the game at Alaskan Airlines Arena and what is normally a very partisan and loud crowd really played into Cal’s factor and was more of a practice atmosphere inside the arena that really helped them. Can they build on this? Yes, because this team is together whether they struggle or not and you could see how happy they were after the game.

The Bears now have something to play for whether it’s an NCAA Tournament or just respectability this season in a winning manner. The Bears got off to a great start in this game and they shot over 60 percent in the first ten minutes of the game. The Huskies were missing shots and Washington’s best stretch of the game was right before half time when they closed a 14 point deficit to two. Cal gets ready to face USC on Thursday at Haas Pavilion.

Morris Phillips does the NCAA commentary for http://www.sportsradioservice.com hear the rest of the podcast below