By Morris Phillips

For now, being the eight-seed represents a tremendous opportunity for the California Bears.

At least it does, until their high noon in the desert meeting with top-seeded Arizona commences on Thursday.

The Bears did all they could on Wednesday at the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas, dispatching ninth-seeded Washington State, 84-59, with a massive run spanning halftime that turned a close contest into a blowout.  Cal began their big roll, trailing by one, then after Christian Behrens’ layup led 47-30 with 15:21 remaining.  The Bears missed more free throws (3) than shots (1) in the run, hitting 13 of 14 from the field.

“We established David (Kravish) in the post.  I thought that set the tone for us offensively—if we’re able to do that, then our perimeter guys could play,” Coach Cuonzo Martin explained.

Cal’s senior post epitomized the fast turnaround; Kravish missed his first six shots, then commenced his big finish during the run, hitting 10 of his last 11.  He finished with a career-best 25 points, a distinct signal that the Bears’ leader is locked in for a big finish to his collegiate career.

“It’s just one of those things you play the game for so long, you can’t dwell on something in the middle of a game,” Kravish said of his in-game switch.  “You don’t really worry about the misses.”

Washington State surprised Cal January 4 in Berkeley, then the Bears won the rematch January 29 in Pullman.  In both Cal wins, the Cougs let the normally pedestrian Bears offense jump into a Ferrari.  Cal ranks 197^th (out of 345) in Division I scoring at 66.5 points a game, but they averaged 80 points in the two wins against WSU.

Jabari Bird didn’t envision himself as a defensive specialist when he signed with Cal in 2012, but he was one Wednesday, shutting down WSU’s leading scorer DaVonte Lacy.  The senior guard was held to two points in the first half and finished with nine in his final appearance as a collegian.

The Cal sophomore also capped off the first half, hitting a three-pointer as a pair of WSU defenders froze, unwilling to contest Bird’s shot four feet behind the arc as time expired.  The Bears led 37-26 at the half.

Washington State hasn’t won a Pac-12 tournament game since 2009, Klay Thompson’s freshman year.  They’ve lost seven in a row since, including the March 2011 thriller in which Thompson scored a tournament-record 43 points but saw his Cougs fall 89-87 to Washington.  WSU and Cal had never met in this tournament prior to Wednesday.

The Bears got 19 points from Jordan Mathews and 12 from Tyrone Wallace.  Ike Iroegbu led Washington State with 17 points.  The Bears enjoyed a healthy 37-22 edge on the glass and hit 8 of 12 from distance.

Cal will need more of the same against Arizona; they fell to the Wildcats by 23 in Berkeley, and last week in Tucson, Cal was embarrassed, losing by 39. Making their task that much more difficult is the significant improvement of 7’0” Kaleb Tarczewksi who anchors the middle for the Cats, and was terrific last week limiting Cal and Kravish.