By Morris Phillips

AP photo: Coppin State guard James Sylvester tries to drive past Cal guard Jabari Bird Saturday

BERKELEY–Among the nation’s most prominent teams that so far haven’t lived up to their pre-season billing, the Cal Bears took to the court fresh off finals week with some work to do. Cal’s opponent, improving but undermanned Coppin State, provided a jumping off point for the mid-season rebuild, but little else.

So the Bears did what they could do with what they had to work with, dismantling the Eagles from the tiny MEAC conference, 84-51 with five Cal players scoring in double figures. Cal used an early 12-0 run to build a 21-point halftime lead and cruised from there, limiting the Eagles to 24 percent shooting for the game.

“The goal was to just build on what we did against St. Mary’s,” Ivan Rabb said. Rabb led the Bears with 13 points and nine rebounds, despite an ankle injury that took him off the floor for a period after which he returned to action with the ankle taped.

The Bears improved to 9-2 on the season with their biggest test to date coming on Tuesday at Virginia, where they will face the No. 8 Cavaliers, a national-title contender. For Cal, a team without a marquee win to date, the visit to ACC Country provides their biggest opportunity to do so before Pac-12 play begins on New Year’s night.

According to ESPN’s Jeff Goodman, the Bears reside in a six-pack of Indiana, LSU, Gonzaga, Wisconsin and Ohio State: big name programs that haven’t reached expectations in their games to date. Of that group, Cal may be the easiest fix, an extremely young team with serious defensive ability that merely needs to continue its growth on the offensive end of the floor.

According to the coach at the end of the bench, Nick Kerr, son of Steve Kerr, the Golden State Warriors’ coach, the Bears made strides on Saturday. The younger Kerr transferred to Cal after graduating from the University of San Diego with a year of athletic eligibility remaining. So far, Kerr hasn’t seen any meaningful playing time, but that changed on Saturday when he buried a pair of threes in the final minutes of the blowout win.

“I thought we played pretty well,” Kerr said. “I thought for the most part we did a good job of handling the zone. We moved the ball. We got penetration and, defensively, we were outstanding. We got deflections, we got steals and we got in transition. I though that’s where we made a big jump.”

“Contest, contain and keep your guy in front of you, and I thought we did a solid job,” Coach Cuonzo Martin said.

The USF Dons provided an assist to the Bears by handing the Eagles a bitter overtime loss in San Francisco just 21 hours prior to the tip in Berkeley. In that one, Coppin State led by a point with 10 seconds remaining in overtime, only to see the Dons score the game’s final four points.

But such is life for Coppin State, a team that has faced the nation’s eight toughest schedule to date with very little to show for their courageousness. The Eagles currently rank 290^th in the NCAA’s labyrinth of Division I schools.