By Morris Phillips

BERKELEY — After an eight-win season, the Cal Bears needed to get better, and they did that, with Coach Wyking Jones welcoming freshmen Matt Bradley and Andre Kelly.

But an influx in talent doesn’t always mesh, and new mouths to feed means old mouths can occasionally go hungry. So with Santa Clara breathing down Cal’s collective necks in the final minutes of Monday’s 78-66 victory for the Bears, Jones witnessed a selfless act from one of his leading, returning scorers, Darius McNeill.

“I told him to check in to the game for Matt, and Matt scored three buckets in a row, and he said, ‘Coach, just keep him in the game.  Just keep him in the game.’ And for me, that’s a step in the right direction as far as him being able to sacrifice his own personal stats, minutes, whatever you want to call it, and say ‘You know what coach, it’s about the team, it’s not about me.’ So that’s what we’ve been preaching, and that’s what culture is all about.”

With Bradley scoring 13 of his team-best 15 points in the final 6:33 of the ballgame, the Bears pulled away, winning for the second time this season. Five Bears finished double figures, led by Bradley and Juhwan Harris-Dyson, who put up his 15 points on seven of eight shooting.

“It comes in those guys trusting each other and having each other’s back,” Jones said. “Just being able to withstand them cutting it to one and still being able to make plays and make a run and get stops when we needed it.”

The Bears played like strangers in Shanghai, losing their season opener in China to Yale by 17 points, and compiling no assists in the first 20 minutes while shooting a frigid 20 percent. After a bounce back win over Hampton, and the cancellation of the Detroit Mercy game due to the Butte County fires, Cal was awful defensively in losses to St. John’s and Temple in Brooklyn. But on Monday, the defense was credible, and the offense had diversity and purpose.

Cal jumped out to a 14-0 lead, holding the Broncos scoreless for nearly eight minutes. Nine steals at the break, and 13 for the game, showed that the Cal defensive intensity was present, as was Santa Clara’s propensity to cough it up. But with Kelly and point guard Paris Austin spearheading the impressive start, and Bradley playing the role of the closer, it mattered little that holdovers McNeill and Justice Sueing missed 10 of their combined 15 shots, while McNeill was limited by foul trouble.

Harris-Dyson came off the bench and shut down Santa Clara’s Tahj Eaddy, while being the beneficiary of some nice setups from his teammates on the offensive end. Dyson hadn’t contributed as much offensively since his February breakout against Stanford with 13 points.

The Bears led by 12 at the half, only to see Santa Clara shoot 56 percent after the break and cut the Cal lead to 53-52 with 7:03 remaining. But the Broncos collapsed at that point, allowing the Bears to get to the rim repeatedly in a 19-6 run that pushed their lead to 14 with 1:33 remaining.

“Cal did a great job of taking us out of what we wanted to do,” said SCU coach Herb Sendek. “But, perhaps no stat was more significant for us than our 22 turnovers.”

Cal (2-3) visits St. Mary’s on Saturday in a rematch of last year’s renewal of the East Bay rivalry at Haas Pavilion. The Bears didn’t fare well in that one, losing to a veteran Gaels team that would be invited to the NIT. This one could be more competitive as both schools welcome a bunch of new faces to the matchup.