By Morris Phillips

MORAGA — St. Mary’s first four-game losing streak since February 2007 essentially ended when the Cal Bears’ charter bus left Berkeley on Saturday and took a full hour to cover the 14 miles between the campuses.

That’s too long to travel, and if the Caldecott Tunnel could speak, the tunnel would confirm that fact. Instead of a timely arrival, the Bears experienced a hasty one, and bad things continued after the opening tip at McKeon Pavilion.

Malik Fitts scored 19 points–one of four St. Mary’s double-digit scorers–in the Gaels’ comfortable 83-71 win over Cal. St. Mary’s shot 55 percent before halftime, and led by 15 at the break.

Both rebuilding programs entered the clash needing a victory with the Gaels’ slide their first in more than a decade. The Bears beat Santa Clara on Monday, but dropped three of four prior to that. But it was apparent early on, Cal’s defense wasn’t going to be good enough to break into the win column.

Tanner Krebs’ 3-pointer with 8:57 remaining increased St. Mary’s lead to 28-18.

“We weren’t communicating enough on defense,” Cal’s Justice Sueing said. “That’s something we have to work on the next couple of days.”

“They came in with a game plan that they’re gonna use their secondary scorers to beat us, and they did a very good job of that,” coach Wyking Jones said.

Initially, Cal struggled to limit the Gaels’ dribble penetration. But that issue compounded when the St. Mary’s 3-point shooters started to get looks. The end result wasn’t pretty: the Gaels shot 60 percent from the field, canned 13 threes, and briefly led by 25 points in the second half.

The 60 percent shooting by their opponent was easily Cal’s worst showing of the season to date.

The West Coast Conference’s leading scorer, Jordan Ford, finished with 16 points and seven assists, off his average of more than 23 points a game. Dan Fotu added 16, and Krebs 11.

Justice Sueing paced the Bears with 16 points. Matt Bradley had 15, and Paris Austin 12. The Bears again struggled with ball movement and offensive cohesion with their absurdly low assist total of six jumping off the stat sheet.

The Bears host the USF Dons on Wednesday night, their third consecutive neighborhood clash, at 8:00 pm.