By Morris Phillips

In order to make the most idiotic tip time in televised sports history make any kind of sense, the Cal Bears had to do one thing:

Stay competitive with Stanford for the first 15 minutes of Sunday night’s game, enough time for Tom Brady to accept his latest Super Bowl MVP trophy and then have insatiable sports fans (and gamblers) turn their attention to the Bay rivalry and–with Cal making a game of it–keep their attention.

Guess what? At roughly 7:45pm PST, the Bears were doing their part.

And then they weren’t.

Tied at 22 with 4:24 remaining before halftime–after Joel Brown’s high-difficulty flip in at the rim–Cal went to a dark place, not unlike Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. A 22-4 run spanning the halves put the visiting Bears in an insurmountable hole, with the result, a 76-70 loss that a got a prettier final score in the frantic, final two minutes.

In a repeat of Thursday’s loss at Haas Pavilion, the Bears were overmatched inside where Stanford scored 42 of their first 66 points in the paint on drives, dump-ins with a few dunks mixed in between. With Cal’s defense providing little resistance, a late run and a spirited effort was rendered as a footnote.

“Our defense is not at the level it needs to be to win, especially on the road,” coach Mark Fox said.

“We just can get enough stops consecutively to get us over the hump.”

Stanford made 60 percent of their shots over the first 30 minutes of the game before finishing at 58 percent. In what is now a six-game losing streak for the Bears–the longest skid under Fox–their opponent made at least half their shots from the floor for the fourth consecutive game.

Worse was Cal’s rudder less offense which shot 37 percent after a 36 percent mark on Thursday. The Bears again settled more often than not, with no free throws attempts in the first half and 16 misses from 3-point range.

An 11-4 edge in offensive rebounds for Cal seemed impressive, but ultimately it just added to their missed shot total.

“I thought we played hard,” Fox said. “It’s the intelligence we have to attach to that effort.”

That effort showed in the final two minutes when Cal cut a 15-point deficit to six, but even that push had to do with Stanford missing just enough free throws to irritate bettors who had Stanford minus 10.

Matt Bradley led Cal with 15 points. Jarred Hyder had 13 (in his best scoring output as a Bear), Ryan Betley and Brown added 12 each.

Oscar da Silva, the Pac-12’s leading scorer, led Stanford with 19 points.

Cal hosts Utah–the last team they beat three weeks ago in Salt Lake City–on Thursday afternoon.

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