Cal Basketball

The California Berkeley university basketball team has been a very powerful force in the PAC-10. They have won their first league title since 1950 and they still want more. Their roster consist of five starting seniors who have carried their team most of the year. Cal's basketball team started off the year as a ranked team but with a couple of loses in the beginning of the season they slipped from the top 25 rankings. They were never ranked since those early loses to Syracuse University, who is now ranked number 3 in the country, and Ohio State, who is now ranked number 5 in the country. With that in mind, i believe that they should be ranked in the top twenty five because they really only lost to the teams that were better than them including the number 1 team in the country. They had a couple of loses that they should have won but every team has an off day or two. When Cal played those top 10 ranked teams they played hard and the games came down to the final minutes. They finished the year 21-9 and 13-5 in league and are currently playing in their conference playoffs as the number one seed.

In their first conference playoff game Cal won 90 to 74 over Oregon. Cal was lead by their best player Jerome Randle who scored 22 points without missing a shot in the first half. Randle went 8 for 8 with four 3-pointers in the first half, giving Cal to a 15-point lead. Patrick Christopher also had a good game scoring 21 points and dishing out five assists and their big man Jamal Boykins scored all 15 of his points in the second half to finish the eighth-seeded Ducks, who were taken to overtime by Washington State in their first-round game Wednesday night. Cal advanced to the semifinals where they played to UCLA Bruins on Friday who had a disappointing season after being one of the best teams in the country last season.

In today's game Cal overcame a six point deficit in the second half to come away with another win in their conference playoffs and will either face number 7 Stanford who upset the number two seed their previous game or 3 Washington in the PAC-10 finals. Jerome Randle scored 24 points with a couple of ridiculous shots and Theo Robertson had 15 of his 20 in the second half in an 85-72 victory Friday night.The top-seeded Golden Bears who are now 23-9 advanced to Saturday's title game at Staples Center, home of the defending world champion Los Angeles Lakers. Patrick Christopher added 16 points for the Bears, who are looking for their first league tournament title to go with their first regular-season championship in 50 years. Michael Roll scored a career-high 27 points in his final game for fifth-seeded UCLA who finish the season 14-18, which is their worst record since 2003-04. Jerime Anderson added 15. Cal made 13-of-14 free throws over the final 5:13, with Randle hitting six of his attempts which finalized their comeback victory.