STANFORD, CALIF. -- The California men's basketball team tore off a 10-0 run to turn a three-point game into a Golden Bear road win over rival Stanford, with
John Camden's double-double highlighting the 78-66 Cal victory at Maples Pavilion. Camden hit four of his final five 3-pointers during a powerful Cal push to wrap the first half, and the game stayed wild until the very end. The Bears are now 15-5 overall and 3-4 in ACC play, while Stanford goes to 14-6, 3-4.Â
Teams traded hot streaks in the first half, as Stanford took advantage of a seven-minute Cal cold snap from the floor to get ahead 29-13. The Bears bit back and blasted into the lead as they found their scoring touch and hit five 3-pointers in the last five minutes to take a 38-34 lead at halftime. Cal was shooting 42.3 percent overall by the break, while Stanford slumped to 33.3 percent. The Cardinal had the edge on the boards 19-17 at halftime and finished up just ahead with a 43-41 rebounding advantage. Cal would finish with 10 threes made and an overall shooting outing of 41.4 percent, well ahead of Stanford's final 27.3 percent.
John Camden notched season highs with 25 points and 10 rebounds, becoming the first Bear with a double-double this season. Also hitting double digits tonight for Cal were
Justin Pippen with 18 points,
Dai Dai Ames with 11 and
Chris Bell with 10. Stanford was led by Jeremy Dent-Smith's 20 points along with 14 from Ebuka Okorie and 12 from Ryan Agarwal.
"Obviously we're rivals," Cal head coach
Mark Madsen said. "This is an absolute battle, but I went here (Stanford), I had a lot of friends in the stands. I'm very grateful, extremely grateful for the relationships and the time spent here at Stanford. And so it's special, you know. And that being said, I'm so happy and excited to be at Cal and to be building – really trying to build something special there."
It was a back-and-forth battle in the first five minutes of action before the Cardinal manufactured a 6-0 spurt to get out ahead. Milos Ilic interrupted that with a score in the paint, but the Bears kept coming up empty from distance. That gave Stanford the opportunity to pad its early lead, and the Cardinal moved ahead 24-11 with 8:15 on the clock with some help from a mounting Cal foul count. The Bears were silent from the floor for over six minutes, landing just a pair of
Dai Dai Ames free throws in that span to trail Stanford 29-13 until
Chris Bell broke through with a layup off a
Justin Pippen feed at 5:50. That seemed to break the seal, and Pippen unleashed back-to-back 3-pointers to get the deficit down to single digits at 29-21 with 4:30 to go in the half. It didn't stop there. The Cardinal hit a cold patch of its own next, and the Bears capitalized. Cal nailed five 3-pointers in the final five minutes, and got a nice three-point play from TT Carr to take its first lead since the first five minutes of the game. DeJuan Campbell had the last word of the half with a three that built a 38-34 advantage for the Bears at the break.
John Camden turned in seven straight points all his own for the Bears to carry Cal to a 54-41 lead at 14:15. Stanford struck back and carved the margin down to single digits at 56-50 with 11:11 to go. The seesaw battle continued, with Cal getting back up by 10 only to have Stanford slice back in with a 10-0 surge, snarling it up at 60-60 with 6:30 left to play.
Chris Bell stepped up and snapped that rally with a 3-pointer at 6:25 for the Bears. Pippen punched up a big three later, and DeJuan Campbell buried back-to-back putbacks to net a 72-62 Cal lead entering the final two minutes. The Bears were far from done, though. Camden crushed his fifth 3-pointer of the night, and Bell hauled in a rebound with a booming dunk that carried Cal ahead 77-62 and all but sealed the Bears' path to the 78-66 final victory.
NEXT:Â The Bears head across the country for their next two ACC games, visiting Florida State for a 7 p.m. ET meeting on Jan. 28 in Tallahassee before taking on Miami in Coral Gables at 4 p.m. ET on Jan. 31.
NOTABLE:
- Cal was shooting 16.7 percent from the floor with 6:13 to go in the half, and then went 8-for-8 the remainder of the half, including five 3-pointers made.Â
- With a season-high 25 points,
John Camden scored in double digits for the 15th time and recorded his sixth 20-point game this season.
- With his season-high 10 rebounds, Camden became the first Bear to record a double-double this season.
- With 18 points,
Justin Pippen scored in double figures for the 16th time this season.
- With 11 points,
Dai Dai Ames scored in double figures for a team-best 17th time this season.
- With 10 points,
Chris Bell hit double digits for the 14th time this season.
- Bell also matched his career high with three blocks.
- This was Cal's first win at Maples Pavilion since a 64-59 victory at Stanford on March 7, 2019.
- The win also snapped a five-game losing skid to the Cardinal.Â
