Alright, maybe we Goldenbloggers abandoned the Sturdy Golden Brauns a little too soon. 

Actually, no.  I agree with Ragnarok that Avinash’s comment ("Promising start, dismal losing skid, glimmer of hope against Wazzu.") sums up seemingly every year as a Cal basketball fan.  While today’s very entertaining victory over the Huskies is another step in the right direction, harsh reality says that Cal is still 4-5 in conference, with the tough half of the schedule coming up.  Plus, even though I was pretty tough on the men’s team, they were 2-5 with a road game against the #9 team in the country coming up.  Having lost 3 home games in a row to lower ranked teams, I don’t think it was wrong to have low expectations for this weekend.

Even if you’re not ready to buy back in, and I’m not, it was a great road trip.  The weather was so bad in Pullman that they canceled class on Thursday & Friday - the first time WSU canceled school in THIRTY YEARS.  I assumed that the game would be postponed, but my brother (a sophomore there) assured me otherwise: "There are going to be eleven-thousand drunk hicks waiting for you guys."  How you can win in this situation, especially without your senior leader (sorry, Verney), and lose at home to ASU is beyond me.

Once the absolutely unexpected happened, beating UW became the expected, or at least the hoped for.  I missed the first half on TV to make sure the Sturdy Boyle’s closed out USC (they did - the women are now 10-1 in conference), but I listened to 1550 and it went something like this: Cal scores.  UW misses.  UW retrieves ball, scores, and is fouled in the process.  After the rebounding debacle against Stanford, it was certainly disappointing to give up 13 OFFENSIVE rebounds in the FIRST HALF.

Then Brockman, UW’s neanderthal/forward picked up his fourth foul early in the second half (apparently it was pretty ticky-tack - finally, a break from the refs!) and Cal started dominating the boards.  Hardin had zero, because he missed the weekend trip with a 103 degree fever.  Instead, it was Jordan Wilkes with 4 (in 7 second half minutes), Boykin with 6, Anderson with 17!  Many of these came from missed free-throws (UW only shot 8-18 from the line), but as Robin Lopez clearly showed last Saturday, those are no gimmies.

Can make fire, kill bears, rebound.

These defensive rebounds turned into points as Randle deftly pushed the tempo, in one case feeding a nice running lob to Christopher for an slam.  Although Randle struggled a little at the end of the game when the equally quick Justin Dentmon was harassing him, turning it over a few times before fouling out, he has clearly improved in recent games and is learning to harness his skills for good instead of running around out of control.  Ubaka had ice in his veins last year, but Randle is quicker, a better (if streakier) shooter, and does a much better job creating offensive opportunities for his teammates.  He must continue to improve, and he’ll always be 5′10 (5′6), but he’s already running a more fluid and dynamic offense than the much more highly touted Ubaka ever did.

Let’s gush a little more about our sophomores.  Christopher, who was highly touted (much more than Anderson), has gone from a passive freshman with an iffy shot to our most natural scoring guard since Brian Wethers.  He can hit all of the shots and the nailed the biggest one of the day, a three pointer to break a tie with 20 seconds left.  He’s second on the team with 16.5 points per game (up from 5.1 last year), and he’s doing this while playing almost the entire game and guarding the opponent’s best perimeter player.

Finally, Mr. Anderson.  He had 33 and 17 (17!) while playing all 40 minutes.  On Thursday, he went for 27 and 9.  If you give him just a little space on the perimeter, he’ll bury it (45% from beyond the arc), and he’ll probably hit it if you don’t give him any space, either.  His flaw is a lack of ideal strength and athleticism, which will hopefully keep him at Cal through next year at least.  Christopher isn’t as explosive as other top scoring guards (think OJ Mayo), and Randle is too short to leave early.  With other strong role players like Kamp, Boykin, and Theo, you have to love this core, and unlike the most of the conference, it’s likely to remain intact for a while.

If you missed the second half, I’m sorry.  Watching it made me (and the players, apparently) feel like this:

Front row seats to Nikola’s gun show.

A win against OSU at home on Thursday puts Cal at 5-5, setting up a pivotal game against Oregon.  There are currently two Pac-10 teams at 7-2 or better (UCLA and Stanford), two at 3-6 or worse (UW and OSU), and six at either 5-4 or 4-5.  After that terrible three game home stretch Cal is right back in the tournament hunt, and it seems they have learned how to close out tight games in the process.  It’s not fair to play the "if only" game, because that applies just as much to these close wins as it does to the previous close losses.  Let’s just hope that Cal keeps up this very entertaining and suddenly successful brand of basketball.  Go Bears!