Cal Beats Columbia for Ninth Straight Win

Cal won its ninth straight game by beating Columbia 74-56 before a Sunday afternoon crowd of 3,283 at Haas Pavilion.

Cal is 12-1 and its nine-game winning streak matches the Bears’ nine-game win streak in 2008-09 for the Bears’ longest winning streak since the 1959-60 season, when Cal won 19 games in a row and reached the NCAA tournament championship game..

The Bears’ next game is their ACC opener on December 30 against 11th-ranked Louisville (10-2) at Haas Pavilion. The Cardinals are coming off a 40-point win over Montana and their new ranking will be released Monday.

John Camden, who scored 17 points on Sunday, saiud the team is ready and eager to begin ACC play.

"Both, ready and eager," said Camden. "We're excited. We're excited. We feel like we're ready for it, ready for the challenge. We're eager and ready."

Head coach Mark Madsen had more of a coach's answer when asked whether his team is ready for ACC play.

"We have so many things to work on," he said in the video atop this story. "We have so much to clean up, even from this game tonight. I was disappointed with our communication effort in transition in the second half. We haven't had breakdowns like this recently where nobody picked up a man, and everyone screaming there's a wide-open player.

"I'm not satisfied; I'm not at all. And we have Louisville coming. I believe they're top 10, so we have our work cut out for us. And so there's some good things happening in the process, and there's some clean-up areas."

Madsen went on to point out some of the reasons Louisville will be a challenge.

Ballhandling was the Bears' strong suit on Sunday as they committed just six .turnovers, compared with 15 turnovers for Columbia (9-3). Half of Cal's turnovers came in the closing minutes against Columbia's fullcourt pressure. The Bears committed just one turnover in the first half.

Cal led by as many as 21 points with 8:22 remaining before Columbia closed the gap to 13 with a late surge. But the Bears held on with little trouble. The Bears shot 64% from the field in the second half after making just 25% of their shots in the first half.

Justin Pippen was back in action after missing the past two games, but Rytis Petraitis and DJ Campbell were still sidelined.

Dai Dai Ames scored 19 points for Cal, and Chris Bell had 12. Lee Dort had just seven points, but he had 14 rebounds and blocked four shots.

Columbia's Kenny Noland, who entered the game averaging a team-leading 17.7 points, was limited to five points on 2-for-12 shooting.

The first half was far from an offensive masterpiece. Cal shot just 25% (8-for-32) from the field in the first half but still held a 12-point lead at 28-16 at halftime. It was the fewest points scored by a Cal opponent in the first half this season.

Columbia shot just 25.9% over the first 20 minutes, but the difference was in the turnovers. The Lions committed 12 first-half turnovers while the Bears had just one.

Cal took control early in the first half with a 13-point run. The game was tied 4-4 before the Bears reeled off 13 straight points to take a 17-4 lead.

Dai Dai Ames led the Bears with 12 points in the first half, and that included an impressive dunk in traffic, as seen here.

😱😱😱😱!!!

📺>>ACCNX#GoBears | #ThroughAndThrough pic.twitter.com/JCW8npO4ya
— Cal Basketball (@CalMBBall) December 21, 2025

NOTES

---The result of Cal’s home victory over Morgan Strate was a little freakier than we realized. Cal beat Morgan State 97-50 on Friday in the second meeting between the teams. In the only other time, in 1991, Cal beat Morgan State by the exact same score, 97-50, at the same site. Actually the site was the smaller Harmon Gym in 1991, and it’s now the larger Haas Pavilion.

---Sunday’s game was Cal’s final nonconference game of the season. The Bears open ACC play with a home game against 11th-ranked Louisville (10-2) on Tuesday, December 30, at Haas Pavilion.

Three days later, Cal hosts Notre Dame on January 2.

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