Cal Basketball: Bears Show Their Best in Front of Kidd, Randle, Other Elite Alums

Some of Cal’s most distinguished basketball alums returned to Haas Pavilion for the Bears’ home finale against Stanford on Saturday night, and coach Mark Fox was thrilled his team gave them the kind of performance they deserved to watch.

The Bears used a 17-0 run to charge into a 23-4 lead which grew to 35-12 by halftime on the way to a 53-39 triumph in front of 8,773 fans.

Among those were Hall of Famer Jason Kidd, Sean Lampley, Theo Robertson and the Bears’ career scoring leader, Jerome Randle, who flew to the Bay Area on Saturday from Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where he was playing professionally,

“Jerome reached out in the middle of the week and said, `If I can get out of here, I want to come to the game,’ which if you think about the situation he just faced . . .” Fox said. “Those former players love this place. We have a responsibility to rebuild our program to a point where everybody’s proud of it.

“Those players, they were great here and they deserve the kind of effort our team and our crowd gave the program tonight and it was awesome to have them back.”

More Cal fans — the famous ones and those without hoops credentials — are likely to find their way to Haas if the Bears (5-13, 12-17) can play at this high level.

Jordan Shepherd scored 19 of his 28 points in the first half, when Cal held Stanford to 4-for-28 shooting, or 14 percent. Stanford’s 12 points were the fewest Cal has allowed in the first half of a conference game on record, according to the Pac-12.

The Bears cooled off offensively over the final 20 minutes but they continued to harass with their defense. They blocked seven shots and held the Cardinal (8-10, 15-13) under 24 percent for the game.

Stanford’s final point total was the lowest allowed by Cal in a conference game since Oregon managed just 37 against the Bears on Feb. 2, 1985.

Fox talks about the way the Bears played at the defensive end in the video above.

Forward Grant Anticevich, whose parents came from Australia for senior night, played in his school-record 136th career game. He had five points, eight rebounds and two blocks, and he had a blast in his swan song at Haas, as he explains in the video below.

Shepherd will play just one season for the Bears after spending time at Oklahoma and Charlotte, but his impact has been significant. He shot 11 for 16 from the field against the Cardinal and was 4 for 7 on threes.

He buried a 3-pointer to stretch the lead after Stanford crept within 42-27 and he made what seemed an impossible high-arching shot from the right baseline over two defenders for a 49-30 lead with 4:32 left.

Shepherd talks in the video below about his experience in his final home game.

Others also delivered for the Bears.

Center Lars Thiemann, who has made huge strides in recent weeks after becoming a starter when Andre Kelly was lost to an ankle injury, had six points, eight rebounds, four assists, two blocked shots and two steals. He also converted a key second-half dunk off a pass from Joel Brown, who had six points and four assists.

Pac-12 Network analyst Don MacLean suggested during the game that the performance can provide the Bears with confidence and momentum they can take to Arizona for two games next week, then to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 tournament.

But Anticevich and Fox both said there was nothing out of character in this performance and the team just needs to sustain its defensive execution.

“We just performed at the level we know we’re capable of and moving forward if we can do that consistently we won’t have any problems,” he said said in the video above. “I don’t think we played out of character at all. We played the way we know how to play, the way we practice.”

Fox adds to that thought in the video below, where he noted, “They really haven’t had their confidence shaken . . . for the most part they’ve been resilient and regrouped.”

Cover photo of Kuany Kuany (13) and Lars Thiemann by D. Ross Cameron, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo