Cal Hangs on to Beat Pacific and Improve to 8-1

Cal hung on for a 67-61 win over Pacific before a Saturday afternoon crowd of 2,688 at Haas Pavilion to improve its record to 8-1, the Bears' best start in 11 years.

So what should we make of this Cal team after nine games?

Obviously the Bears need to shoot free throws better than they did Saturday, when they were 13-for-23 from the line. And they need to close out games better than they did Saturday, when they let a 13-point lead with 13 minutes left dwindle to two points in the final minute.

But if you consider what Cal has done since the second half of the 99-96 loss to Kansas State on November 13, the Bears have been pretty impressive.

"I would say prretty good," Cal guard Justin Pippen said of his appraisal of Cal's first nine games. "You know we wish we would have won that game at Kansas State, but for me personally I feel like I learned a lot from that game. So it's always needed to lose one game just to get back to the drawing board, So other than that I feel like we've got a pretty good record."

Cal nearly got run out of the gym in the first half of last month's game against Kansas State, but the Bears scored 62 points in the second half, when it outscored the Wildcats by 18 points and made it a game.

Since then, Cal has won all five games, including an upset of nationally ranked UCLA in San Francisco and wins over two other decent teams -- Utah and Pacific (7-3). Pippen has solidified himself as a scorer and a reliable point guard in that stretch, and he scored a team-high 16 points against Pacific.

"I think we've grown a lot since we first got together in the summer," said John Camden, who scored 13 points Saturday. "I think our growth has been really good, so I'm happy with the progress, and I think there's a lot more we can do, a lot more we can get better at to put ourselves in a good position to be one of the top teams in the country."

It may be an overstatement to say Cal could be one of the best teams in the country, but a postseason berth is not out of the question.

In its Bracketology projections earlier this week, Fox put Cal in the field for the 68-team NCAA tournament

Who is on the bubble right now? 👀 pic.twitter.com/O6wE1My4n7
— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) December 2, 2025

However, ESPN's Joe Lunardi did not have Cal in the NCAA tournament field in his Bracketology posted Tuesday. Furthermore, he did not include the Bears among his First Four Out or his Next Four Out.

Cal entered play Saturday with a NET ranking of No. 57, down from the 53 ranking it started the week with.

"I would say there's areas where we made big steps as a basketball team; there's areas we have to clean up," Cal coach Mark Madsen said of his nine-game assessment. "I would say in the aftermath of this game our communication can really improve on-court."

The 8-1 record is Cal's best start to a season since it began the 2014-15 season 10-1 under coach Cuonzo Martin. But Cal may not want to use that season as the model since that team lost eight of its next nine games and finished with an 18-15 record, including 7-11 in Pac-12 play.

Cal played well for most of Saturday's win, but did not finish the game off well. Allowing Pacific to come up with 18 offensive rebounds, including 13 in the first half, was not in Cal's interest either. Cal finished with just nine turnovers, which is a good number, but six of those turnovers came in the final 11 minutes.

Pacific (7-3) came into Saturday’s game riding a five-game winning streak, and the Tigers made a valiant push in the closing 13 minutes after trailing by 13..

Pacific's Elias Ralph entered the game averaging 18.2 points and a team-leading 6.6 rebounds, and he was coming off a 31-point performance in the Tigers' win over Air Force. But he scored just seven points on 2-for-10 shooting and collected just one rebound on Saturday. The defense played by Camden gets most of the credit for Ralph's subpar performance.

However, Pacific's Isaac Jack collected 15 points and 16 rebounds.

Cal held a 13-point lead with 13 minutes left in the second half, but Pacific reduced the margin to five points when Jaden Clayton hit a three-point shot with 10:09 remaining.

Pacific made it a four-point game at 63-59 when Clayton scored on a driving layup with 1:20 to go, but he missed a free throw on the potential three-point play. After a Cal turnover in the backcourt, Pacific reduced the Cal lead to two points on another Clayton layup with 25.9 seconds remaining, making it a 63-61 game.

Camden made one of two free throws with 20.7 seconds remaining, and Ralph's three-point attempt under pressure missed with 10 seconds left.

D.J. Campbell then hit one of two foul shots with 8.8 seconds left, and Lee Dort came up with a timely blocked shot to ruin the Tigers' ensuing possession. Dai Dai Ames, who finished with 15 points, closed the scoring with two free throws with less than one second left.

Cal made four of its final six free thows, but was just 9-for17 before that to finish 13-for-23.

"That has been a strength of ours; tonight it was not," Madsen said of his team's 76.8% foul shooting entering Saturday's action. "And so we need to put more work in. We can't shoot 13-for-23 from the free-throw line in any game and expect to have a decisive win. That being said, a couple guys made some big free throws late in the game."

Cal got off to a fast start and led by as many as 14 points before settling for a nine-lead at halftime at 36-27.

Cal committed just three first-half turnovers, with the third coming with only 7.6 seconds left before halftime.

Pacific’s Ralph went 0-for-4 from the field in the first half, and his only points in the first 20 minutes came on two free throws with 45.9 seconds remaining.

The Bears made six of their first seven field-goal attempts to take an early 16-4 lead. Cal extended the margin to 14 points when at 25-11 lead with 8:16 remaining in the first half. At that point, Pacific was 5-for-24 from the field.

Pacific closed to within six points with 3:15 to go in the half, but Cal pushed the margin to nine by halftime.

NOTES

Cal's D.J. Campbell made his first start of the season on Saturday, replacing Chris Bell, who came off the bench for the first time this season. Saturday’s game was only the third game of the season for Campbell, who missed the first six games with a groin injury.

Cal’s Rytis Petraitis, who missed the Bears’ previous game against Utah, sat out a second straight game on Saturday with an injury.

Cal was a 9.5-point favorite over Pacific as of Saturday morning.

The Bears are now 7-0 at hoe this season.

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