Cal Basketball: Golden Bears Climb Above .500 with 72-60 Victory over Santa Clara

Cal survived missing 10 straight shots midway through the second half and beat Santa Clara 72-60 on Saturday to climb above .500 for the first time this season.

The Bears improved to 6-5 and prevented the Broncos (7-4) from beating both Cal and Stanford in the same season for the first time since the 1969-70 campaign.

"It feels great. It feels like all the hard work is starting to pay off," senior Jordan Shepherd said. "We're starting to do the things we wish we would have done before. But we're doing them right now and it's working out for us."

Cal coach Mark Fox talks about the victory in the video at the top of this story.

The game was tied at 53-all before the Bears closed with a 19-7 runner the final 5-plus minutes. Andre Kelly converted a layup off a feed from Shepherd and Grant Anticevich scored on consecutive possessions for a six-point lead with 4 minutes left.

Shepherd hit a 3-pointer off a feed from Kelly to make it 66-58 with 1:43 left and Cal made six straight free throws down the stretch to ice the game.

"There were some games where we were just right there -- we knew we had what it took," Kelly says in the video above.

Kelly scored eight of his game-high 18 points in the final six minutes and grabbed eight rebounds. Shepherd had 15 points and six assists and Anticevich scored 12 points to go with eight rebounds.

Forward Keshawn Justice had 13 points and nine rebounds for Santa Clara while Cal used six different defenders to hold top scorer Jalen Williams to 12 points, just six over the first 36 minutes.

The Broncos’ 6-foot-6 junior guard was averaging 20.3 points and had scored at a 26.7 clip on 67-percent shooting over the previous three games.

Grant Anticevich, Kuany Kuany, Jalen Celestine, Sam Alajiki, Obinna Anyanwu and Shepherd each took turns on Williams. Shepherd talks in the video below about how the Bears approached defending him.

"You’ve got to give Cal’s defense credit. They did a good job," Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek said.

Fox talks in video below about how a Cal team finally starting to get healthy enough depth to rotate fresh defenders on an opposing player.

"So we can come at you in waves defensively," he said.

Santa Clara played its eighth straight game without all-West Coast Conference forward Josip Vrankic, sidelined by a bout with mononucleosis, and was again without 6-10 center Jaden Bediako, whose right foot is in a boot.

The Bears missed a chance to add to their lead early in the second half when they missed 10 straight shots over six possessions while up 42-39. The Broncos weren’t much better, going 1 for 8 over the same span.

The Bears used a 14-0 run over the final 4 1/2 minutes of the first half to transform a 34-24 deficit into a 38-34 lead.

Freshman Sam Alajiki triggered the outburst with a 3-pointer at 4:15 before Lars Thiemann converted a shot in the post. Makale Foreman, coming off the bench, then hit a 3-pointer and a mid-range jumper, pulling Cal into a tie with 2:21 left.

Shepherd capped the run with a jumper and a steal he turned into a layup and the Bears had their first lead of the game.

Fox talks in the video above about how Alajiki, Thiemann and Foreman came off the bench to provide a big lift in the final minutes of the first half. "They changed the game," he said.

Santa Clara, which made 56 percent of its shots through 15 1/2 minutes, went 0 for 7 with a pair of turnovers to help fuel Cal’s comeback.

Eight different players scored for Cal in the half, led by Shepherd with 10 points.

Cover photo of Grant Anticevich by Addie Briggs, Cal Athletics

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