Page One

It was ugly, but it was a win. 

Despite committing a season-high 23 turnovers, the Cal men’s basketball team beat South Florida 79-69 on Saturday at Haas Pavilion, pulling away in the final two minutes.  

Up by just one point after South Florida’s Reggie Kohn hit a three-pointer with 2:15 left in the game, Cal went on a nine-point run to finish the game. The run was ignited by Shantay Legans’ pull-up three and closed with a fast-break three-point play by Ryan Forehan-Kelly. 

The Bears overcame their sloppy ball-handling by shooting a season-high 60.5 percent from the field, and by holding South Florida’s B.B. Waldon and Altron Jackson to a combined 24 points on 9-of-28 shooting. Waldon and Jackson had been averaging nearly 38 points per game coming into the game. 

“Those are two players who are on every NBA scout’s list,” Cal head coach Ben Braun said. “I thought we did a great job on them tonight.” 

Kohn took up the slack by scoring 18 points, all on three-pointers. 

“We didn’t expect that from him,” Cal forward Sean Lampley said. “The point guards were told to lay off of him.” 

Cal won the game at the free-throw line, shooting 35 freebies to just 13 by the Bulls. That fact didn’t go unnoticed by South Florida head coach Seth Greenberg, who said he thought the officiating crew would be mixed, rather than the Pac-10 crew that worked the game. 

“It’s real hard to win the game when they go to the line that many more times than us,” he said. 

The Bears came into the game looking to shake the memory of their 26-point loss to Stanford on Wednesday, but the South Florida 1-3-1 zone confused them for nearly the entire game. The Cal offense was totally out of sync in the first half, as the guards tossed the ball back and forth without showing much initiative. Braun told Lampley at halftime that he needed to go get the ball for the offense to run correctly. 

“Coach told me that it was my fault we weren’t doing anything,” said Lampley, who led all scorers with 16 points. “So I stepped to the high post to help out.” 

Braun said he isn’t afraid to put the pressure on his lone senior’s shoulders. 

“I tell Sean all the time he’s the reason we’re good and he’s the reason we’re bad,” Braun said. “He’s a senior and he can take it.”