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Dennis Gates scored a career-high 17 points as Cal completed a home sweep of the Los Angeles schools by routing USC, 83-64, Saturday afternoon at Haas Pavilion. 

The win improved Cal’s record to 20-6, 11-5 in the Pac-10, and gave head coach Ben Braun his third 20-win season at Cal. USC fell to 19-7, 11-5 in conference, and into a second-place tie with Cal and Arizona. 

Gates was one of four Golden Bears in double figures, including fellow senior starters Ryan Forehan-Kelly (14 points) and Solomon Hughes (10). 

“I’m really happy for them,” Braun said of his seniors. “Their winners by their attitude, by their unselfishness. They’re team guys. I couldn’t ask for a better effort from Solomon, Dennis and Forehan-Kelly.” 

Point guard A.J. Diggs, who started in place of the injured Shantay Legans, chipped in 12 points, four assists and three steals. 

Diggs had his hands full with USC’s Brandon Granville, one of the few Trojans who arrived in Berkeley with his shooting touch intact. The Cal walk-on sophomore did a nice job against USC’s experienced senior point guard, who scored 12 points on 4-of-9 shooting and dished out eight assists. 

“A.J. certainly never backed down from a challenge,” Braun said. “He had a solid game. Not too many people play harder than A.J.” 

The Bears trademark stingy defense made life miserable for the Trojans and star Sam Clancy. The 6-foot-7 center, averaging 19.2 points per game coming into the day, scored 11 points on 4-of-16 shooting. The Bears held USC to just 33.8 percent shooting from the field for the game. 

Freshman Jamal Sampson spent most of the time guarding Clancy, and the freshman outplayed the Pac-10 Player of the Year candidate. 

“I thought this was a big game for him,” Braun said of Sampson. “He’s a guy who takes that challenge [of defending Clancy] on. Jamal was with him step for step.” 

Sampson and the Bears were all over the Trojans during an eight-minute stretch of the second quarter during which Cal outscored USC 12-0. At the 10:52 mark, a Granville free throw tied the game at 24-24, but his team didn’t score again until Clancy hit a bucket with 2:38 remaining in the half. Meanwhile, Sampson scored six points with Clancy guarding him and blocked a shot. Sampson finished with four blocks for the game. 

Joe Shipp had two dunks during the run. The first came off a beautiful behind-the-back, no-look pass from Amit Tamir. The latter had an off-day shooting the ball, making 1-of-7 from the field, but he led the Bears with seven assists. 

‘You can’t measure his worth in just points,’ Braun said. ‘What I was impressed with is he had seven assists and no turnovers.’ 

Cal took a 42-31 lead into halftime. 

USC started out the second half as the more aggressive team, closing to within seven points with a 10-6 run that made the score 48-41. But that was the closest the Trojans would get. Cal slapped them with a 15-7 run, which included six points from Gates and blocked shots by Hughes and Sampson, and the lead swelled to 63-48. 

Cal travels to face the Arizona schools next week with a shot at first place on the line. The Bears need one or both of the L.A. schools to beat first-place Oregon (20-7, 12-4) next week and hope for good results against Arizona State and Arizona. 

But they’ll enjoy this weekend first. 

“They’re big wins,” Braun said of sweeping the L.A. schools. “Playing UCLA and USC in back-to-back games, that’s tough. It’s nice to be getting these wins at the end of the year. I hope it’s indicative of where we’re going.”