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BERKELEY — This wasn't exactly a new experience for Marquise Kately and his Cal basketball teammates, but it had been a while.
"I like what I'm feeling right now," Kately said Saturday after helping the Golden Bears to a 63-57 overtime conquest of Washington State, breaking a six-game losing streak that lasted exactly one month. "I hope I'm feeling like this next week."
The Bears will get the chance, at least, thanks to UCLA's 73-61 win over Oregon, the final piece in the puzzle that lifts Cal into the Pac-10 tournament. Cal (13-15, 6-12) and Oregon (14-13, 6-12) finished tied for eighth place, but an early-season win at UCLA gave Cal the tiebreaker.
"I wanted our guys to have an opportunity
to play in the postseason," coach Ben Braun said. "I think we'll be uplifted ... but the challenge doesn't get easier."
Cal's opening-round opponent Thursday at Staples Center in Los Angeles will be regular-season champ Arizona, whichdusted the Bears by margins of 20 and 21 points this season.
That's tomorrow's concern. The Bears just wanted to keep playing.
Faced with the prospect of becoming the first team in school history to finish a season with seven consecutive defeats, Cal overcame its own trampled confidence and a stunning performance by WSU senior guard Thomas Kelati.
"That would have been a hard, bitter pill for us," Braun said. "Our team had lost some of what we call that collective
will that you have to have. Our guys showed some heart, character and commitment to the defensive end."
Cal had barely been competitive in five of its previous six defeats, and there seemed no telling what to expect Saturday.
Not so, said junior Rod Benson. "It's the last game, you have to play hard, no matter what," said Benson, who had 15 points and eight rebounds. "It's also a pride thing — you don't want to be one of the two teams not going to the tournament."
Cal overcame a career-high 29-point effort by Kelati, who outscored the Bears by himself through the game's first 17 minutes, then forced overtime with a long 3-pointer.
WSU scored the first four points of
OT, Cal tied it, then Kelati hit his seventh 3-pointer of the game for a 57-54 lead with 2:12 left.
Those were the Cougars' final points. Cal scored the game's last nine points, taking the lead for good on a reverse layup by Kately with 1:26 left.
Kately shot 8-for-10 and scored 17 points, his highest output since Cal's second game of the season. Dominic McGuire had 11 rebounds, and freshman DeVon Hardin had seven rebounds and two blocked shots.
The Cougars (12-15, 7-11), who will be the No. 6 seed and face Stanford in the Pac-10, shot 32.2 percent, just 22.7 percent aside from Kelati.
The Bears, down much of the afternoon, got even at 47-apiece on a spectacular spinning drive
and free throw by Martin Smith, then two free throws by Richard Midgley with 2:26 left.
Midgley missed two free throws on Cal's next possession, then drilled a 3-pointer — what would have been his first of the game — with 1:24 left, just as Braun called for a timeout. The three points didn't count.
Instead, McGuire made the first of two free throws with 58.8 seconds left and, after he missed the second, stripped the ball from Kelati, and fed it to Kately for a dunk that made it 50-47.
Derrick Low missed a 3-pointer with 22 seconds left, but the long rebound went to the Cougars, who called timeout. Everyone knew the ball was going to Kelati. He delivered anyway, sinking a long 3-pointer
over tight defense from McGuire to tie the game with 7.1 seconds left and force overtime.
"I saw the looks on our players afterward — we were pretty happy," Braun said. "Winning with great effort is the best feeling.
"I think our players, to a man, feel like we earned something today."
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