Basketball is a game of runs, and Thursday night’s battle between the Cal Bears and Arizona Wildcats was no different. Unfortunately for Cal it was Arizona that got the last run as they fell 78-74 and watched their 17 game home winning streak come to an abrupt end.

With so much at stake for both teams, including first place for the Bears, the atmosphere in Haas Pavilion was definitely buzzing. Cal has dropped both games to the Cats last season, both by two points and the game in Berkeley went three overtimes. On top of that they were fighting to stay in a tie for first place in the Pac-12 with Washington.

The runs started early as Cal took off first with the score already tied at six. Their offensive rebounding prompted the burst as they collected six on their way to a 22-9 advantage with just over ten minutes to go. Harper Kamp ended up with four offensive rebounds in the first half to go along with eight points, and Jorge Gutierrez led the team with ten points at half.

Now it was Arizona’s turn and they took it to another level as they went the rest of the half on a 36-12 run of their own. Senior Kyle Fogg was hot as can be right from the start. He was 5-6 shooting in the first half including hitting all three of this long distance shots, he had 13 at half as they led 45-34. The team as a whole hit 13 out of 14 shots during that stretch.

The only reason Cal was even that close was because of the Wildcats poor free throw shooting, they were 6-14. The crowd was already boisterous with what they perceived as some poor officiating, and they let their presence be known each time Arizona had the ball. At one point Aaron, the best hype man I've ever seen, he ran across the court during a timeout shirtless. The crowd had the amp turned all the way up.

The energy didn’t kick in right away as the lead grew to as much as 14 points. When sophomore guard Justin Cobbs drove down the lane through traffic for a layup and an old school three point play. Kamp was next to get into the act and he completed two more conventional three pointers which cut the lead to five at 56-51.

Kamp finished with 22 points and 9 rebounds. The points are his highest total since last season when he poured in 33 also against Arizona. When the Arizona native was asked if he has a thing with Arizona he said “I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, but I felt good tonight.”

Cal caught a break when Arizona got a little too frisky in the second half and put them in the bonus with over 13 minutes to go. It worked to their advantage as the hit 9-10 in the half and 15-16 overall. The lead would bounce back up to 11 before Cal would comeback yet again to cut it to two at 66-64.

Jorge, who always goes 150 mph dove into the Arizona bench and got up quite angry. He perceived that he was held or grabbed by an assistant coach, but cooler heads prevailed, but it pumped the crowd back up as they began to chant “JORGE JORGE JORGE”. Right out of that timeout Gutierrez hits a reverse layup and Justin Cobbs stole the ball and dunked it home to finally even the score at 72 with 3:40 left. At that point it was so loud that you couldn’t even hear yourself speak let alone the person next to you.

Over the next couple of minutes they played good defense on both ends and nobody could seem to score. Then Cal had a defensive lapse as they let Fogg loose in the corner and he drained his fifth three pointer of the game and gave his team a three point lead with 1:23 to go that they wouldn’t relinquish. Cal’s last few possessions were a missed layup by Jorge, a blocked three pointer from Allen Crabbe, and then Cobbs’ layup was wiped away at the rim and the game was over.

When asked what the defining factors in the game Coach Mike Montgomery said “the physical play threw us off and they really executed, and Fogg was really good.” After having tied the score near the end he said “we just couldn’t make plays down the stretch. It wasn’t their quickness. They were a lot more physical.” Could be just stating the facts, or could be he’s challenging his team to get a bit tougher.

They will get a chance to quickly redeem themselves on Saturday as they’ll host the Arizona St. Sun Devils who were beaten by Stanford. With talk around the NCAA that the Pac-12 is in a down year and might only have one or two teams participating in the Madness of March, Cal will need to put together a pretty good run during the second half of their schedule.