Bears are a different breed

LOS ANGELES - A season defined by surprises will have, somewhat shockingly, its best team facing its hottest squad in the Pac-10 tournament final today.

Cal rallied from a four-point halftime deficit Friday night to end UCLA's season, 85-72. The Golden Bears will face Washington, which beat Stanford in the other semifinal.

For the first 20 minutes, however, it appeared the baby-blue- and-gold-clad partisans would get their wish - the hometown Bruins playing for an unlikely NCAA tournament berth today. Behind senior Michael Roll, who didn't want his career to end this early, UCLA surged to a 39-30 lead with 1:20 left in the first half.

Two Cal free throws and a Jerome Randle three-pointer cut the game to four as the halftime buzzer sounded.

"This was their opportunity to go to the NCAA tournament," Cal coach Mike Montgomery said, "and they frankly played a little harder than we did to start with."

Then again, he said, "it doesn't hurt to shoot 70 percent in the second half, either." The Golden Bears took a one-point lead within about three minutes, surged ahead to 10 within the next five minutes, and cruised to victory. They made 70.8 percent of their second-half shots.

Randle, the Pac-10 Player of the Year, scored 24 points to lead Cal. In the process, he passed Sean Lampley by two points to become the Golden Bears' all-time leading scorer.

"If you shoot enough, you're going to score, eventually," Montgomery joked.

Randle said Lampley had been telling him to break the mark, even texting him Friday morning.

"He's been calling me and telling me, 'When are you going to break it?'" he said. "I'm like, 'Be patient.'"

Montgomery said the senior point guard is one of the greatest shooters he's ever coached.

"He's got great range and he's really been good the last half of this season," he said.

"There's been a lot of great players at Cal. He should be very proud of the fact."

After scoring 16 first-half points, Roll didn't score a second-half basket until the 7:42 mark. By then, the Golden Bears led by 11, and it was too late.

He finished with a career-high 27 points on 8-of-15 shooting.

"We lost," he said. "It's my last game here. I don't really care about the career high or anything."

When he was removed from the game in its final minute, most of the Staples Center crowd, and Montgomery, stood and applauded. Afterward, Montgomery told Roll how much he respected his game.

Roll was perhaps the most unlikely UCLA star in years - a role player forced to handle much of the scoring after Jrue Holiday left for the NBA after his freshman year. The Bruins' 14-18 record was a far cry from Ben Howland's previous five years.

The Golden Bears will play Washington at 4 p.m. today.

• Washington 79, Stanford 64: The Huskies never trailed the Cardinal, giving themselves a chance today for an automatic NCAA tournament bid and certainly improving their odds for an at-large berth.

Quincy Pondexter led the Huskies with 19 points. Stanford's two shooting stars, Landry Fields and Jeremy Green, combined to make only 8 of 29 shots.

Fields finished with 20 in what was likely his last college game.

Even a loss today against top seed Cal and its RPI of 20 doesn't figure to harm Washington's 49 RPI. With Friday night's win, UW became the Pac-10's clear-cut second-best team for NCAA tournament consideration.