For a team contending for its first conference championship in 50 years, Cal's attendance has been a big disappointment this season.
Even after perhaps his team's biggest victory of the season, Cal coach Mike Montgomery wasn't 100 percent satisfied with everything that happened Thursday night at Haas Pavilion.
Asked if he was happy with the crowd of 9,839 fans who watched the Bears beat Washington 93-81, Montgomery paused and said, ``We need more.''
The game began early 6 p.m. for ESPN2 but the late-arriving crowd wound up being just the fifth-biggest of the season among 13 home games. Cal has not sold a game out this season, and reached the Haas capacity of 11,877 just once in 2008-09.
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``We need to get these people excited a little bit. We're in a battle for the conference championship and we've only got three [now two] home games left,'' Montgomery said.
As of late Friday afternoon, the Cal ticket office reported having sold about 9,550 tickets for [Saturday's] game.
``It wouldn't hurt my sensibilities if everybody showed up and we filled the place up and we just got excited about it,'' Montgomery said.
Cal is averaging 8,443 fans, which ranks third in the conference, behind Arizona (13,571) and Washington (9,311)
After the jump Cal crashes the Cougar block party to maintain its one-game lead in the conference standings. Meanwhile, Alexis Gray-Lawson battles through a late-game ankle injury to score 35 and lead Cal to an OT win over Washington.
Cal Basketball
- Down by as many as 14 points early on, Cal rallied behind terrific efforts from Randle, Theo, PC, and Jorge to take an 86-70 win over WSU. Ken Bone's technical with under three minutes left was a huge turning point in the victory. From there Cal established an insurmountable 78-70 lead.
- Monty was especially pleased with Cal's defense, as they held WSU scoreless on 10 of their last 12 possessions.
- Behind Alexis Gray-Lawson's 35 points (including a big three and a pair of clutch free throws in OT), the Cal women defeated Washington 75-68 in overtime.