Well, the Cal-Kansas game has come and gone. The Bears played well for the first thirty minutes, then faded. A lot of calls went against them in succession, too, which didn't help. I didn't have my hopes up, since the team only recently got reasonably healthy and had just come off a long lay-off. I don't think it's any accident that key starter Theo Robertson, who had missed the Madison Square Garden losses and the one at New Mexico -- never an easy place to play -- had a sterling first half and then disappeared. It takes a while to get one's stamina back.

I'm disappointed, of course. I wish we'd pulled one of our early season tests out. But being down seven to the top-ranked Jayhawks in Lawrence, who had won forty-eight straight at home, with 5:36 to go beats getting blown out of the water by Syracuse on a semi-neutral court. As Bobby Knight said during his color commentary, it's hard to think of any loss as a "good" one. That said, I still think Cal has a decent shot at doing well in the Pac-10 and making the Dance, even though the conference will probably only get three teams in this year. Having the strength of schedule they do, a huge upgrade over previous years, will help the RPI.

The Bears need to play better defense, close games with more intensity, as Kansas did tonight, and do a better job of moving both Robertson and Patrick Christopher, who seems to have worked his way out of a dreadful early-season slump, off screens so there's less hand-in-the-face three point shooting as the shot clock winds down. Oh, and we really could use Harper Kamp, whom I fear may be out for the season. We're just too thin down low, literally, on top of also being too short.

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