Cal Basketball: The Golden Bears' Best and Worst NCAA Tournament Openers

As the NCAA tourney gets under way, Cal is a spectator for the sixth straight season.

The NCAA tournament — the most exciting three weeks in American sports — begins this week with 68 participants from across the landscape. And for the sixth straight season, Cal will be watching on TV.

The Bears made their NCAA debut in 1946 and advanced to the Final Four, although doing so in that era required merely winning their first game.

They played in the NCAAs most recently in 2016, losing in the first round to a Hawaii team that had never won a game in the event.

Over that span of 70 years, Cal appeared in the NCAA tournament 19 times. Fourteen of those trips to the Big Dance occurred in a 26-year span beginning in 1990 when the Bears ended a 30-year absence.

Cal fans won’t get to embrace the joy of their team playing this year, but we’re taking a look back at four of the Bears’ best NCAA opening games, four that were cringe-worthy and a review of the other 11.

FOUR GAMES WORTH REMEMBERING

1959: The Bears began the march to their only national championship with a 71-53 win over Utah at the Cow Palace. Every starter scored at least nine points, led by Al Buch with 15 and Bob Dalton with 13. Cal won four times in nine days to claim the NCAA crown after a 71-70 win over Jerry West and West Virginia in the national championship game at Louisville.

1990: Coach Lou Campanelli ended the Bears’ 30-year NCAA drought when the team posted a 65-63 win over Indiana at Hartford, Connecticut. Keith Smith scored 19 points for the Bears and Brian Hendrick had 15 points and 11 rebounds. The Hoosiers were coached by Bob Knight, who played on the Ohio State team that beat Cal in the 1960 national championship — the last time the Bears took the floor in an NCAA tournament game. The Bears lost to Connecticut in their second-round game.

Jason Kidd / Courtesy of Cal Athletics

1993: Cal scored a stunning 66-64 win over LSU at the Rosemont Horizon outside Chicago when Jason Kidd made his driving “pretzel shot” to win it at the buzzer. Lamond Murray scored 23 points and had 10 rebounds and Kidd, the freshman All-American, had 16 points and seven assists. The Bears upset two-time defending national champion Duke in the second round before losing to Kansas in the regional semifinals.

2003: Richard Midgley, a freshman guard from England, drilled the game-winning 3-point shot with 3.9 seconds left in overtime as the Bears beat North Carolina State 76-74 at Oklahoma City. Joe Shipp led Cal with 24 points and Solomon Hughes had 14 points and nine rebounds. Playing a home-crowd favorite in the second round for the second year in a row, the Bears lost to Oklahoma.

FOUR CAL FANS WOULD LIKE TO FORGET

1994: After soaring into the Sweet 16 the year before, the Bears crashed to earth in ’94 with a shocking 61-57 first-round loss to underdog Wisconsin-Green Bay at Ogden, Utah. Jason Kidd had 12 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists in his final college game and Lamond Murray exited with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Given the expectations surrounding the team, this was Cal’s most disappointing first-round performance in the NCAA tournament.

1996: In controversial coach Todd Bozeman’s final game, the Bears lost 74-64 to Iowa State. The Cyclones roughed up Cal one-and-done star freshman Shareef Abdur-Rahim, holding him to seven points on 1-for-6 shooting. Tremaine Fowlkes scored 26 points for Cal, then transferred to Fresno State.

Mike Montgomery and Jorge Gutierrez / Photo by Cary Edmondson, USA Today

2012: Cal’s 65-54 loss to South Florida in a “First Four” game at Dayton Ohio left coach Mike Montgomery in knots. The Bears scored just 13 first-half points and were scoreless over the final 8:55. “That's probably as bad as I've seen us play,” Montgomery said. “We weren't doing much of anything." Harper Kamp had 19 points and eight rebounds for Cal.

2016: Cal’s most recent trip to the NCAA tournament produced a 77-66 loss to 13th-seeded Hawaii in Spokane, Washington, and proved to be the final game for Jaylen Brown, who bolted to the NBA. The fourth-seeded Bears played without leading scorer Tyrone Wallace, sidelined by a broken hand, and Jabari Bird, who developed back spasms just before the game. Brown shot 1 for 6 and had seven turnovers while Jordan Mathews scored 23 points before transferring to Gonzaga.

THE BEARS’ OTHER 11 NCAA OPENERS

Andy Wolfe / Courtesy of Cal Athletics

1946: Cal’s inaugural trip to the NCAA tournament began in Kansas City with a 50-44 win over Colorado. Andy Wolfe — who became the first Cal player to score 1,000 career points — had 17 points to lead the Bears, who lost subsequent tournament games to Oklahoma A&M and Ohio State, the latter designated as the Final Four third-place game.

Larry Friend / Courtesy of Cal Athletics

1957: In the first of coach Pete Newell’s four straight trips to the NCAAs, the Bears used 25 points from Larry Friend and 18 from Earl Robinson to easily beat BYU 86-59 in Corvallis, Oregon. Cal lost 50-46 to USF in the West regional final the next day.

1958: Two-sport star Earl Robinson scored 13 points and Bob Dalton and Don McIntosh each had 10 as the Bears dispatched Idaho State 54-43 at the Cow Palace. Cal was eliminated in the West Regional final after future Lakers star Elgin Baylor scored 26 points to power Seattle’s 66-62 overtime victory.

1960: Top-ranked Cal began defense of its title with a 71-44 waltz past Idaho State at the Cow Palace. All-America center Darrall Imhoff had 19 points and 11 rebounds and Bill McClintock scored 15 for the Bears. Cal trekked north to win twice in Seattle then returned to the Cow Palace to beat Oscar Robertson and Cincinnati in the national semifinals before being rocked 75-55 by an Ohio State team featuring John Havlicek and Jerry Lucas.

Randy Duck / Courtesy of Cal Athletics

1997: First-year coach Ben Braun’s squad began a drive to the Sweet 16 with a 55-52 win over Princeton. Randy Duck scored 16 points and future Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez contributed 13 points and eight rebounds. The Bears beat Villanova before losing to a North Carolina team featuring Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison. Hard to believe it was 25 years ago.

2001: In a ridiculous failure to recognize geography, the NCAA sent two California schools —Cal and Fresno State — all the way to Memphis, Tennessee, where the Bulldogs posted an 82-70 first-round victory over Cal. Shantay Legans scored 15 points and Sean Lampley 13 for the Bears.

2002: Cal opened with an 82-75 win over Penn as Joe Shipp scored 20 points and Brian Wethers had 19. The Bears were ousted by host Pitt in the second round.

Leon Powe / Courtesy of Cal Athletics

2006: The Bears lost 58-52 to North Carolina State, which swarmed Cal star Leon Powe, throwing a series of defenders at him. Powe finished 14 points and 12 rebounds and Rod Benson scored 13.

2009: First-year coach Mike Montgomery, who spent two decades torturing the Bears from Stanford, got Cal back to the NCAA tournament, where they lost 84-71 to Maryland at Kansas City. Theo Robertson scored 22 for the Bears and Jerome Randle had 14 points and seven assists.

2010: Returning to the NCAAs as the Pac-10 regular-season champs — Cal’s first conference crown in 50 years — the Bears took out Louisville 77-62 in the first round at Jacksonville, Florida. Randle, the Pac-10 Player of the Year, and Robertson each scored 21 points and Patrick Christopher scored 15 to go with eight rebounds. Duke eliminated the Bears in the second round.

2013: The Bears got a “home” game in Montgomery’s fourth and final trip to the NCAAs before retiring. Pac-12 Player of the Year Allen Crabbe scored 19 points and the Bears confused UNLV with a surprise zone defense in a 64-61 win at San Jose. Cal lost to Syracuse in the second round.

Cover photo of Cal's 1959 national championship team courtesy of Cal Athletics

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo