Top 50 Cal Sports Moments -- No. 3: Greeting Oscar, 1959

Bob Dalton’s pregame exchange with Cincinnati star Oscar Robertson set a tone for Cal’s upset victory in the national semifinals

Bob Dalton, front row, far left / Cal Athletics

As the Pac-12 Conference era comes to a close after more than a century, we count down the Top 50 moments involving Cal athletics.

THE MOMENT: Cal was poised to face Cincinnati and Oscar Robertson — the nation’s best and most well-known player — in the 1959 national semifinals — when junior forward Bob Dalton greeted the Bearcats’ star in a most disarming way.

THE STORY: Oscar Robertson once scored 62 points in a high school basketball game. He put up 56 points in his varsity debut at Cincinnati and recorded two more games of at least 50 before leading the Bearcats into the Final Four against underdog Cal as a junior in 1959.

Everyone knew Oscar Robertson, who stood 6-foot-5, weighed 205 pounds and could score, rebound and pass. No one had an answer for the “Big O.” 

Weighing in at 6-3, 178 pounds, Cal junior Bob Dalton was given the opening assignment to defend Robertson. Dalton made his first move just before tipoff, while introducing himself.

"Hi, my name's Dalton. What's yours?” Dalton reportedly said, in a brilliant piece of gamesmanship. 

We sometimes wonder if the exchange was apocryphal. Whatever the case, the story is too wonderful to ignore. Robertson knew one thing as the game began — the Bears were not afraid of him.

If you’re now expecting to read that Dalton and teammate Jack Grout completely neutralized the national player of the year and NCAA scoring leader, we offer no such chapter of fiction. 

Robertson’s stat line — 19 points and 19 rebounds — would be a triumph for any other player. But Dalton and Grout held him nearly 14 points below his season average of 32.6 and limited him to a single field goal in the second half.

Center Darrall Imhoff scored 22 points, Al Buch added 18 and coach Pete Newell’s team pulled the upset of the year in Louisville, winning 64-58 to move into the championship game the next night, where they met another budding legend.

The Bears captured the national title with a 71-70 victory over West Virginia, which got 28 points from Jerry West in a losing cause.

* Top 50 Moment No. 4: Wrong Way

* Top 50 Moment No. 5: The Pass

Only specific acts that occurred while the team or athlete was at Cal were considered for the Top 50 list, and accomplishments spanning a season or a career were not included. 

Leslie Mitchell of the Cal Bears History Twitter site aided in the selection of the top 50 moments.

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