ARIZONA RACES PAST CALIFORNIA  1/12/95

By DON BOSLEY
 McClatchy News Service

BERKELEY -- By the time the Cal Bears got a handle on Damon Stoudamire on
Thursday night, they'd discovered too late that the little guy had brought
friends.

Arizona's 5-foot-11 point guard scorched the Bears for 21 first-half points,
then sat back for 14-plus scoreless minutes and let his teammates nick Cal on
the chin in the Wildcats' 99-86 victory at Harmon Arena.

Stoudamire finished with 26 points and 10 assists as No. 13 Arizona handed
the 20th-ranked Bears their third loss in four games. Cal, once 7-0, slipped
to 8-3 on the season and 1-2 in the Pacific-10 Conference, with 12th-ranked
Arizona State due for a visit Saturday.

When the Bears overplayed Stoudamire in the second half, Arizona went inside
to Ben Davis (18 points) and Joseph Blair (15).

Cal senior Monty Buckley scored a career-high 27 points, including 19 in the
first half, but received no such support from his teammates. Anwar McQueen
scored 16, freshman Jelani Gardner 13 and freshman Tony Gonzalez 12 for the
Bears, but Cal looked befuddled on offense for much of the night.

Arizona, which visits Stanford on Saturday, improved to 11-3 and 1-1.

Cal was woefully lean in the frontcourt for this one, with 6-9 enforcer Al
Grigsby out with a hamstring injury, and starting center Ryan Jamison and
backup Sean Marks hobbled by sprained ankles. Jamison checked in for four
ineffective minutes in the first half, and the other two saw no action.

That left the Bears sorely lacking in beef against the Wildcats' front line.
Buckley and Jelani Gardner were called upon to defend the likes of the
265-pound Blair, to whom they yielded 55 and 60 pounds, respectively.

Robbed of the depth that has sparked much of their success so far, the Bears
looked confused and unsure of themselves throughout the game. Coach Todd
Bozeman continually had to scream and stomp on the sideline to make his
instructions understood, and was uncharacteristically loud and agitated with
his team during timeouts.

The Bears have no shortage of excellent backcourt defenders, but none could
even seem to locate Stoudamire in the first half. Randy Duck, K.J. Roberts
and McQueen took runs at the senior, all falling victim to a smoking series
of feints, fakes, drives and jumpers.

Stoudamire hit 9 of 11 shots in the first 20 minutes, 3 of 4 from the
three-point line. He also had four rebounds, five assists and a steal before
intermission.

With time running down in the first half, Stoudamire casually held the ball
near halfcourt, then shook Roberts with a little shimmy that left most of the
Harmon crowd smacking its collective forehead. His layup just before the
buzzer punctuated Cal's state of disarray and sent the Bears to the locker
room trailing 46-34.

It would have been far worse if not for the determined scoring touch of Cal
senior Buckley, who had 19 of Cal's 34 first-half points. Buckley scored 10
points in barely one minute to lift the Bears from a nine-point deficit to a
23-22 lead midway through the first half.