Men's Basketball

With a chance to sweep the Cardinal for the first time since 2010 and collect the first Cal win in Palo Alto under head coach Mark Fox, the Bears simply could not rise to the challenge.

The only time since the turn of the century that Cal swept Stanford in basketball was the 2010 season. The Bears will look to break out the brooms once more in Palo Alto on Friday. Here’s to making history.

The Bears dropped two home games this week. The first was a 58-87 walloping by Oregon. Not to be outdone by its neighbors, Oregon State handed the blue and gold a 48-68 defeat three days later.

After allowing Washington State to come back and defeat them in overtime, the Bears return to Berkeley for two games against conference rivals from Oregon.

The game remained relatively close until the midway point of the second half, when Cal’s perimeter savviness just proved to be too much for the visiting team to handle.

Although the blue and gold fell to Utah in an ugly performance, they were able to bounce back in a historic way over Colorado to ring in the new year right and pick up their second victory of the season.

The Supreme Court of the United States, the British Monarchy and Cal basketball’s losing streak: It was actually the last of the three — not the institutions that are designed as bastions of stability in a fickle, volatile society — that remained constant over the last nine-and-a-half months.

Now that the Cardinals have defected from the exclusive club of winless Division I teams, it’s not a club anymore — it’s just Cal.

The Bears continue their nightmare season slide, falling to 0-11, in an 82-58 blowout loss to the Bulldogs.

With its total losses now reaching double digits, Cal is no longer just battling talent and skill gaps, but morale ones too.