What a start!! The California Golden Bears blitzed the Louisville Cardinals in the first 10 minutes and held on for a 77-62 victory in the opening round of the 2010 NCAA Tournament. The Bears jumped out to an astounding 18 point lead, getting to 30 with 10:30 left in the first half as Jerome Randle, Patrick Christopher, and Theo Robertson shredded the nets. After the initial blackout though, the Bears came back down to earth and the game got interesting as Louisville's press started generating turnovers and the Bears hot shooting cooled a bit. The Cardinals were playing from behind all night, but got a career high 20 points from Rakeem Buckles and 16 from Samardo Samuels as the Bears struggled to match up with the Cardinals' size. Riding the hot senior shooters, California shot 53% from the 3 point line and 51% overall, while taking advantage of their free throw opportunities.

I'm so exciting that we're finally playing up to our potential in front of the nation, and we can finally shut up all that talk about the Pac-10 being totally horrible. The Big LEast is now 0-2 against the Pac-10 (Washington defeated Marquette on a buzzer beater by Quincy Pondexter) and the Bears have their first tourney win since 2003. Unfortunately, we have Duke in the next round and without Amoke, size will be even more of an issue as the Golden Bears will need to deal with 7 footer Brian Zoubek, Kyle Singler, Miles/Mason Plumlee, and Lance Thomas. Does the 1993 Jason Kidd led Cal upset of defending National Champion Duke ring any bells? Just sayin....