Bears basketball game day: Cal at Washington State

The Bears are riding a four-game winning streak.

With less than three weeks until the conference tournament, the Bears are 1.5 games behind Pac-12-leader Arizona.

Cal, 2-8 away from Berkeley this season, has three of its final five regular-season games outside Haas Pavilion.

On Sunday, the Bears will go for their first Pac-12 road sweep since they won at the Washington schools last year.

The Cougars are living up to their last-place slot in the Pac-12’s preseason media poll.

On Sunday, the Cougars will honor seniors Junior Longrus and Brett Boese in a pregame ceremony.

In Washington’s Jan. 9 loss to Washington, Hawkinson recorded his first career 20-20 double-double (21 points, 20 rebounds).

The Shoreline, Wash., native is on pace to narrowly fall short of his single-season program record of 334 rebounds.

Hawkinson ranks 12th all-time at Washington State with 643 career rebounds.

Through 25 games this season, Washington State has used 12 different starting lineups.

Nine Cougars players have started at least three games, with junior Ike Iroegbu being the only one to start all 26.

The Bears lead the Pac-12 in field goal percentage defense (38.9 percent) and scoring defense (67 points per game).

In a season defined by lopsided losses, the Cougars have excelled at little.

Though 0-7 in true road games this season, Washington State is 8-8 in Pullman.

In that game, the Cougars shot 55 percent from the floor.

The Bears lead the series, 78-48, and they have won five of the past six games between the schools.

[...] a sparse crowd at Beasley Coliseum — Washington State is a distant last in the Pac-12 with 2,835 fans per home game — shouldn’t trigger a meltdown from Cal.