Cal escapes Arizona duel with 78-74 OT win

For the second time in less than a week, the Cal women’s basketball team was heading into overtime in unfamiliar territory.

Those two overtime games looked surprisingly similar, with two underdogs stealing the second half. But the difference between the Bears’ opponents is night and day.

Last Saturday, Cal launched a 22-8 comeback run against Stanford that sent a Maples Pavilion game into extra minutes for the first time since 2007. In that contest, the Bears battered an impenetrable Stanford in its closest win of the season.

But at the McKale Center in Tucson, Ariz., on Thursday night, the Bears were the ones who sputtered in the face of a 22-point run.

Cal finally clinched the tilt at the end of extra