{"id":138257,"date":"2026-01-18T00:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T00:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/138257\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T00:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T00:13:09","slug":"california-hands-no-14-north-carolina-its-second-straight-loss-in-bay-area-84-78","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/138257\/","title":{"rendered":"California hands No. 14 North Carolina its second straight loss in Bay Area, 84-78"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERKELEY, Calif. — – John Camden<\/a> scored 20 points and Dai Dai Ames<\/a> and Justin Pippen<\/a> each added 19 as California built a 20-point lead and held off No. 14 North Carolina 84-78 on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Tar Heels (14-4, 2\/3 Atlantic Coast Conference) absorbed their second straight loss in the Bay Area; they fell 95-90 at Stanford on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Cal (14-5, 2-4) owned that 20-point lead early in the second half. A basket by Ames gave the Bears a 74-55 edge with 8:26 left before the Tar Heels rallied.<\/p>\n

Carolina cut its deficit to 81-78 on a 3-pointer by Henri Veesar with 19 seconds remaining but Pippen hit two foul shots with 10 seconds to go to just about clinch the decision.<\/p>\n

Pippen had a game-high five assists. His father Scottie, a Basketball Hall of Famer, was part of the announced crowd of 8,077 at Haas Pavilion.<\/p>\n

Cal had a decided advantage in 3-point shooting: The Bears went 14 for 26 from beyond the arc. The Heels were 9 for 27.<\/p>\n

Freshman Caleb Wilson<\/a> led Carolina with 17 points. Veesar had 14 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

The Bears’ Lee Dort<\/a> grabbed a game-high 12 boards.<\/p>\n

California scored the game’s first seven points, put together an 11-0 run to take a 26-13 lead and did not trail at any point Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Bears took their biggest lead of the first half when Ames hit a jumper with 14 seconds remaining to put Cal up 54-35. Derek Dixon’s layup just before the buzzer cut the Heels’ deficit to 54-37 at the break.<\/p>\n

Camden led all scorers in the half with 16 points as Cal went 10 for 16 from beyond the arc in the opening 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

North Carolina hosts Notre Dame on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Cal plays at Stanford next Saturday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college basketball: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKELEY, Calif. — – John Camden scored 20 points and Dai Dai Ames and Justin Pippen each added…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[70146,7,3369,9,8,750,24795,9384],"class_list":["post-138257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-70146","tag-california","tag-california-golden-bears","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-espn","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-north-carolina-tar-heels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}