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Randle leads Cal past Arizona State

Jan 5, 2009 - 5:16 AM BERKELEY, California (Ticker) -- Jerome Randle scored 26 points to lead California to an 81-71 victory over No. 14 Arizona State on Sunday night.

Randle added 10 assists for the Golden Bears (13-2, 2-0 Pac-10), who won their seventh straight game.

James Harden had 26 points and eight rebounds for Arizona State (12-2, 1-1), which had won eight straight entering the game and was coming off a 30-point rout of previously undefeated Stanford on Friday.

"The kids really played hard," Cal coach Mike Montgomery said. "Arizona State is really a good team. Harden is good, had the ball in his hands every single time. We didn't have the answer to him, necessarily, but we made him work. We felt like we didn't want (Jeff) Pendergraph to go off on us, so we tried to do the best we could on (James) Harden."

Patrick Christopher added 20 points for Cal, which completed a sweep over the Arizona schools to open conference play after a 69-55 victory over Arizona on Friday night.

"This just means we did a nice job, we held homecourt," Montgomery said. "We want to compete every night out. We're going to take our chances. We had to see if we could compete, and I think we can if we do the things we did tonight."

Jeff Pendergraph and Rihards Kuksiks each scored 16 points for Arizona State.

"The biggest key: we had a hard time getting stops," Arizona State coach Herb Sendek said. "They really took us apart. They're a very difficult team to defend, and we just didn't have the answers we needed on the defensive end of the floor tonight. They're quick and they're skilled."