More than a few NBA scouts made their way out to Haas Pavilion Saturday night to watch Iowa State's Craig Brackins. While the junior may have been worthy of the solo attention, the No. 25 Cal basketball team showed that he's only one guy, weathering the Cyclones, 82-63.

"This is the first time in a long time we've had some energy," Cal coach Mike Montgomery said. "Hopefully, we're climbing out of this trough a little bit. We played hard on defense. I thought that we caused them some problems."

At 6-foot-10, Brackins demands attention and the Bears (5-3) gave him all 7-foot-3 of Max Zhang on defense. And surprisingly, Zhang battled with the NBA prospect.

With a little more than three minutes to play in the first half, Zhang wasn't giving Brackins any room, his hand just inches from Brackins' face. The forward took one hand off the ball, slapped Zhang's hand away with it and proceeded to knock down a jumpshot over Cal's center.

But with over a minute and a half left in the half, it was Zhang who got the best of the exchange. Brackins picked up his dribble in the post, and when the shorter forward went up for the strong finish, Zhang put it back down, drawing a thunderous roar from the near 10,000 in attendance.

"I thought Max was great, Brackins is a good, good player," Montgomery said. "Max really did a nice job. I thought his length was a factor; he was much smarter staying straight up without fouling."

Brackins still got his 21 points, which Montgomery said he was "OK with" because the Bears were able to limit the kick-outs and open shots for Iowa State's shooters. And to make it easier for themselves, the Bears dominated the boards, 51-32, with 14 of those coming from Omondi Amoke.

"As an under-sized four-man this year, I really pride myself on not letting anybody bigger than me dominate and take advatange of me," said Amoke, who's listed at 6-foot-7. "I'm going to play like I'm 6-11 or 6-10. I am going to go out there and bust my butt and grab boards."

The glass-cleaning effort from Cal led to 26 second-chance points and a total of 44 in the paint.

As for the rest of the Bears' offense, Cal had four scorers in double digits, including 12 from Jorge Gutierrez.

Senior Jerome Randle finished with 18 on a rough shooting night, going 7-for-21 from the floor and 0-for-7 from deep. However Randle's nine assists on just two turnovers were a definite lift for the Bears.

"I don't think that you'll see him go 0-for-7 from three very often, but he did," Montgomery said. "Still he ends up with a really good game. That's the kind of leadership we need from him."

And guard Patrick Christopher knows that this win over Iowa State (6-3) was much needed as well.

"This is a big win -- it's better than a loss," Christopher said with a smile. "It's a great bounce-back win for us. It was good to get in here and kind of get our swagger back."

Tags: CAL MEN'S BASKETBALL, MAX ZHANG, IOWA STATE, MIKE MONTGOMERY