SAN JOSE, Calif. — California narrowly held on against UNLV yesterday to advance to the Round of 32. The 12th-seeded Golden Bears moved on to play No. 4 Syracuse, which dismantled Montana by 47 points Thursday night, in front of what will be an extremely pro-California crowd on Saturday afternoon.

California’s campus is less than one hour from HP Pavilion in San Jose, and the crowd, as well as the streets around the arena, bore more yellow than any other color. There is no reason to expect Saturday will be any different.

Syracuse players said they had a few minutes to watch part of the California-UNLV game, which took place right before their thrashing of Montana. The players and coaches will offer more thoughts on the Golden Bears this afternoon at interviews, but here were some of their initial reactions based on what they saw yesterday:

Jim Boeheim: “They’re very good. They’ve got a tremendous team. I watched them during that streak this year where they really played well in the conference. I have a lot of respect for them. Mike (Montgomery) is a really good friend mine and has been for a long time. He’s a tremendous basketball coach. This should be a great test for us.

“We know how good Cal is. We have our work cut out for us. But we’re coming off playing well in four straight games, and we played well tonight and we anticipate playing well in the next game here.”

C.J. Fair: “We watched a little bit of it while we were getting ready for this game. I saw that it was a tough game between those two. Cal is a good team.”

Michael Carter-Williams: “They’re going to have the crowd, but we’re going to try to jump out early and take the crowd out of the way. We’ve dealt with crowds. We’ve dealt with the toughest crowds in the country in Pittsburgh and Marquette, so we’re used to it.”

“They can shoot the ball. Their guards are good. They’ve got some guys down low that are aggressive and not afraid to battle.”

Published on March 22, 2013 at 12:07 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13