It's been an up-and-down season, a challenging season for the Cal basketball team, but Saturday reminded the Golden Bears what is possible.

Cal delivered its most impressive performance of the season in a 53-39 win over rival Stanford in the final game of the season at Haas Pavilion before a season-best crowd of 8,773 fans.

Cal (12-17, 5-13 Pac-12) scored 19 straight points early in the first half and led 35-12 at halftime while holding the Cardinal to14-percent shooting (4 of 28). It was Stanford's lowest scoring output in a half this season, and the fewest points Cal has allowed in a half of a conference game on record, per the Pac-12.

The 39 total points scored by Stanford were the fewest allowed by Cal in a conference game since allowing 37 vs. Oregon on Feb. 2, 1985.

"Really a good night for Cal basketball. We got off to a really good start and I felt like our defense was terrific to start the game, and we were able to sustain that. We executed offensively and got the shots we were looking for, and obviously it's a terrific win," coach Mark Fox said. "Great environment, terrific fans tonight, super energy in the building and it was really good for our seniors to be able to finish their home career this way."

Jordan Shepherd led the way with 28 points on 11-of-16 shooting (4 of 7 on 3-pointers) and was the only Bear to score in double figures.

There haven't been many comfortable wins this season. For that matter, there haven't been many wins in general, but there has also been no sign of this Bears team giving in or relenting to the adversity of the season, even after star forward Andre Kelly's season-ending injury.

"What we believe is when we play the game the right way, obviously we have a very slim margin for error and the season has had its ups and downs, but adversity is to be expected through a rebuild and they really haven't had their confidence shaken," Fox said. "I thought the day they learned Andre was out for the year we probably were a little rattled that day, but for the most part they've been resilient and regrouped."

Grant Anticevich, who had 8 rebounds to go with 5 points, wanted to make clear that he didn't believe a performance like this was an outlier, even if it looks that way on the ledger.

"We just performed at the level that we know we're capable of and I think moving forward if we do that consistently we won't have any problems. I don't think we played out of character at all," he said. "We played the way we know how to play, how we practice, everyone played in character, played to their strengths and I think when we do that and play to our full potential we're a good basketball team and we're hard to beat."