Top 50 Cal Sports Moments — No. 35: Working Overtime, 1977

As the Pac-12 Conference era comes to a close after more than a century, we count down the Top 50 moments involving Cal athletics.

THE MOMENT: For 63 1/2 minutes, Cal sophomore guard Gene Ransom stayed on the floor against Oregon. Through the first and second halves and four 5-minute overtime periods, Ransom never checked out of the game. Finally, with 90 seconds left in the fifth OT and the Bears on their way to a 107-102 victory, Ransom took a seat. But only because he fouled out.

THE STORY: Five days earlier at Mac Court in Eugene, Cal lost 75-49 to the host Oregon Ducks. Coach Dick Harter’s Kamikaze Kids, as they were called, beat Pac-8 champion UCLA twice during the 1976-77 season. They were good.

But on Feb. 10, 1977, in front of 4,500 fans at Harmon Gym, the Bears wouldn’t go down so easily, despite the fact that Oregon got 41 points and 20 rebounds from forward Greg Ballard. 

Cal got everything from Gene Ransom. 

Barely taller than 5-foot-8, the sophomore guard scored the game-tying points at the end of regulation, the second overtime and the fourth overtime. His two free throws in the fifth overtime accounted for the game’s 18th and final lead change.

He wound up with a career-high 36 points and grabbed 11 rebounds while playing 63 1/2 minutes, still a program record.

“He did things at his size that other guys couldn’t do,” said Ruppert Jones, a senior on the ’77 Cal team who played with Ransom at Berkeley High School, where both were three-sport legends. “He was able to compete with players much larger than him because had the ability to create space. He was a great ballhandler, he could shoot and he was fearless.”

And apparently tireless.

“It was the longest game I’ve ever seen,” Cal coach Dick Edwards told the Oakland Tribune afterward. “I couldn’t have told you how many overtimes we’d actually played. They all ran together.”

Ransom, who was killed in a freeway shooting in Oakland two years ago, fouled out with 90 seconds left. But Cal closed out the 107-102 victory in a game that featured 77 personal fouls and 105 free throws and lasted 3 hours, 19 minutes.

“I’m exhausted,” Ransom said afterward. “I don’t think I’m going to make my 9 o’clock class in the morning.”

* Top 50 Moment No. 36: Forfeit Email

* Top 50 Moment No. 37:  Script Flip

Only specific acts that occurred while the team or athlete was at Cal were considered for the Top 50 list, and accomplishments spanning a season or a career were not included. 

Leslie Mitchell of the Cal Bears History Twitter site aided in the selection of the top 50 moments.

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo