Cal and history can create an alliance on Saturday that will rock you on your heels and make you utter that timeless rhetorical question, “Are you kidding?”

Pete Newell, chewing on a towel, was Cal's coach in 1960, which was his final year as the Bears coach.

History is pretty cool sometimes, especially when it ties things together in a nice little symmetrical bow that makes folks wonder about fate and omnipotent powers.   Of course, it can also bring out the bookmakers, who are awed by the unlikelihood of an occurrence.  You can almost hear them saying, “What are the odds of that?” and then trying to calculate exactly what the odds are.  50-to-1? 100-to-1? 1,000-to-1?   Higher?

Here’s how Cal and history can intersect so sweetly:   If Cal beats Arizona State on Saturday, it will clinch a share of a conference title exactly 50 years to the day from the last time it clinched a conference championship.

Now that’s freaky.

Check it out if you are skeptical.  Heading into its Feb. 27, 1960 game against Oregon State, Cal stood at 8-1 in the conference, which was then a five-team grouping called the Athletic Association of Western Universities (no marketing person in his right mind would give a conference such a clumsy name these days).   Meanwhile, UCLA, coached by some guy named John Wooden, was 6-3 as it prepared for its Feb. 27, 1960 game against Washington.   With three games left, Cal needed a win or a UCLA loss to assure itself at least a tie for the conference crown.    The Bears got both that day, beating the Beavers in Corvallis 62-47 while the Bruins lost at Washington 84-73.

Jump ahead exactly 50 years, the golden anniversary of that title-clinching day back in 1960.   If on Feb. 27, 2010 in Berkeley, Cal, which is 11-5 in the conference, beats Arizona State, which is 10-5, the Bears will assure themselves at least a tie for the regular-season Pac-10 title, which would be their first since 1960.

Jerome Randle, Theo Robertson, Patrick Christopher and their Bears teammates could have the same sort of celebration on Feb. 27, 2010 that Cal’s three all-conference players of 1960 — Darrall Imhoff, Bill McClintock and Earl Schultz – had on Feb. 27, 1960.

A win Saturday would also guarantee the Bears of the No. 1 seed in the Pac-10 tournament (which doesn’t really mean anything, but looks nice on the resume) and come close to assuring Cal a berth in the NCAA Tournament.

Plus, Cal would have an opportunity to clinch an outright conference title by beating archrival Stanford in Palo Alto seven days later on March 6.   And, wouldn’t you know it, exactly one week after it clinched its conference title, the 1960 Bears played Stanford exactly seven days later in Palo Alto.   (Unfortunately, 1960 was a leap year, so the game was played on March 5, 1960, not March 6, but who’s to quibble.)

Of course, Cal could deliver a swift kick to history’s groin by losing to Arizona State, messing up the 50-year symmetry and putting Cal’s hopes for a conference title and an NCAA Tournament berth in peril.

Those who rule fate would not let that happen, would they?