We’re stuck.

The four Division I Bay Area men’s basketball teams who played on Thursday all were so successful , we don’t know which to highlight.  It necessitates a polling of all precincts of the seven counties to rank which team was the most impressive.   Fortunately, there is only one voter, so compiling of the data will be quick.

Brook Lopez was at Maples Pavilion Thursday, but, no, he did not suit up for the Cardinal, instead donning a Sixth Man Club T-shirt and standing in the Stanford student section (making him easy to pick out) -- Associated Press photo by Matt Sayles

Here are the nominees for the most impressive performance by a male Bay Area basketball team on the night of January 21:

 – Cal beats Oregon by 32 points in a game that wasn’t even that close.

– St. Mary’s takes San Diego out of the game in the first eight minutes.

– Stanford limits Oregon State to its lowest point total in the shot-clock era in a 24-point victory

– San Jose State hands Louisiana Tech just its third loss of the season.

And the JakesTake award goes to . . .

Wait, let’s build the suspense a little and take each game in reverse order of the number of votes it received.

At No. 4, we have the Gaels’ 71-56 victory over San Diego.   This game was over after St. Mary’s took a 23-5 lead, wiping away any thoughts the Toreros might have of an upset.  Omar Samhan had 16 of his 20 points in the first 19 minutes of the game, when St. Mary’s virtually decided the outcome, and the Toreros’ only two scoring threats, Brandon Johnson and De’Jon Jackson, combined to finish with just 16 points on 6-for-20 shooting.  

 The Gaels hit 8 of 14 three-pointers, including 3-for-3 by Mickey McConnell, who has made 53.9 percent of his threes this season.

 Point deductions: San Diego had lost three straight coming in, and the Gaels took the second half off in a game that it figured to win by a large margin.

Coming in at No. 3 is Cal’s 89-57 demolition of Oregon.   Patrick Christopher scored all 21 of his points in span of 16 minutes and 21 seconds of the first half, turning a 2-0 deficit into a 20-point lead at Berkeley as the Bears moved into a tie for first place.

The Ducks had been 2-0 in conference road games, beating Washington and Washington State, but that ended as the Bears bounced back in a big way from Saturday’s horribly lopsided loss to Washington.  And the starters got plenty of rest of Saturday’s game against Oregon State.

Point deductions: The Ducks had lost three in a row, and Cal did not start the game well, benefiting from a equally slow start by the Ducks.  “I thought we had an excellent opportunity to take control of the game early because I did not think they (Cal)  were ready to play,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said.  Being in first place is nice, but the Bears are also just two games out of last place.

The voting for the top spot was close and a recount was needed, but finishing a close second was  San Jose State’s 87-76 victory over Louisiana State.   The Bulldogs came into the game 17-2 overall and 5-0 in the Western Athletic Conference, and they were riding a 10-game winning streak that had earned them votes in this week’s AP top-25 poll. 

 But the Spartans, who came in at 9-8 after losing three of their past four games and were without double-figure scoring big man C.J. Webster, came up with their best win of the season as Adrian Oliver scored 39 points, matching Jerome Randle for the top scoring game by a Bay Area player this season.    It also was just one point shy of the school record of 40 set by Wally Rank against Sacramento State in 1980.   (You all remember old Wally, right?)  It was the fifth time Oliver has scored 30 points or more this season and the 13^th time he’s done it in his San Jose State career, which is four more than the Spartans player with the second-most 30-point games – Ricky Berry.   Oliver was 12-for-19 from the field, 3-for-5 on three-pointers and 12-for-12 from the line.  He also had five assists. 

 Point deductions: Just a slight one for Oliver’s seven turnovers.

The JakesTake award goes to Stanford’s 59-35 victory over Oregon State.   The fact that the Beavers have not scored fewer than 35 points in a game since 1984, before the shot clock was implemented, is part of the story.   So is the fact that 7-foot Brook Lopez, a former Stanford standout and currently a 21-year-old multimillionaire, was in the middle of the student section on Thursday, wearing the identifying black Sixth Man Club T-shirt.    (By the way, he’d be a Stanford senior now if he had stayed in school, and he would make a rather nice addition to this season’s squad, don’t you think?) 

But the main reason Stanford won this award was because the Cardinal did it with just five players who arrived at Stanford with athletic scholarships.   Picked to finish last in the conference before all the injury problems, Stanford has since lost via medical issues the only three big men who came to Stanford with a scholarship in hand – Josh Owens, Andy Brown and Andrew Zimmermann.   Jack Trotter received a scholarship in the off-season after being a non-scholarship player as a freshman to officially give Stanford six scholarship players at the moment, and the 6-9 sophomore has to carry the load inside.   But if the Cardinal beats Oregon on Saturday, and Cal, Washington State and Arizona State all lose, Stanford will be tied for first.

Coach Johnny Dawkins has curtailed practice time and has virtually eliminated contact in practices hoping to prevent further injury and keep his players fresh.  He has gone to a small lineup because he has no quality big men left and played zone for much of the game even though Dawkins has always been a staunch, man-to-man guy.  It’s sort of like the adjustments that hardcore, man-to-man practitioners like Herb Sendek at Arizona State and Ben Howland at UCLA have had to make.   Stanford’s zone prevented Oregon State from scoring a point during a nine-minute stretch on Thursday.   It also prevented Roeland Schaftenaar from scoring a single point the entire game after he had ruined the Cardinal last season by averaging 17.5 points in the four meeting with Stanford, three of which the Beavers won.

Point deductions: Disappointing crowd size, despite a full student section.