ESPN Women's Basketball

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Cal had to dig deep to remain perfect in the Pac-10 on Thursday with a 64-51 win on the road against Arizona State. It was a nifty trick considering it often seems as if the Golden Bears' bench offers an unobstructed view of the fans behind it.

Playing only eight players, including just seven who played more than four minutes, against a team that rotates players like hockey lines to fuel its full-court pressure, the ninth-ranked Golden Bears found a way to win in Tempe for the first time since 1999.

As a result, Cal put the onus squarely on perennial Pac-10 champion Stanford's shoulders to duplicate the result with a win Sunday against a Sun Devils team that had been undefeated in league play and is likely to be smarting from Thursday's loss. Should Stanford lose that game against Arizona State, Cal could have a three-game lead on its rival when the two meet in Palo Alto, Calif., on Jan. 26.

But long-term strategic scenarios were of less concern to Cal coach Joanne Boyle than the satisfaction of surviving 40 minutes against a team that can make opponents feel as if they're running up nearby Tempe Butte just to get the ball up court.

"Our team has been really focused on this for a while," Boyle said. "We haven't won here since '99 and [coach] Charli [Turner Thorne] always does a great job with her team. They play a system -- up-tempo style and pressure. And that was the goal this week, just to be able to withstand their pressure and get good touches inside. And I thought we did a really good job with that."

Cal did its best to deliver a knockout punch early, opening the game on a 16-0 run and holding the Sun Devils without a field goal for eight minutes. Six of the points in that initial flurry came from Devanei Hampton, on her way to a career-best 28 points. Hampton is the reigning Pac-10 Player of the Year but she was also playing just her ninth game this season after arthroscopic knee surgery on Nov. 9 -- the third operation on her right knee.

The 6-foot-3 post managed 21 points and 13 rebounds against USC two weeks ago and entered Thursday's game averaging 12.1 points and 6.8 rebounds, but Thursday was different.

"This was a great game for her," Boyle said. "The first couple of games back, her timing and her rhythm -- she was fading away. She's a kid that needs to be in a gym and do individual workouts and have all that, and she's finally had about three weeks where she's been able to put that together. And I think that really showed tonight.

"When we were playing UCLA and USC, I mean, she's a great player, but she just faded and just contact -- she wouldn't finish. And now I think with her strength back and her timing and her rhythm, you're starting to see the player that we had last year."

Time and again Hampton beat Arizona State's posts to spots on the block early in Thursday's game, giving Cal's guards plenty of room to lob passes over the fronting defenders. Hampton was aggressive enough that she didn't even attempt a shot going away from the basket until she dropped in a turnaround fade at the 5:46 mark of the first half. By that time, she already had 11 points and a good rhythm.

"After the first three shots, the basket just started getting bigger and bigger," Hampton said. "So I just kept going at them, because that's what [Boyle] told us to do."

A boxing referee might have called the fight after Cal's haymakers produced a 34-14 lead late in the first half, but Arizona State hit its final five shots of the half to cut the deficit to 13. The Sun Devils maintained that momentum early in the second half, coming within four points of tying the score with more than 13 minutes to play. Ironically, that stretch of play highlighted just how well Cal's guards played in the first half when they managed to complete post entry passes to Hampton or Ashley Walker at will.

"I think they forced us out past the 3-point line," Boyle said of the opening minutes of the second half. "I think we were making long passes. We were tired; they were lazy passes. They got in the passing lanes and got some steals and that was a momentum change, of course. So we were trying to get back to just getting some easy touches on the block."

When the guards started getting the ball back to Hampton and Walker -- who closed strong with nine second-half points -- a tight game mushroomed into a double-digit win.

Playing against a five-guard rotation of Briann January, Reagan Pariseau, Jill Noe, Dymond Simon and Kate Engelbrecht -- all of whom played between 17 and 28 minutes -- Alexis Gray-Lawson and Natasha Vital went almost the distance in the backcourt for Cal. Each played 38 minutes, but their ability to split up ball-handling responsibilities when they shared the court and give each other a chance to spend at least a couple of minutes catching their breath on the bench was critical.

Arizona State's defense entered the game forcing an average of 20.4 turnovers and allowing just 11.6 assists per game. Gray-Lawson and Vital combined for 12 assists and just four turnovers in 76 minutes. Having a healthy Hampton made an obvious impact on the scoreboard, but having a healthy Gray-Lawson, who missed most of last season with a knee injury, was no less important in setting up those points.

"In the past, we've been so tired," Boyle said of the series against the Sun Devils. "Like last year, [Gray-Lawson] wasn't here; last year Tasha [Vital] was our only ball handler. … They knew that they had to step it up with their guard play, because they knew Arizona State played a lot. But they did a great job of knowing who they could sag off of and double down in the post and who they had to stay on. As a guard group, they got together and said, 'We're not going to fall apart in the last four minutes, like we have in the past. We're going to step it up.' And they did."

And despite the overall disparity in bench minutes between the two teams Thursday night, Cal's reserves actually did their part. Rama N'diaye proved her value in the post during the games Hampton missed and chipped in six rebounds and two blocks against the Sun Devils. And Shantrell Sneed scored a couple of baskets and made a positive contribution in her minutes. Add in senior Krista Foster, who missed the game with a concussion, and freshman Kelsey Adrian, and the Bears might actually have a rotation that goes deeper than a top-40 radio playlist.

"It's huge to be able to play the kids who don't play a lot in a game like this," Boyle said. "To be able to go eight deep in the [NCAA] Tournament, and even nine sometimes, it's going to be big for us."

Can Cal make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament? If Thursday is any indication, the Bears might have enough pieces, no matter how good the view is from behind the bench.

Graham Hays is a regular contributor to ESPN.com's women's basketball coverage. E-mail him at Graham.Hays@espn3.com.