Cal men at Stanford, 7 p.m.: Fresh start in Pac-12 opener.

Saturday’s Pac-12 opener between Cal and Stanford promises plenty of intriguing story lines, like the longstanding rivalry between the Bay Area schools, a bruising meeting of post players and a head coach facing his former team.

But all of those rousing subplots miss the simplest and most important subject.

“I don’t know how to add more meaning to it, just because I’m so anxious to get the Pac-12 season started and get rolling,” said Stanford head coach Jerod Haase, who started 23 games alongside Jason Kidd at Cal in 1992-93 before transferring to Kansas.

No two teams need the shift from nonconference to conference play more than Cal and Stanford, a chance to wipe clean a slate that has been tainted in shared ineffectiveness like no other season in nearly 50 years.

The teams are entering conference play with losing records in the same season for the first time since the 1971-72 season. Cal and Stanford are the only teams heading into Pac-12 play with losing records this year and through Thursday were the conference’s bottom two teams in scoring, field-goal percentage, defensive three-point percentage and turnover margin.

The Bears (6-7), who are among the nation’s top 10 in fewest returning letter winners (two) and most scholarship freshmen (six), had a chance to carry some momentum into Pac-12 play with four consecutive wins. Instead, Cal lost by 25 points to Portland State at Haas Pavilion in the nonconference finale.

“We walked into the game and played to what you think the level of competition is,” Cal first-year head coach Wyking Jones said. “… Portland State is a really good basketball team, and we showed our guys film. In their heads, they couldn’t convince themselves that Portland State was going to be good.

“We walked into the game feeling like, because we had been playing well and we’re Cal, we were going to go into the game and take care of busi- ness.”

Despite being outscored by a Pac-12-high 4.1 points per game during the nonconference season and sitting last in defense and 11th in offense, Cal has mixed in some positive glimpses — getting 20.5 points per game from junior guard Don Coleman and stretches of capable play from freshmen Juhwan Harris-Dyson, Darius McNeill and Justice Sueing.

But if the Bears are to compete with Stanford, they’re going to have to get more from their post players. Marcus Lee and Kingsley Okoroh will be responsible for slowing Michael Humphrey and Reid Travis.

“They’re allowing him to play more on the perimeter, so he’s improved his game in the sense that he’s now a threat to take big guys off the bounce,” Jones said of Travis, who’s averaging 21.4 points per game. “He’s starting to shoot more threes.

“In the past, he’s been just a big body. He’s just bullied guys and been able to be successful by just bullying guys, being strong and physical. He still has that aspect to his game, but it seems like he’s expanded his game.”

Haase doesn’t sound confident in the returns of Dorian Pickens and Marcus Sheffield, projected starters who have combined to play in only two games this season because of foot injuries. The coach said he’ll have a clearer picture of the upperclassmen’s status after Saturday’s conference opener.

“Both teams are 0-0 going into the conference season, so I anticipate both teams being hungry and playing with a great deal of passion,” Haase said.