Cal's ACC Women's Tournament Challenge: Five Wins in Five Days

Cal’s mission is daunting, but not impossible.

The Golden Bears (18-13, 9-9 ACC) must win five games over the next five days to win the women’s ACC tournament and earn an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament.

Cal coach Charmin Smith knows it can be done because she was part of a team that did it.

“Playing five games in five nights would be amazing; I would love to do that,” Smith said. “I actually did that as an assistant at Boston College in a miraculous run that we had in upsetting Diana Taurasi’s UConn Huskies, and [Rutgers coach] C. Vivian Stringer and Cappie Pondexter.

“That was a long time ago, so can it be done? Yes. But my focus right now is Wake Forest. It’s all about Wake. You can’t get to five unless you win one.”

Smith’s recollection of Boston College’s run through the 2003-04 Big East tournament in Smith first year as an assistant coach is slightly flawed, because Boston College only won four games in four days while knocking off UConn, which went on the win the national championship that season.

But the five-in-five deed has been done on the men’s side, and it was just two years ago. North Carolina State finished 10th in the final ACC standings in 2023-24, then won five games in five days to reach the NCAA tournament. The Wolfpack rode that wave of momentum all the way to the Final Four before losing to Purdue in the national semifinals.

Cal’s women’s team also finished 10th in the final ACC standings and will begin its bid for a conference tournament title in a first-round game against Wake Forest (14-16, 4-14 ACC) on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. in Duluth, Georgia.

If Cal wins that game it would face seventh-seeded Syracuse (22-7, 12-6 ACC) in the second round on Thursday. And if the Bears would get past Syracuse, they would play second-seeded Louisville (25-6, 15-3) in the quarterfinals on Friday. Syracuse and Louisville would be playing their first game of the tournament when they face Cal.

Cal must go deep into the ACC tournament -- and may have to win it -- to get into the NCAA tournament for the second straight season.

One thing that will help is the likely return of freshman forward Taylor Barnes, a starter until she missed the final nine games of the regular season with an ankle injury.

“Yeah, I do expect her to play,” Smith said. “We’ve really missed her. She gives us versatility and size at the four position. I think Gisella [Maul] has been doing an excellent job of filling in there, but really happy that Taylor’s trending toward being available and that would really help us.”

With freshman guard Puff Morris also back in the last few games, the Bears will have all their key players available for the first time since December 28.

Barnes was available when Cal defeated Wake Forest 61-52 back on January 11 in Berkeley, but she had perhaps her worst game, scoring one point on 0-for-5 shooting and collecting three rebounds.

The godsend in the absence of Morris and Barnes has been Maul, who stepped into the starting lineup and has been outstanding.

She is averaging 9.7 points for the season, but she averaged 14.8 points over the final 10 games. Maul leads the team in three-point shooting percentage at 40.2 percent and was 4-for-4 from deep in the final regular-season game against SMU.

Cal’s star is Lulu Twidale, who is averaging 16.1 points and is coming off a 25-point performance against SMU in which she was 7-for-11 on three-point attempts.

She leads the ACC in both three-pointers made (90) and free-throw percentage (87.1).

Twidale has played 40 minutes or more 11 times this season, including 10 times in the last 17 games. She is second in the conference in minutes played (36.4 per game), just a fraction behind Virginia’s Kymora Johnson.

Whether she can continue to log those kind of minutes if Cal advances remains to be seen.