Cal Women's Basketball: Bears Crushed by No. 19 Utah

The momentum the Cal women had built by sweeping the Washington schools last week in Berkeley came to a screeching halt during the Bears visit to the mountain school this weekend.

After losing to fifth-ranked Colorado by 15 points on Friday, Cal was crushed by 19th-ranked Utah 93-56 Sunday afternoon in Salt Lake City.

The 37-point margin of defeat represented Cal's worst loss since it lost by 39 points to Stanford at the tail end of the 2020-21 season. And the Bears needed a surge at the end to do that as Utah held a 43-point advantage with 1:24 remaining.

“You go on the road in the Pac-12 against two top -20 teams and this can happen," Cal head coach Charmin Smith said. "I'm not really concerned with the score. We know we're a lot better. We need to be a lot better and we just got to keep our mind focused on improvement. We'll get better from this road trip and get ready for the Oregon schools.”

Utah and Colorado both effectively limited Ioanna Krimili's production. Her offense was a major reason the Bears defeated both Washington and Washington State a week ago, as she scored 21 points in each of those games.

But she was not much of a factor offensively on this road trip. She finished with 11 points against Colorado, but seven of those points came in the final four minutes after the outcome had been decided. Krimili managed 14 points against Utah, but she had just six points by the time Utah had built a 43-point lead (88-45) with three minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Cal (12-5, 2-3 Pac-12) was listed as one of the last four teams in the NCAA tournament field in the Bracketology projections posted by ESPN on Friday, but the Bears will no doubt be on the outside looking in the next time ESPN's Charlie Creme gives us a Bracketology report on the women's tournament field.

Utah (12-5, 2-3 Pac-12) is almost impossible to beat on its home court. The Utes had a 22-game home winning streak stopped by Stanford in a two-point loss to the Cardinal on Friday, but they dominated Cal on Sunday.

The Utes came into the game shooting 50.5% from the field, which ranked fifth in the country, but they exceeded that against Cal, shooting 63.3% from the field and collecting 66 points in the paint.

“I think this was a very motivated Utah team," Smith said. "We knew that they were going to come out ready to go coming off of two losses, and they're a really good team and they put it to us. We have a lot to learn from this. And I know that we'll respond. I still feel really good about our goals and who we can be as a team.”

Utah also entered the game leading the nation in three-pointers made per game at 12.1 per contest. But the Utes had no three-pointers in the first half and finished with just five on 15 attempts. It didn't matter as the Utes scored time and time again on drives to the basket. The Utes shot 61.8% from the floor the first half and 65.8% in the second half.

“We had a strategy of taking away the 3-point shot and in the first half we stuck to that; they didn't have a made three," Smith said. "They lead in nation in made threes and so it was a kind of calculated thing there. Obviously, we didn't expect them to be able to get to the basket so easily off the dribble, but they did. They were aggressive. They put their heads down and finished with contact and they made plays.”

Besides limiting the production of Krimili, Utah prevented Cal's second-leading scorer, Marta Suarez, from doing much. She had just five points on 2-for-8 shooting and had one rebound.

Ines Vieira led Utah with 19 points, and Alissa Pili added 18.

Cover photo of Leilani McIntosh by Cal Athletics

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