Cal Women Get 24th Win, Face Virginia or Pitt in ACC Tournament

Cal’s women’s basketball team heads into the ACC tournament on a winning note, capturing its 24th victory of the season with an 82-63 win over Miami on Sunday in Berkeley in the Bears’ final regular-season game.

Cal’s Michelle Onyiah had her second straight strong performance in the final home game of her college career. Three days after scoring a career-high 24 points against Georgia Tech, Onyiah bettered that with a career-high 26 points on 12-of-14 shooting against Miami on Cal’s Senior Day.

The 24 wins match the Bears’ 2014-15 squad for the most wins by a Cal team since 2012-13, when the Bears went 32-4 and reached the Final Four. Cal finished with a 16-1 record at home, and those 16 victories broke the school record for home victories in a season previously held by the Bears’ 2012-13 squad.

Cal’s Ioanna Krimili hit three three-pointers, giving her 431 for her career and moving into ninth place on the alltime Division I list.

Cal (24-6, 12-6 ACC) will be the No. 7 seed in the ACC tournament, which begins Wednesday at First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Golden Bears have a first-round bye and will play their opening game on Thursday at 2 p.m. Pacific time against the winner of the first-round game between No. 10 seed Virginia (8-10 ACC) and No. 15 seed Pittsburgh (5-13 ACC).

If Cal wins that game it will face second-seeded Notre Dame on Friday at 2 p.m. Pacific time in the quarterfinals.

Notre Dame tied North Carolina State for the regular-season ACC title with 16-2 conference records, but the Irish don’t seem as invincible as they did a couple weeks ago. Notre Dame had lost two in a row before beating Louisville in its final regular-season game on Sunday.

Cal beat top-seeded North Carolina State during the regular season.

"Excited to finish the season 24-7, and we still have a lot of work to do, which is a good thing," Cal coach Charmin Smith said.

The Bears won five of their final six regular-season games, so they feel good about their chances heading into the conference tournament, especially with the athletic, 6-foot-3 Onyiah playing the best basketball of her career.

Regardless of Cal’s results in the conference tournament, the Bears are certain to be invited to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2019. In the most recent ESPN NCAA tournament projections posted Friday, Cal was a No. 8 seed in the 68-team event.

Sunday was the final college home game for seven Cal seniors and grad students, including starters Onyiah, Krimili, Marta Suarez and Kayla Williams, as well as reserves Jayda Noble, Natalia Ackerman, and Claudia Langarita.

Cal will lose four starters from this year's team for the 2025-26 season.

"That's not on my mind right now," Smith said, "just how long can we make this thing last."

Suarez added 16 points and 10 rebounds to help send Miami (14-15, 4-14 ACC) to its seventh loss in its final eight games.

Cal took control of the game from outset, bursting out to a 14-3 lead and holding a 21-15 lead after one quarter.

The Bears led by as many as 14 points in the second quarter and held an 11-point lead at halftime. Suarez and Onyiah scored 14 points apiece in the first half, when Onyiah was 7-for-7 from the field.

Cal pushed its lead to 22 points midway through he third quarter, and cruised home from there.

The Bears made 12 three-point shots and finished shooting 50% from the field.