Cal Women Lose Pac-12 Opener to No. 2 Stanford

Cal's women's basketball team opened its Pac-12 season with its biggest challenge of the season -- a road game against No. 2-ranked Stanford. And the result of Friday afternoon's game was pretty much what was expected, a 90-69 Stanford victory.

At no time did it appear that the Bears (9-3, 0-1 Pac-12) had a chance to win the game. The Cardinal (13-1) led by 14 points late in the first quarter and by 21 points late in the second quarter as it rolled to its eight straight victory over Cal. None of those eight Stanford wins was by fewer than 14 points.

The tough opening to the conference schedule was not a probelm for Charmin Smith, who is now 0-6 against her alma mater as the Golden Bears' head coach.

"I'm glad we played Stanford first," Smith said. "I think it's, 'Hey, this is the standard.'"

Indeed Stanford has set the Pac-12 standard for excellence in women's basketball, and the Bears, at this point, could not match it.

The Bears had no answer for versatile Haley Jones, who made seven of her first eight shots and had 14 points by the time Stanford took 43-22 lead with two minutes left in the first half. She finished with 21 points on 10-for-14 shooting to go a long with 10 rebounds, all in just 28 minutes of court time.

"I think she is the key to their team," Smith said.

Jayda Curry finished with 20 points for Cal, but she was just 6-for-18 from the field and did most of her scoring after the outcome had been decided.

She missed her first seven shots and did not score until 1:15 remained in the first half. By then Stanford held a 21-point lead.

"It's never a thing that, like, 'OK, I'm going to stop shooting because I can't hit a shot,'" she said.

She added 18 points in the second half and made three three-pointers, extending her streak of games with at least one made three-pointer to 34 in a row. That's longest active such streak in the Pac-12 and matches Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu for the third longest streak in the conference since the 1999-2000 season.

Cal's best offensive weapon Friday was Leilani McIntosh, who scored eight points in the first half and finished with 17 while going 2-for-3 from long range.

Stanford made 52.9% of its field-goal attempts for the game, and its strong frontcourt allowed the Cardinal to score 56 points in the paint and outrebound Cal 48-25.

Despite shooting just 39.1% from the field, Cal still managed to score 69 points against a Stanford team that allows opponents to average just 55.2 points.

Nonetheless, Smith called Cal's offensive effort "horrendous."

"Horrendous because we didn't do the things we're capable of," Smith said. "We can be a lot better. There are some things to take away from this that are encouraging, and this is the No. 2 team in the country. It's not just Stanford; this is a really good Stanford team, and we have work to do to be at that level. I'm confident we'll get there."

Smith is already plotting what Cal must do to have a chance against Cardinal when the team meet again in Berkeley on January 8. Most of that game plan will focus on stopping Haley Jones.

Cover photo of Leilani McIntosh is by Kyle Terada, USA TODAY Sports

Follow Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

Find Cal Sports Report on Facebook by going to https://www.facebook.com/si.calsportsreport

Add us as a preferred source on Google