Cal Women Lose to No. 4 Stanford; Pac-12 Basketball Tournament Next
Cal's final regular-season women's basketball game against Stanford on Sunday afternoon demonstrated the wide gap between the Pac-12 regular-season champ and the team that finished last.
Fourth-ranked Stanford (22-2, 19-2 Pac-12) had already clinched its 24th regular-season conference title before Sunday, and the Cardinal used a dominant third quarter to post a convincing 72-33 victory over Cal at Maples Pavilion.
The Bears (1-15, 1-12 Pac-12) finished last in the Pac-12, but their season is not over. Cal will play a hot Oregon State team its first-round game in the Pac-12 tournament on Wednesday in Las Vegas, and the Bears have played well enough recently to give some opponents problems in this week's tournament.
Cal's goal in the tournament?
"Win," said Cal coach Charmin Smith after Sunday's loss.
(In the video above, Cal coach Charmin Smith talks after last week's win over Arizona State about the encouragement her former coach, Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, has given her throughout the difficult 2020-21 season.)
Cal looked capable in the first half Sunday. Despite missing their first six shots and trailing by as many as 16 points in the second quarter, Cal cut the Cardinal's lead to 31-25 at halftime.
"I think we had a great first half," Smith said.
The game got away from Cal in the third quarter when Stanford applied fullcourt defensive pressure. The Bears missed their first nine shots of the second half, and Stanford outscored the Bears 27-2 in the third quarter.
"The second half, they were, I don't know, it was a different Stanford team for sure," Smith said, "and we had a lot of letdowns and breakdowns that allowed them to get a lot of easy looks.
Cal scored just eight points in the second half, when it shot 3-for-29 from the field against a Stanford team that ranks third in the nation in field-goal percentage defense.
Freshman Dalayah Daniels was the only Cal player in double figures, with 11 points, but she was 5-for-14 from the field.
Despite the lopsided loss, Cal looks like a better team than it was just a few weeks ago. That's the attitude the Bears will take into Wednesday's game against Oregon State, which has won three in row, with the last two wins being against ranked teams UCLA and Oregon.
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Cover photo by Kayla Lawrence
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Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53
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