No. 21 Cal Women Lose to Louisville

An impressiive but futile Cal rally in the closing moments its 70-63 road loss to Louisville on Thursday tended to overhadow the Bears' Achilles heal, which was exposed again.

Cal has been unable to deal with quick teams that apply constant defensive pressure.

The 21st-ranked Bears are still in good position to land an NCAA tournament berth for the first time since 2019, but their chance of doing damage in the postseason will depend on the matchup and avoiding a team that can play defense like unranked Louisville (16-7, 9-3 ACC) did Thursday.

Cal (19-5, 7-4 ACC) committed 23 turnovers and was just 6-for-28 on three-point shots as the Bears had trouble running their offense for much of the game.

“I just think it's another night where we struggled to take care of the ball, and we know that it's been a problem, and we'll continue to work on it," Cal coach Charmin Smith said. "But I really did like the way we battled in the second half, and thought I saw some positive things that we can build on moving forward to Sunday's game.”

Cal did make it close at the end. The Bears rallied from a 16-point deficit with 4:51 left and still trailed by 12 points with 2:01 remaining before cutting the margin to six points with 32.9 seconds remaining in the game. But the earlier offensive struggles were too much to overcome.

"We made them have to stay with it, and gave ourselves an opportunity there to try to get back in it at the end," Smith said. "But you know you can't miss nine free throws [13-for-22] and turn the ball over 23 times to beat any of the teams in the top of our conference. So that was a problem.”

Louisville guard Jayda Curry, who was Cal's leading scorer in each of her two seasons with Bears, tallied eight points on 3-for-11 shooting against her former team on Thursday. Olivia Cochran led the Cardinals with 18 points, but the bigger issue was that Cal was unable to get the shots it wanted and turned the ball over too much.

That was also the case in Cal's two other games against quick teams that apply defensive pressure -- Duke, which beat the Bears by 34 points, and North Carolina, which defeated Cal by 13 points.

And Cal will have the task of facing third-ranked Notre Dame on Sunday in South Bend, Indiana, with the Bears hoping to void their fourth loss in seven games.

Michelle Onyiah led he Bears with 15 points on Thursday, and all five Cal starters scored in double figures. But Cal's top four perimeter threats -- Ioanna Krimili, Lulu Twidale, Marta Suarez and Kayla Williams -- were a combined 5-for-27 for long range. Louisville double-teamed Krimili often, and when teams prevent the Bears from scoring from long distance, Cal struggles.

Louisville took control of the game in the second quarter. Unable to handle the Cardinal’s pressure defense, Cal missed its first nine shots of the quarter, helping Louisville turn a three-point advantage entering the second quarter into a 15-point lead with 2:04 left in the first half.

Cal committed 13 first-half turnovers compared to just four by Louisville. The Bears did well to be behind by just 10 points at halftime, as a three-point shot by Krimili enabled Cal to cut the deficit to 37-27 at halftime.

Louisville’s Curry went scoreless in the first half, missing all five of her shots from the floor.

Cal scored the first seven points of the game but Louisville held a 21-18 lead at the end of the first quarter, thanks to a free throw by Imari Berry with one-tenth of second left.

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