Cal Women's Basketball: The Queen of the Triple Double Set to Visit Berkeley

Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu, a Bay Area native, makes her final trip home as a collegiate player

Oscar Robertson invented the triple double, Magic Johnson modernized it and Jason Kidd gave it local flavor.

Oregon star Sabrina Ionescu has 24 career triple-doubles — twice as many as any Division I collegiate player ever, man or woman.

Now she’s ready to set another bar that may be tough for anyone to clear.

The Walnut Creek-raised senior point guard returns home to the Bay Area for the last time with third-ranked Ducks this weekend. Oregon (24-2, 13-1 Pac-12) visits Cal (10-15, 2-12) on Friday night, then No. 4 Stanford (23-2, 12-2), in a Monday night showdown on ESPN. Both games begin at 6 p.m.

The front-runner for national women’s player of the year, Ionescu arrives here needing just 20 rebounds to become college basketball’s first 2,000-point, 1,000-rebound, 1,000-assist player.

The 5-foot-11 product of Miramonte High has 2,429 career points, 980 rebounds and a Pac-12-record 1,018 assists.

Even former BYU star Kyle Collinsworth, who holds the NCAA men’s record with 12 triple doubles, falls far short of Ionescu’s numbers with 1,707 points, 1,047 rebounds and 703 assists.

Kidd recorded four triple doubles for Cal before assembling 107 of them in his NBA career, fourth-most in league history. If you doubled his two-year college totals, he would have had 1,756 points, 698 rebounds and 988 assists.

Surprisingly, Ionescu has never recorded a triple double in 13 games against Cal or Stanford. She has averaged 18.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 7.6 assists in five career games (including four wins) against the Bears, who play their home games at Haas Pavilion, just 12 miles from her old high school gym. Her numbers in eight games vs. Stanford: 24.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 5.5 assists, but also a 3-5 win-loss record.

In those 24 games where Ionescu has logged double-digit totals in points, rebounds and assists, the Ducks not only are unbeaten but won those games by an average margin of nearly 31 points.

Sabrina Ionescu has Oregon pointed toward big things.

Photo by David Butler II, USA Today

Ionescu has generated more than big numbers in the stat book. She and her teammates have become a hot ticket in Eugene, where the Ducks have averaged 10,619 fans for home games. That’s nearly 3,000 per game more than the Oregon men, who are co-leaders in the Pac-12. The year before Ionescu arrived on campus, the women drew just 1,619 per game.

Of course, the triple double is something of an arbitrary measuring stick. Ionescu did not post a triple double (10 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists) in the Ducks’ 74-56 road win over perennial powerhouse UConn on Feb. 3. But she controlled the action as Oregon handed the Huskies their worst defeat ever at Gampel Pavilion.

Afterward, Ionescu suggested the Ducks have displaced UConn at the top of the women’s basketball food chain. "I think we should be the barometer,” she said.

The Ducks do have unfinished business, which is one big reason Ionescu opted against entering the WNBA draft after her junior season. Oregon is 113-26 during Ionescu’s four seasons, but still has not won the national championship she and her teammates covet.

They reached the Final Four a year ago before losing to eventual champ Baylor. They played in the Elite 8 in 2018, falling to eventual champ Notre Dame. They also made it to the Elite 8 in 2017, only to lose to UConn.

Ionescu will complete her career with ridiculous numbers and countless awards.

Although scoring is not her primary objective, she is on pace to wind up as the Pac-12’s No. 3 all-time scorer, behind only Washington’s Kelsey Plum (3,527 points) and Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike (2,737). No other player is listed among the Pac-12’s all-time top-10 in both points and assists.

A lock to win her third straight Pac-12 Player of the Year award, Ionescu is projected to become the fifth Pac-12 player selected No. 1 overall in the WNBA draft, joining Plum (Washington 2017), Cheney Ogwumike (Stanford 2014), Nneka Ogwumike (Stanford 2012) and Tina Thompson (USC 1997).

Oregon fans will have more than just Ionescu to cheer for on draft day. According to the website draftsite.com, Ionescu will be the No. 1 pick, teammate Satou Sabally will go No. 2 and a third Oregon player, Ruthy Hebard, will be picked No. 5.