Turnovers Doom Cal Women Against North Carolina State

Cal’s women’s basketball team slipped to 0-3 in ACC games following Sunday's 71-60 loss to North Carolina State in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Cal (9-7, 0-3 ACC) has lost four of its last five games and is 0-3 this season in true road games. But the Bears have yet to play a conference home game, and they are 8-0 at home.

North Carolina State (11-4, 4-0 ACC) has won six in a row and had won each of its three previous conference games by at least 26 points. The Wolf Pack has won 15 straight conference home games.

Cal again played without starting freshman point guard Puff Morris, who did not make the road trip to North Carolina because of a lower-leg injury. Her absence may have contributed to the fact that Cal commiitted 20 turnovers to just six for the Wolf Pack.

That was the difference in the game as the teams shot about the same from the field - 43.6% for Cal, 44.4 for North Carolina Sate - and Cal outrebounded the Wolf Pack 42-28.

Lulu Twiade led Cal with 16 points but she was 5-for-17 from the floor, including 3-for-11 on three-pointers. Freshman Taylor Barnes added 15 points and 11 rebounds for the Bears.

But the offensive star for Cal was Naya Ojukwu, who scored 14 points on 7-for-8 shooting in just 20 minutes off the bench. She showed a variety of post moves and was able to score at close range.

When Ojukwu scored with 5:26 left in the third quarter it gave Cal a 44-41 lead. But she was not big enough to contain North Carolina State's 6-foot-3 Khamil Pierre with 6-foot-5 Cal center Sakima Walker on the bench. Pierre scored eight straight North Carolina State points, the final six coming during an 11-0 Wolf Pack run that started with the score tied 45-45 and ended with NC State holding a 56-45 lead entering the fourth quarter.

The Wolf Pack pushed its lead to 14 points early in the fourth quarter before Cal got the deficit down to six points with 3:34 remaining. But that was as close as Cal could get.

Mjracle Sheppard took over most of the ballhandling chores for Cal with Morris out, but Sheppard went scoreless for the first time this season, missing all for of her shot attempts and committing four turnovers.

Cal shot 51.7% in the first half but still trailed by one point, 37-36, at halftime because of turnover problems. The Bears turned the ball over 11 times in the first half while the Wolf Pack turned it over just twice.

Cal led 27-24 early in the second quarter, but North Carolina State then scored 11 straight points to take an eight-point lead. The Bears scored the final seven points of the half to cut the deficit to a point.

Barnes led Cal’s scoring with nine points in the first half, while Zoe Brooks had 13 points for NC State and Pierre added 11.

NOTES

--- Cal will play its first two home conference games next week, and the Bears are 8-0 at Haas Pavilion this season. Cal will host Duke in a 3 p.m. game on Thursday, and will play Wake Forest in a 2 p.m. game next Sunday at Haas Pavilion.

--- Cal was a 16.5-point underdog in Sunday’s game, according to DraftKings.

--- North Carolina State is not ranked in the AP top 25 at the moment, but you can expect the Wolf Pack to be ranked in the near future.