California Golden Bears

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Exactly two weeks ago on February 20th, Cal eked out a narrow 76-70 victory over the Virginia Cavaliers. In that game, Cal trailed at the half but asserted themselves in the third period to take a single point lead into the fourth. Cal extended the lead to seven with just over three minutes left. Virginia rallied, and it was a 3-point game before Lulu Twidale hit a 3-pointer with 15 seconds left to produce the final score. The Cavaliers have not lost since then, going 6-0 including a regular season-ending upset of North Carolina. Even though Cal was the higher seed going into the game and was favored by Vegas, the ACC TV studio crew did not believe in the Bears. Their pregame predictions;

This game was never close. Cal started the game on a 9-0 run, led by double digits at the end of the first quarter, pushed the lead up to 26 at one point and won comfortably in front of a partisan Virginia crowd.

Right from the tip, Cal pushed the tempo in an effort to run Virginia out of the gym. The Cavaliers are not a deep team, playing six players heavy minutes and giving sparse minutes to two other players. They had played yesterday in the opening round of the tournament. The Cavaliers lost interior player Latasha Lattimore at the beginning of the second quarter. While battling Jayda Noble for a rebound, Lattimore fell to the floor hitting her head. She was down for several minutes before being escorted to the locker room. Cal’s uptempo game provided many open opportunities in the lane. Cal led 24-11 after ten minutes of play. Of Cal’s 24 first quarter points, 16 were in the paint. Michelle Onyiah scored 8 points in the opening quarter, picking up right where she left off after her dominating two-game stretch last week.

With Lattimore out of the game, the Cavaliers had no answer for Cal’s interior play. Marta Suarez scored 6 points in the second quarter as Cal pushed the lead to 41-25 at halftime. Cal shot only 3-of 13 from long range for the half, but was 14-of-21 on interior shots. The Bears outrebounded the Cavaliers 26-10 in the first half. Cal’s defense focused on limiting Virginia’s All-conference guard Kymora Johnson. She was held to 4 first-half points on 2-of-9 shooting.

The third quarter was all Lulu Twidale. After starting off the game 0-for-3, Twidale was a perfect 4-of-4 in the quarter, including 3-point shots. Twidale and Marta Suarez each scored 5 points to open the quarter as Cal went on a 10-run to push the lead to 26. Virginia answered with their own 10-0 run to cut the lead back to 16, and it looked like they might have some momentum. Lulu answered with a 3-point basket to stop the run. Cal was patient on offense, making the extra pass in their half court offense. Virginia was getting tired and could not keep up with the ball rotation. Every time Virginia hinted at making a run, Cal responded with patient offense that yielded a high percentage shot. Cal led 62-39 going into the fourth quarter.

Michelle Onyiah had picked up her third foul midway through the third period. With the comfortable lead, Coach Smith had the luxury of resting Onyiah and giving extended minutes to Jayda Noble and Gisella Maul. Cal went through a mild lull in the middle of the fourth period. Virginia had cut the lead to 13 and had the ball with just under 4 minutes left. Cal played solid defense on Kymora Johnson and forced her into a difficult shot that she missed. At the other end, Kayla Williams hit a short range jumper and converted two free throws on the next possession to push the lead to 17 with two minutes left to play. Michelle Onyiah let out an audible roar as she grabbed the last rebound of the game with 5 seconds left and the game horn sounded with Cal victorious 75-58.

Michelle Onyiah and Marta Suarez both scored 16 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as Cal dominated the paint. The pair combined for an efficient 13-of-25 shooting. Cal outrebounded the Cavaliers 46-28. Lulu Twidale scored 16 points and snagged 6 rebounds, while Kayla Williams added 12 points and 6 rebounds.

The Cavaliers were held to 33% shooting for the game, with Kymora Johnson needing 21 shots to score her game-leading 18 points.

Game Notes

• Earlier this week, I wrote about Cal’s turnover and assists, and said to watch for the number 15. Today, Cal had 19 assists and 14 turnovers. The rule of 15 holds true for this day, at least.

• The only ACC TV studio announcer to pick Cal to win was Kelly Gramlich, who has a self-professed crush on this Cal team. At halftime of today’s game with Cal dominating, the three other members of the TV crew issued a mea culpa and let Kelly rave on about the Bears.

• In the first half, play-by-play announcer Pam Ward said, “Ioanna Krimili who started her career at SOUTH FLORIDA before continuing her career on the west coast." In the second half, Ward said, “Krimili, coming in from University of San Francisco. Apologies, I said South Florida in the first half."

  One of these years, Cal will have better name and player recognition with our ACC brethren.

Cal moves on to face #2 seed Notre Dame at 2pm tomorrow. Notre Dame crushed Cal 91-52 back on February 9th. Notre Dame’s pressure defense is an awful matchup for Cal. However, based on the way Cal has played over the last several games, I expect this to be a more competitive matchup. Coach Smith has been vocal on moving up and getting off the 8/9 line in the NCAA Tournament. A win will definitely be enough. A tough loss may be enough to influence the committee.