On Friday, Cal women’s basketball’s season came to an end in an 86-73 loss to #13 Arizona in the Pac-12 Tournament. Arizona came into the game as the 4th seed in the tournament while Cal came in as the 12th seed. Arizona sophomore forward Cate Reese had a career-high 30 points to go along with 6 rebounds while Cal senior forward Jaelyn Brown finished with 25 points. Arizona will await the winner of the Oregon/Utah game.

Arizona got off to a strong start, leading 7-0 with 8:36 to go in the 1st quarter forcing Cal to call for time. Arizona senior guard Amari Carter had 5 points and was doing a great job of getting her team going. It was clear that Arizona wanted some revenge for what happened on Sunday and put Cal away early.

Cal would battle back to trail 23-18 at the end of the 1st quarter. Reese was up to 8 points on 4-5 shooting from the field for Arizona while Brown was heating up for Cal with 10 points on 3-8 shooting from the field and 2-5 shooting from deep. She was going wild with a couple of those threes and was starting to get the hot hand, hoping to give Cal a shot to win this game.

With 4:42 to go until halftime, Arizona led 34-22. Reese was up to 12 points for the Wildcats, who had made 3 of their last 3 field goal attempts. Cal had 0 field goals in the last 3:05, needing to get some stops and once again dig deep.

At halftime, Arizona led 41-27. Reese’s 12 points and 3 rebounds led Arizona while Brown’s 12 points and 4 rebounds led Cal. Arizona had more scoring balance as Aari McDonald, Helena Pueyo, and Dominique McBryde each had 6 points.

Arizona continued to dominate Cal in the 3rd quarter, leading 52-35 with 5:00 to go. Reese was up to 16 points while McDonald, Arizona’s leading scorer, still had 6 points. Cal had defended McDonald pretty well, but others were doing a good job of picking up the slack for Arizona. Brown (12 points) and Styles (10 points) were in double figures for Cal.

With 3:55 to go in the quarter, Arizona called for time as the score was still 52-35. Arizona had 0 points in the last 2:51 while Cal had 0 field goals in the last 3:10. Both teams were struggling to score as Arizona was hoping that a timeout would get them back on the right track offensively. At the end of the 3rd quarter, Arizona led 62-44. Reese (23 points) had taken over the game for the Wildcats. Cal had found no answers for her inside. She was unstoppable, shooting 10-12 from the field and 3-4 from the foul line.

With 7:21 to go in the game, Arizona led 70-55. Cal had made 4 of their last 5 field goals as freshman guard Jazlen Green was up to 12 points after making back-to-back triples. Cal wasn’t giving up. With 3:40 to go, Arizona led 78-61. Cal freshman guard Leilani Mcintosh for the second time got popped in the chops and the refs were looking it over to see if she was fouled excessively. McIntosh’s willingness to put her body on the line just showed how hard this Cal team was willing to fight.

With 38 seconds to go, a triple from Jaelyn Brown made it an 83-73 lead for Arizona. Cal was hoping to at least make it a single digit game. In the end, a triple from McBryde made it an 86-73 win for Arizona. But Arizona had to earn that double-digit win. Cal battled until the final whistle and deserves a ton of credit for not giving up.

Even though this game didn’t go the way Cal wanted it to, they should feel good about how they battled and competed for the entire game. Because of that fighting spirit, they shocked Arizona on their home floor on Sunday, stunned #24 Arizona State yesterday, and gave Arizona all they could handle again today.

With an elite freshman group coming in next year to go along with a strong core of returning players, the future of this Cal program looks to be very bright. They ended this season with some positive momentum and gave Cal fans a taste of what’s to come. It’ll be fun to see what next year and beyond brings in Berkeley.

Note: Arizona head coach Adia Barnes had positive words about Cal head coach Charmin Smith on Pac-12 Networks after the game. Below are her comments:

“I think Charmin has done a phenomenal job. I think that when your team fights for you until the very end, that means you have their hearts and you’ve coached them, and they play for you. And I know Charmin. We were teammates in the WNBA. She’s going to be very successful because of who she is, and she was a blue collar type player, so they play just like her.

“So I would tell her to stay the course, not get discouraged, it doesn’t matter how many Pac-12 wins that you won the first year because you’re going to recruit and you’re going to get better and players are going to want to come play for her because she’s been that every level.”