On Sunday, #15 ranked Cal women’s basketball had a 67-42 victory over Cal State Northridge behind 26 points and 10 rebounds from Kristine Anigwe and 14 points and 5 rebounds from Kianna Smith. Anigwe becomes the third player in program history to score 2,000 career points as Cal improves to 7-0 on the season. Cal State Northridge falls to 4-5.
“I was proud of our effort today,” Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said after the game. “It’s never going to be easy and it’s never going to be without some hills to climb and obviously not having CJ (West) at full strength is a bigger deal for us than it may appear and having AT go down, having KA in some foul trouble, and then me really challenging our team to be better. I was very pleased with how we responded in the second half: Defensively; intensity-wise. I thought Receé’s nine assists doesn’t tell the story of the leadership that she’s providing, and Kristine just continues to show that she’s the best post player in the country on both ends of the floor.”
During the first half, the game was actually pretty close. Cal took a narrow 31-28 lead into halftime despite an absolutely sensational performance from Anigwe, who scored 16 points and pulled in 7 rebounds. Outside of Smith, who had 8 points at the half, no one else for Cal was able to get going, allowing the Matadors to hang around. When Anigwe went to the bench with her third personal foul after a very sketchy offensive foul call, things started to look worrisome for Cal.
After Alaysia Styles missed a defensive assignment late in the first half, Gottlieb called timeout, upset both by the missed assignment and the offensive foul call on Anigwe. That same frustration was carried into the locker room at halftime, resulting in a totally different looking Cal team at the start of the second half.
“Like, step up. Man up. Woman up,” Gottlieb said of what she told her team. “I think we have the best player around, but whether she’s in or not in we are too good. We have great players at every spot. We need to play harder, we need to be more locked in. We need to not take possessions for granted in any kind of way and really it was step up, be better and that’s exactly what they did…when you hear something that’s not the most fun thing to hear, but they just lock in and they go do it and that’s what we did.”
While Cal got off to a strong start early in the 3rd quarter, Asha Thomas suffered an injury that required her to get carried off the court. While there is still no word on the severity of the injury, Gottlieb did confirm to us that they are looking at her knee. Despite the adversity and setback, Cal outscored the Matadors 19-6 in the 3rd quarter, putting to rest the possibility of a Matadors victory.
“I just keep talking about elite level of play,” Gottlieb said. “Like we have a team that should be playing elite level basketball. And so, we’re talking more about us, we’re talking about the way our offense flows, we’re talking about being high level defense and when it’s not there, I am more in a good way, upset than I’ve been in a couple years because we’re so capable. So, I think their ability to take those messages and pull away when it’s time to pull away or win a close game when it’s a close game. We’re just looking at playing the highest level of basketball that we can, and I think that’s what we saw today more than anything else. Especially in that second half.”
During the 4th quarter, it was more of the same for Cal, who outscored the Matadors 17-8. After a scary first half, Cal was able to coast to a 67-42 victory, outscoring the Matadors 36-14 in the second half. Whatever Gottlieb told her team at halftime clearly worked and from there it was one-way traffic all in favor of the Golden Bears.
One player who stepped up for Cal in this game is redshirt junior Chen Yue, who played over 10 minutes due to Anigwe’s foul trouble. While she didn’t score, Yue finished with 4 rebounds and 1 block, doing a really good job of clogging up the lane and making life hard on the Matadors’ star post player Channon Fluker, who finished with just 7 points and 5 rebounds.
“Chen stays ready”, Gottlieb said. “She has a different role than Kristine. She has a different role even than CJ. But if she can come in there, Fluker for them doesn’t get anything easy. That’s when you become an elite team. When you can win in a lot of different ways and all of a sudden, we don’t have the scoring production maybe from our five spot then, but if they’re not scoring or other people on our team can step up, I think that’s a critical piece of why we have the potential to be very good.”
Given that she reached the 2,000 point mark early in the game, Anigwe didn’t have the chance to reflect on the significance of that milestone until after the game. When talking about it, Anigwe was pretty humble, stating how blessed she is and how grateful she is to have amazing teammates and an amazing coach.
“Wow, I’m just really blessed,” Anigwe said of the milestone. “I have amazing teammates, an amazing coach. Wow. I’m just really in a daze right now because I just never imagined that I would come here and have 2,000 points. That’s crazy. I’m just really grateful for everyone around me. It hasn’t been easy.”
Of course, the big story from this game is the injury to Asha Thomas, whose status going forward is not yet known. All we can confirm at this point is that they are looking at her knee. Gottlieb said they are hoping for the best and that she’s really proud of how her team rallied around their senior floor general when she went down.
“We just had our post game meeting in the training room,” Gottlieb said. “That was led because all of our players aren’t going to go the locker room before going to see their teammate Asha, who is in there. So, I have no medical update on her and we’ll get everything tested out and hope that everything and pray that everything is fine with her…It’s just the entire team huddled around AT, trying to listen to what the doctor’s saying, but more so just to show the support that they don’t know any other way. That’s what they do. They go to each other when someone’s down, they go to each other when someone’s great, they go to each other when someone’s injured, Kianna Smith led us in a little prayer.
“But, what I do know is that this is a really special team. They show it every day on the court. What you guys don’t get to see is them huddled around AT. Their leader, their little warrior. AT is going to be fine no matter what and our team is going to be fine no matter what. But it’s sometimes those moments that you see what your team is really about.
For Anigwe, the injury to Thomas is hard to see given how much they have been through together. They both came to Cal as freshmen and have become super close both on and off the court. At this point, all Anigwe can do is hope that her teammate will be alright.
“When she went down, I felt so upset, mad, and angry,” Anigwe said. “Because this is her year, too. We came in together. We went through so much together, I’m praying for her. I really need her. She’s like the heart and soul of our team. So, her numbers don’t even reflect how she is as a person. She comes every single day and gives a hundred percent. You don’t see many players do that.
“So ,this 2,000 points isn’t for me. It’s for the people that came before me that helped me be the person that I am today. I’m just grateful that I’m here, that I’m sitting here talking to you guys. I’m upset that I’m not here with Teezy because we’ve been through it all. I’m just astonished by myself and I wouldn’t be able to get that many points if Lindsay didn’t believe in me from the jump, since I got here. So, I’m just grateful.”
Up next for Cal is a road game on Saturday at Saint Mary’s, which will tipoff at 2:00 PM PST. Cal will look to improve to 8-0 and continue to climb up the rankings.
BERKELEY – Cal senior guard Asha Thomas has been cleared to resume practice as tolerated, head coach Lindsay Gottlieb announced on Wednesday. Thomas left the court with an apparent knee injury in the third quarter of Sunday’s win over CSUN, but tests and imaging revealed no acute injury.
