Cal falls late in OT to #10 UCLA

On Sunday, Cal women’s basketball fell to #10 UCLA 74-70 in overtime in Berkeley. UCLA junior forward Michaela Onyenwere led the way for the Bruins with 22 points. Cal senior forward Jaelyn Brown was the top performer for the Golden Bears with 17 points and 8 rebounds. UCLA improves to 21-2 overall and 10-2 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 9-14 overall and 1-11 in the Pac-12.

“Well, that was a doozy,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said after the game. “I think it was an exciting Pac-12 women’s basketball game. I think both teams played extremely hard and gave a ton of effort. And unfortunately, we came up just a little bit short. But I’m proud of how we battled, how we competed against a really good team.”

“I actually told this to the team in the locker room, I saw LeBron’s interview at last night, I can’t remember who they beat, but he said you know, we didn’t play as well as we would have liked, we have a lot of things we need to grow in, but to get a win on the road in the NBA, you gotta really cherish however you get there,” UCLA head coach Cori Close said of her team’s win. “And I feel the same way about this conference. That, give a lot of credit to Cal for just their attack mentality, their confidence of their young team, the way they found their go-to players, the way they established Celeste West inside. Did so many good things.

“The reality is we need to grow in some areas and some mistakes that we made. But, it is really hard to get a win in this conference and on the road. And so, we found a way to make that happen and we’re thankful for that.”

UCLA got off to a strong start in this game, leading 17-11 with 3:19 to go in the 1st quarter. UCLA freshman guard Jaden Owens was up to 6 points while Jaelyn Brown had 5 points for Cal. One piece of good news to start the game for Cal was the return of freshman guard Jazlen Green, who played in 7 minutes. Even though she didn’t play for much of the game, it was nice for Cal to have her back after she was seen on crutches after Friday’s loss to USC.

At the end of the 1st quarter, UCLA would lead 22-14. Cal was shooting 3-11 (27.3%) from the field and 0-5 from 3-point range, really struggling to get going on offense. As for UCLA, they were doing better, shooting 8-18 (44.4%) from the field and 5-7 from beyond the arc. What was keeping Cal in the game was their 8-10 shooting from the foul line.

With 6:52 to go in the half, UCLA led 27-16. UCLA freshman guard Charisma Osborne was up to 8 points for the Bruins, doing her part to give her team the lead. Cal was struggling to take care of the ball with 9 turnovers. The most recent being a steal by Osborne from Brown that resulted in a layup. Rather than extending their lead, UCLA allowed Cal to hang around. With 3:48 to go in the half, UCLA led 32-23. All things considered, Cal was lucky they weren’t down by more. Cal was 9-12 at the foul line while UCLA was 1-1. Free throws were keeping Cal in the game.

Over the next couple of minutes, Cal would go on a 7-0 run to trail 32-29 with 1:49 to go in the half. Jazlen Green found CJ West for a basket after a steal from Cailyn Crocker. That kind of teamwork epitomized the effort that Cal was putting into this game.

At the half, UCLA was up 36-32. Osborne led UCLA with 13 points while Brown had 8 points and 5 rebounds for Cal. To Cal’s credit all their hustle was paying off as they were down by just 4 points.

To start the second half, the game continued to remain tight as UCLA would lead 42-37 with 4:56 to go in the 3rd quarter. Cal’s 33-24 edge on the glass was paying huge dividends. CJ West (5 points & 8 rebounds) and Evelien Lutje Schipholt (6 points & 6 rebounds) were stepping up. UCLA’s lead would shrink to one point (42-41) with 3:36 to go in the 3rd quarter. Brown led Cal with 10 points while Osborne (13 points) hadn’t scored in the quarter for UCLA. Cal was hanging tough.

“I’d be lying if I said I expected that,” Smith said of how much her team dominated the boards. “What we did know was that if we didn’t keep them off of the glass, we had no chance. So, that was more the mindset and the mentality, and I love how aggressive we were.”

“I take it a lot on myself,” West added about the rebounding. “Every game I try to focus on it. I think for us post players, it’s one of the things that we really really have to do. And I know from me to Evelien to Chen, Bird, Jaelyn, too. Like, we’ve kind of been on and off with it. You know, it’s been an up and down hill with it. And I think like these past few games, we’ve been executing it a lot better. And this game, kinda like what Charmin said, when we watch film of them getting o-boards on other people, and then seeing teams that box’em out and how successful they were, it’s like good to see that and inspiring for me to be able to do that, too.”

Cal would briefly take the lead, going back and forth for a couple minutes before UCLA closed the quarter on a 6-0 run. UCLA redshirt junior guard Natalie Chou was stepping up for the Bruins with 10 points. Brown in turn had 12 points for the Golden Bears.

With 7:50 to go in regulation, UCLA was up 56-49, looking like they would finally pull away for good. Onyenwere had 15 points for UCLA while Brown had 14 points for Cal. UCLA’s 7-13 shooting from deep was a good weapon for them. Cal once again would close the gap, trailing 63-59 with 2:59 to go. Cal had the rock and was back in business.

With 1:43 to go, Cal would trail 63-61 after a huge layup from Leilani McIntosh inside. Cal had the ball, looking to tie the game up. Shortly thereafter, a pair of free throws from West would tie the game up 63-63. After a wild sequence of events, UCLA would have the ball with 5.3 to go. With UCLA unable to score in that final possession, this game was going to overtime tied 63-63.

“This is a game that’s always a battle,” Smith said. “UCLA-Cal, it’s just been some epic games here in Haas Pavilion. And we didn’t see why there’s any reason it couldn’t be that with this squad that we have. We have a lot of pride and we’re gonna come out every single day and compete and I think we did that extremely well today and we were stepping up to the challenge of playing against a ranked opponent.”

“Yeah, I think both of the L.A. schools, every time we play them, it’s a really strong rivalry,” West added. “You would think that they were Stanford. I feel like we have three rivalries. Stanford, USC, and UCLA. It’s really personal against all those games that we’ve played.”

Overtime continued to remain tight as UCLA would lead 67-65 with 2:59 to go. Both teams battled hard, doing a good job of responding to the other. With 2:14 to go, UCLA led 68-67 after a layup from Cailyn Crocker got Cal within 1 point. Cal continued to fight. Two free throws from Osborne would give UCLA a 70-67 lead before Brown responded with a 3-pointer to tie the game up 70-70. Onyenwere would then hit a fadeaway jumper to give UCLA a 72-70 lead with 25.7 to go in overtime. Cal had the ball, looking to respond.

Unfortunately for Cal, they had two possessions not go their way. The first one was a fade away jumper by Brown that clanged short and was rebounded by UCLA, resulting in two made free throws from Japreece Dean. The next possession resulted in Crocker being pressured and turning the ball over right as time expired. In the end, UCLA walked out with a 74-70 overtime win, having to fight a lot harder than they expected.

“Yeah, so we had a look for Cailyn and their pressure, I think just got her moving a little bit faster than she wanted to and then couldn’t get a shot off there,” Smith said. “There were some more options that she was supposed to get to because we didn’t necessarily need a three. But they were so aggressive on the ball that she couldn’t really see anything else.

“We sent Jaelyn off of a ball screen from Eve and I believe they switched the ball screen. And so Onyenwere was on you [Jaelyn] on that. And so, Jaelyn had just knocked down a contested three a couple possessions before. She’s really good at elevating and knocking down those shots. So yeah, I felt good with the ball in her hands.”

For Cal, this game didn’t end in a victory, but there’s a lot of positives they can take. They battled hard for the full 40 minutes against the #10 team in the country, responded well to adversity that came their way, and stuck together as a team. They outrebounded UCLA 55-39, shot 14-20 at the foul line, and did a good job defending UCLA, holding them to 38.4% shooting from the field. As is the case with close games, sometimes you just come up a bit short. Going forward, they should take a ton of confidence from how they played.

“I put this [stat sheet], I said this is the standard,” Smith said of what her message was after the game. “This is what we expect. And some of our performances we know have not been at this level and we’ve lacked consistency. And I want us to play at this level all the time. And I think if we do that, we’ve got a lot more wins in this conference. So, the challenge is to on Tuesday when we get back together, be at this level as we get ready to head up to the mountain schools. If we bring this type of effort, then we can be proud of the outcome no matter what.”

In her final remarks, Cori Close wanted to make it known how much she respects Charmin Smith and the foundation that she is building at Cal. Even though the wins aren’t coming very often, Close believes that Cal is on the path to success. It’s just going to take a little bit of time.

“I stopped Charmin on the way through the line and I got a chance to talk to their boosters before the game,” Close said. “She is going to build a great program here. Period. I’ve been on the WBCA board with her and she is so sharp. She has inspired me in the way that she fights for her players and for women in the sport. Specifically women of color. I just really admire who she is and the foundation on which she is building this program.

“You don’t get rewarded right away and even though you’re growing, I actually have a scale. An old school scale in my office and when I first started at UCLA, a parent gave this to me and said you’re going to put a lot of positive deposits in the scale and it’s not going to tip for a while. And I feel like that’s what Charmin is doing. She’s putting a lot of deposits on the correct side of the scale and just because it hasn’t tipped doesn’t mean she’s not doing an awesome job. And I really respect who she is and the program that she’s going to build here and I’m happy that she’s in the Pac-12.”

Up next for Cal is a road trip to the Rockies. Up first will be Colorado on Friday. That game will tipoff at 6:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks.