On Friday, Cal women’s basketball lost to USC by a final score of 75-67. USC freshman center Angel Jackson led the way for the Trojans with 19 points and 9 rebounds while Cal senior forward Jaelyn Brown was the top performer for the Golden Bears with 22 points and 8 rebounds. USC improves to 12-10 overall and 4-7 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 9-13 overall and 1-10 in the Pac-12.
“This was a frustrating game in that I think we did some things well, but unfortunately we struggled to get stops and struggled to take care of the ball,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said after the game. “Which is an issue for us in the last few games and USC did enough to pull away, so we gotta keep working to get better defensively and do a better job taking care of the ball. Especially with UCLA coming in on Sunday.”
Cal got off to a strong start in this game, leading 9-4 with 4:35 to go in the 1st quarter. Cal senior guard Sara Anastasieska had 4 points early as Cal was shooting 4-8 from the field. In the next few minutes, Brown started to heat up for Cal with 9 points on 3-4 shooting from beyond the arc as Cal would lead 17-13 at the end of the 1st quarter. USC senior guard Aliyah Jeune had 5 points at the end of the quarter, doing her part for the Trojans. Cal should have had a 17-11 lead at the end of the quarter, but unfortunately for them, Jackson found a way to score two more points right before the buzzer sounded.
To start the second quarter, Cal freshman guard Jazlen Green went down with an apparent leg injury, limping to the locker room. She did not return and was seen in crutches after the game. Charmin Smith provided an update on her status after the game.
“She injured her leg,” Smith said. “Not sure exactly what the extent of the injury was. But she’s not able to come back in the game, obviously. So, she’ll be re-evaluated tomorrow and we’ll see what her status is for Sunday.”
With 4:57 to go in the half, Cal was up 26-21 after Brown made 4 straight free throws thanks to a technical foul on Jeune plus a personal foul. Brown was up to 13 points as Cal was looking strong. Rather than building on their lead, Cal allowed USC to creep back into the game. As a result, Cal found themselves clinging to a 31-30 lead at halftime. Brown was up to 15 points for Cal while Jackson had 9 points and 6 rebounds for USC.
After the first half belonged to Cal, the second half belonged to USC as the Trojans would lead 41-37 with 5:44 to go in the 3rd quarter. USC was gaining a bit of momentum, forcing Charmin Smith to call for time. At the end of the quarter, USC was now up 52-47. Brown scored just two points in the quarter, not playing like she had in the first half. Anastasieska was the one coming on for Cal as she was up to 16 points. As for USC, Jackson was leading the way for them with 15 points.
“[They were doing] nothing. I think I was slowing myself down,” Brown said of her quiet third quarter. “I think I got in my head a little bit in the third quarter. I just need to stay focused going forward.”
With 4:52 to go in the game, USC led 58-56. Cal’s foul shooting (13-16) was keeping them in the game. Whichever team got rebounds and took care of the ball would be the ones to walk out with the win. Like Poppie in Seinfeld, Cal started to get a little sloppy, trailing 65-58 with 2:03 to go. Cal didn’t take care of the ball and have the kind of possessions that they needed. Hence the hole with very little time to go.
“We do drills in practice kind of just like ok, what do you see drill,” Smith explained. “That’s the name of the drill. The what-do-you-see drill. Because sometimes I’m confused as to what we see when we make a pass. And so really working on people recognizing where the defense is passing away from the defender. And making the appropriate pass. You know? It’s just tough. I think we really really want to make a play and sometimes we’re just forcing it because we want to try to do it so badly in that sense I guess.”
To Cal’s credit, they continued to battle. Even when they got down 70-61 with 46.8 to go. They were able to get within 5 points (72-67) with 31.9 to go, but that was the closest they would get. In the end, USC walked out with a 75-67 win. Outscoring Cal 45-36 in the second half.
For Cal, this is a disappointing loss considering they were at home and coming off a nice win over Washington on the road. They had a chance to go up by 5+ points in the first half, but weren’t able to do so. As a result, they gave USC some life and weren’t able to shut the door.
One thing Cal needs is to get more players going on offense. If it’s just Jaelyn Brown out there scoring, they really struggle. That’s why it was so huge to get those points from Anastasieska.
“Sara’s extremely aggressive,” Smith said. “And she has a really competitive mentality. And I thought she did a good job of battling. I think it helps when we can get her to get some shots to go in early. You know, get that confidence going. But yeah, we’d love to have her putting numbers on the board consistently.
“Today we had three people in double figures and a couple people close. I think when you go back and look at when we’ve been successful it’s when we’ve had multiple people in double figures. We’ve had some shooting droughts when we weren’t able to knock down shots. We had CJ out for a while, the concussion. She’s been in and out pretty much the whole season, so that’s been hard to keep her in a rhythm. Really glad she found her way last weekend. I thought she did a solid job today. But I think that will help us if we can get CJ more in a rhythm. We have that post threat, then it opens things up for our guards as well.”
Up next for Cal is a home game on Sunday against #10 UCLA. That game will tipoff at 2:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks.
