On Friday, Cal women’s basketball fell to #5 Stanford by a final score of 73-40. Stanford freshman guard Haley Jones led the way for the Cardinal with 17 points and 3 rebounds while freshman forward Ashten Prechtel finished with 13 points and 6 rebounds. Cal freshman guard Jazlen Green was the top performer for the Golden Bears with 9 points and 4 rebounds. Stanford improves to 14-1 overall and 3-0 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 8-6 overall and 0-3 in the Pac-12.

“Obviously was a rough one,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said after the game. “We had trouble putting the ball in the basket. And that’s been the case for a couple games now. So, just really trying to figure out how to get us going offensively. It took a toll; I think here in Maples with who we were playing against and the crowd and everything. I think we got a little quiet and a little bit in the second and third quarter and then we found our fight late in the third. So, happy to see that we at least got the fight back. But we gotta be better on Sunday.”

It was the 500th Pac-12 win of Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer’s storied career. It is the most major conference wins by any coach in women’s college hoops history. Well deserved.

“It’s really special and really cool,” Smith said of coaching against her former coach. “Obviously, I don’t like losing. But this was a very special day and from the fans who came up to me before the game, from the friends who were here. Former players, you know, Brooke Smith and Jayne Appel and people here just with really positive words and people who are really happy for me to be in this position. That means a lot and I told Tara this morning; keep working and get to the point where this is a tough weekend for the people that are coming to the Bay. Both games. And we got some work to do to get it back to where it is that way. I think people know that we’ve got a group of fighters. I think they know we’ve got a young group and if they come in unprepared, I think they know that we’re capable, but we want to keep building on that and be even better.”

“Once the game gets going, you don’t even know who’s down there sitting on that bench,” VanDerveer said of coaching against her former player. “You’re just about your team. I think that the main thing is when we’re not playing Cal, I’m rooting for Charmin and I think she’s doing an excellent job. But, I mean, I’m happy to see former players in coaching and having them do well.”

Early on this game was tight as Stanford led 9-5 with 4:27 to go in the 1st quarter. Stanford sophomore guard Lexie Hullhad 5 points for the Cardinal on 2-4 shooting from the field, doing a good job of pacing her team. Cal was shooting 2-9 from the field while Stanford was shooting 4-8. Cal needed to get some better looks.

After initially being a tight game, Stanford went off to the races, closing the quarter on an 11-0 run to go up 20-5. Prechtel was up to 5 points and 3 rebounds, leading the Cardinal in points and rebounds. As for Cal, no one was in rhythm as they were shooting 2-16 (12.5%) from the field. Stanford’s size and length was really bothering Cal.

It continued to be one-way traffic for Stanford in the 2nd quarter as they led 33-11 with 4:42 to go until halftime. Stanford junior guard Kiana Williams was up to 9 points and 3 rebounds as the Cardinal continued to dominate. Stanford’s size and length continued to hurt Cal as they were having serious trouble scoring in the paint. Stanford conversely was having no trouble scoring in the paint as Haley Jones was dominating inside with 8 points.

At the half, Stanford was up 39-15 as Prechtel had 11 points and 4 rebounds on 5-6 shooting from the field. Cal guard Leilani McIntosh was up to 4 points with two nice buckets inside. She was playing scrappy.

“I wasn’t complaining too much about that at halftime,” VanDerveer said of Stanford’s defense. “Not only that, we did a really good job of taking care of the ball. We didn’t do a good enough job in the fourth quarter in terms of taking care of the ball or defensively, but the first three quarters we did a really nice job. And that’s credit to Cal. They don’t give up. They kept playing hard. But, our defense was locked in and a lot of it was I think what Lexie did, Lacie, Kiana, and they made a great effort. We’re going to do that again. We’re going to have to do that every game.”

With 4:48 to go in the 3rd quarter, Stanford was up 49-15. Jones continued to do her thing as she was up to 16 points on 7-10 shooting from the field. As for Cal, McIntosh was their leading scorer despite still being stuck on 4 points. Stanford was shooting 20-43 (46.5%) from the field while Cal was shooting 6-32 (18.8%).

At the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford was up 58-18 as Jones now had 17 points for the Cardinal. As for Prechtel, she was up to 13 points, continuing to do damage. It was one-way traffic for Stanford, who was shooting 23-48 (47.9%) from the field. Cal was shooting 7-41 (17.1%). It was clearly not their night.

“I think we had some contested shots, some poor shot selection in there,” Smith said. “And then I think we had some wide open looks where we didn’t knock’em down. We missed some point blank layups. We just have to slow ourselves down and settle in and I just told them there’s no pressure. Just relax and play. And we seemed a little kinda geared up to me. And I think that caused us to miss some shots early on.”

With 4:43 to go, Stanford was up 69-29. Cal freshman guard Cailyn Crocker got 5 quick points, including a tricky layup off an assist from Leilani McIntosh. Cal brought the effort. They were just getting overpowered.

“They have a lot of heart,” Smith said of the two freshmen. “And they don’t quit. And they’re learning. They’re learning and I’m just proud of how they show up every day and they listen. They’re extremely coachable and they’re just trying to do the best they can. And it just took a while for shots to drop for them. And it’s tough to get anything going when you can’t get the ball to go in the basket.”

In the end, Stanford walked out with a 73-40 win. It was a very dominating win for the Cardinal while also being a very difficult loss for the Golden Bears. It was not the kind of performance Charmin Smith was hoping her team would have in her first game at Maples Pavilion as a head coach. At the same time, this was a great learning opportunity for Cal. Something that can serve as motivation for them in the future.

“We want to be competitive in the Battle of the Bay,” Smith said. “We want to be on this stage and maybe that got us going just a little bit too much in the wrong direction. Just that desire to try to do so much.”

From my vantage point, it does feel like if this team can get that first Pac-12 win, they should calm down and settle in. We saw them play well against tough teams this year, knocking off a ranked Arkansas team and playing two additional ranked teams tough in Kentucky and UConn. They’re capable of playing much better and they know it.

“Yeah, I think it would be nice to get one under our belt,” Smith said of getting a conference win. “I think we have one of the toughest conference schedules in terms of playing Stanford twice, playing the Oregons twice. Like, we’ve got a rough one in how it laid out for us. And no offense to any other teams, but this ain’t the SEC and this ain’t the ACC. Like, this is the Pac-12 and these teams are really really really good. And we knew that it was going to be a different level of competition coming into conference play than what we experienced in the non-conference.

“And I’m one of those believers that we’ve got a lot of teams that’ll be in the Final Four playing in this conference right now and it’s good for us to get experience against the top teams in the country and that’s what’s coming at us night in and night out. And we’re just going to keep getting better and keep working harder.”

As for Stanford, props to them for dominating like they did. What was particularly impressive was the way they dominated Cal 50-29 on the boards. Cal came in with a +8.8 rebounding margin per game while Stanford game in with a +8.6 margin. I don’t care if Stanford is the 5th ranked team in the country and Cal is unranked. To dominate the boards like that was mighty impressive.

“I think that our team, I think really our team, we try to give them specific things to focus on and I think rebounding was a big focus,” VanDerveer said of her team’s rebounding prowess. “I might have said it a couple times? Like over and over and over. Like rebound, rebound, rebound, rebound, rebound, rebound. So, I think at some point, we locked in and I thought we did a good job. I mean, keeping them. They had eight o-boards. That was good for us. Now, again we’ve gotta just turn around and do it again. We can’t be happy with what we did today. We’ve got to improve.”

Up next for Cal is a date with Stanford up in Berkeley at Haas Pavilion on Sunday. That game will tipoff at 5:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks. While in some situations, Charmin Smith would prefer to have more of a break between games against Stanford, in this instance she’s fine running it back in two days:

“In this situation, we kinda got clobbered and I don’t mind playing them again on Sunday and coming out and being better than we were today.”