Cal gets win over Stanford on Senior Day
On Saturday, Cal women’s basketball defeated #14 Stanford by a final score of 78-66, making it the program’s first win over their Bay Area rival since 2015. Cal junior Asha Thomas finished with 25 points on 8-16 shooting from the field and 7-8 shooting from the foul line while Stanford senior Brittany McPhee finished with 24 points on 8-20 shooting from the field and 7-10 shooting from the foul line. Cal improves to 18-9 overall and 9-7 in the Pac-12 while Stanford falls to 19-9 overall and 13-3 in the Pac-12.
“More smiles from our end,” Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said after the game. “I mean what can I say? As a head coach you get some dream moments and it’s not for you, you want these young people to experience that feeling. That celebration feeling and today was our day. So incredibly proud of our seniors and how they’ve led us and what they’ve led us through.
“To get that win for them was huge. I thought every single player on our team battled, a lot of the post work was grunt work and when we beat Stanford it often comes down to our guard play because Tara is such a master game planner. She’s not going to let Kristine get easy looks or CJ get easy looks, so those guys did their job and I thought our guards were spectacular today…Kianna Smith, coming off of a rough game the other night, to bounce back and have this game is one of the most impressive things I’ve been around as well, so just super happy for this team.”
After Thursday’s close loss, Cal showed that they could compete with Stanford, but this time they showed that they could beat Stanford. Asha Thomas was once again the top performer, making big plays for her team all game long, whether it was a tough layup inside, a dagger 3-pointer, or a steal.
“Being myself,” Thomas said of what she did to get into such a rhythm. “I know what I can do in big games and even if it’s a not a big game, like the Stanford game, rivalry game. I think really for the seniors, it really added more motivation for me. I told them and I even told the team, I want this win for you guys and I believe everybody agreed, the way that we played. I guess that was the extra motivation for me to do that.”
When looking at the box score, one of the things that really stands out is the way Kianna Smith stepped up her game. On Thursday, Smith finished with only 2 points and had virtually no impact on the game. On Saturday, she was the second-highest scorer on the team and a huge reason for why Cal was able to pull out the win.
“Obviously having a couple rough games, off of playing Stanford at their house and just not playing the way I’ve wanted to it was just a change of mentality and once again just playing for my seniors,” Smith said. “That’s what it came down to and we’re going to continue to play that way throughout the rest of the season.”
From Stanford’s perspective, the biggest difference from Thursday was the tone that Cal set from the opening tip. Stanford had a healthy 22-13 lead after the first quarter on Thursday, but in this game, they found themselves down 21-16 instead thanks to Cal’s increase in energy and motivation.
“I think the tone was set, first play of the game Cal was extremely aggressive,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said after the game. “And that aggressiveness was what they needed and whether it was turning us over, outrebounding us, defending we only had like seven assists if that’s right. I credit them; they came out with a great game plan and got after it.
“We didn’t find a way to get it done. I think our defense let us down basically the whole game, they were just driving in, getting in deep and scoring, we didn’t shoot well enough from the free throw line. When you’re in a close game, you gotta make free throws. When you’re in a close game you gotta make layups. You look at their top players and I think that they scored 50% or better and I don’t think we were competitive enough.”
Speaking on Kianna Smith’s bounce back game, VanDerveer sang the freshman’s praises and really credited her for playing as well as she did.
“She played hard and she made shots,” VanDerveer said. “You know, she’s had a really good freshman year and I think that she accepted the challenge and quite honestly I don’t think our team did accept the challenge. We didn’t accept the challenge to come in here and do what needed to be done. But she did.”
For Cal, this was a game that they really needed to win. They were in desperate need of a signature win to put on their NCAA Tournament resume and this win definitely accomplishes that goal. With this win now under their belt, Cal looks to build some momentum going in to the Pac-12 Tournament after traveling to face the Washington schools next week.