On Sunday at 5:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks, Cal women’s basketball will run it back against #5 Stanford after losing 73-40 on Friday night. This time, the game will be in Berkeley. Given that these two teams are facing each other back-to-back, my preview is going to look a little bit different. I’m going to skip the overall introduction of Stanford since I just did that before Friday’s game. If you missed any of my content from Friday, you can check that out below.

Friday’s Preview: Cal heads to The Farm to battle Stanford

Friday’s Recap: Cal gets routed at Top Five Stanford

Keys to bouncing back: Rather than doing a standard keys to the game, I’m going to write three keys to bouncing back against Stanford having watched them on Friday night.

First, Cal needs to calm down. Cal head coach Charmin Smith talked about how her team seems to be getting tight and that nerves are getting to them. It feels like Cal has been playing like deer in the headlights ever since conference play began. They seem to have psyched themselves out a bit, convinced that Pac-12 play is way harder than non-conference play. While it is true that the Pac-12 is the best conference in the country, it’s still basketball. It’s not like Pac-12 play means having to play on 15-foot hoops with smaller rims. Cal needs to take a chill pill, relax, and get back to doing what they did in the non-conference.

Secondly, Cal needs to do much better on the glass. Cal came into Friday’s game with a +8.8 rebounding margin per game while Stanford had a +8.6 rebounding margin per game. Rather than it being a tight battle on the glass, Cal got destroyed as Stanford out-rebounded them 50-29. Tara VanDerveer preached to her team the importance of rebounding and it showed. Cal needs to box out, go after loose balls, and hustle inside. If they can keep the game respectable on the glass, it’ll be a much closer game.

Finally, Jaelyn Brown needs to step up. On Friday, she finished with 4 points on 2-4 shooting from the field. Stanford did a terrific job getting her out of the game. If Cal is to bounce back in this game, they’re going to need to get way more out of Brown. She won ESPNW National Player of the Week honors earlier in the year after her 30 point explosion against Arkansas, so she’s more than capable of having a bounce back game.