Cal shows improvement in loss to Stanford

On Sunday, Cal women’s basketball fell to #5 Stanford by a final score of 79-65. Stanford junior guard Kiana Williams (21 points & 5 assists) and Stanford freshman guard Haley Jones (21 points & 4 rebounds) led the way for the Cardinal while Cal senior forward Jaelyn Brown (14 points) was the top scorer for the Golden Bears. Stanford improves to 15-1 overall and 4-0 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 8-7 overall and 0-4 in the Pac-12.

“Thank you for coming, really excited about the number of fans who were here,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said after the game. “We’d like for it to be even more, but this was great for the Battle of the Bay and celebration of 150 women here at Cal. We wanted to come out and show that we’re a better team than we were on Friday and I think we played with a lot more energy. I think the effort level was a lot better and that allows us to be more competitive. We’re learning, we’re building, we’re growing it together, and I think this was a good showing for us.”

“This is a great win for our team,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said in her opening remarks. “I thought Cal came out very aggressive and we had to play through, it was a very physical game. But, I’m really proud of how our team battled. Kiana had a great game. We say Ki is the key. She works really hard, both ends of the floor, really smart player. Made some really great decisions. Great passes for us, hit some big shots, and then Lexi really stepped up. Played basically the whole game. Shot 50 percent from the field, rebounds for us, was our leading rebounder, and is our leading rebounder, and she was a great defender on Brown who is a terrific player. But, I don’t think she got her numbers against Lexi and Lexi worked really hard against her.

“We had a lot of different people contribute, I thought Haley Jones had one of her best games of the year. Just tremendous passer, great court vision, I thought Nadia [Fingall] kinda anchored our defense, but Ashten Prechtel came in and hit some big shots for us. Fran Belibi hit those free throws and was rebounding out there for us. Different people were able to contribute. It’s a great win and we’re ready to move on and play Oregon.”

Early on, this game appeared to be a carbon copy of what we saw on Friday as Stanford jetted out to a 12-3 lead with 4:56 to go in the 1st quarter. Kiana Williams and Lexie Hull each had 4 points for the Cardinal, doing a great job of getting their team out in front. Stanford would cool off a bit towards the back end of the quarter, but still went into the 2ndquarter up 18-9 as Hull and Williams each had 6 points. Cal needed to find a way to slow them down as Stanford was shooting 8-14 (57.1%) from the field. Cal in contrast was shooting 3-13 (23.1%) from the field, not able to get into a good shooting rhythm.

“Well, I just watched video from the game on Friday,” Williams said of what allowed her to do so well attacking the rim. “Saw some things that I didn’t do Friday that I wanted to do today. I tried to let the game come to me and just make plays. And just credit to my teammates. Ashten had a really big third quarter that helped us finish the game out strong.”

With 6:56 to go in the half, Stanford led 25-16 after Cal had gotten to within four points. While they were still behind, Cal was putting up a much stronger effort. They were playing like a team that wanted to send a message after a rough Friday loss on The Farm.

“We’re just motivating each other each time out and weren’t happy with how we came out on Friday,” Cal freshman guard Cailyn Crocker said. “So, each day we’re trying to push and continue to be who we know we can be and that starts today and that starts tomorrow and we’re going to keep going.”

“Playing here is very difficult,” Hull said of what made it harder for her team than Friday. “We know they’re going to bring their A-game every time. And I think they came out really strong in that first half and I think we responded to that in the second half better than we did in the first.”

With 4:27 to go in the half, Stanford led 29-19. Cal freshman guard Leilani McIntosh drew a foul after a gutty steal, embodying the toughness and determination that this Cal team was showing. Cal was shooting 6-22 from the field, hanging tough but needing to get more shots to drop.

With 2:00 to go until halftime, Stanford was now up 31-28 as Cal had quickly closed the gap. Cal redshirt senior guard Sara Anastasieska had 7 points, doing a great job at getting to the rim. Cal was playing tough. At the half, Stanford would lead 36-29. Jones led the way for the Cardinal with 13 points on 5-8 shooting from the field while Anastasieska was pacing Cal with 7 points and 4 rebounds.

“Yeah, it was,” Smith said when asked if getting to the rim was part of the game plan. “I think last game we took maybe four free throws? Six. We were 18 for 20 today. So, what we talked about is that we settled for a lot of semi-contested 3-point shots instead of shot faking it and driving by them and we thought we had some sweeps to the rim that we could take advantage of when we watched the film and we drilled those actions and I think we were a lot better today with that.”

“We kinda blitzed them at Stanford and they’re the wounded bear,” VanDerveer said of Cal’s bounce back performance. “We knew this, and we tried to tell our team this, but they come out. They were extremely, extremely aggressive. And the aggressive team it pays off. They shot 20 free throws. But they were more aggressive than us. Especially in the first half. I think in the second half we stepped up to the challenge a little bit better.”

To open up the second half, Stanford started to gain some separation, leading 51-37 with 5:02 to go in the 3rd quarter. Freshman forward Ashten Prechtel came out hot with 11 points on 4-4 shooting from the field and 3-3 shooting from 3-point range. Her ability to get rolling really helped the Cardinal gain some separation from the Golden Bears.

“Some of it was a matchup of who was guarding her and she hit some big shots,” VanDerveer said of Prechtel. “She was open, she’s confident, and I thought she was huge for us in the second half. Unfortunately, some of our bigs had some foul trouble. She had; I think she had two fouls. She picked up her third foul and that was something that I think we have to do better, but she’s, our young players, I mean I consider Lexie a young player. They’re warriors and I’m really excited about how she came out and made some big shots and kept playing hard and whoever went in the game just did what we asked them to do. Or tried to.”

At the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford would lead 62-48. Stanford caught a bit of a break right as freshman forward Francesca Belibi got fouled by Cal freshman forward Evelien Lutje Schipholt with 0.1 left on the clock. Belibi to her credit knocked down both of her foul shots, giving Stanford a bit more of a cushion heading into the final period.

The 4th quarter belonged to Stanford early as they extended their lead 75-53 with 4:44 to go. Jones was up to 21 points while Williams (17 points) and Hull (15 points) were also in double figures. Stanford was going to win, but it was just a matter of by how much and whether or not Cal would make any final response.

Rather than folding up like cheap tents, Cal scrapped and clawed until the very end, finishing the game on an 8-0 run. In the end, Stanford walked out with a 79-65 victory, having to work much harder than they did on Friday.

If you ask Cal directly, they’ll tell you they aren’t happy to walk out with a loss. At the same time, you could tell that they were happy to play better than they did on Friday. They proved to everyone watching and most importantly themselves, that they are capable of playing competitively against elite competition. Even though they have done so earlier in the year, it was still nice for them to get that reinforcement after a difficult loss.

“I think it wasn’t as much coming home, more just how we played at Stanford on Friday,” Anastasieska said of why they played better. “I think we didn’t show who we actually are as a team and I think that was the main message going into today. Make them feel us when we’re on the court and even though we took a loss today, I think they really felt us and know who we are. It also helps that we had a great crowd.”

“There’s a flow to Stanford basketball when they are in their comfort zone,” Smith added. “You saw it a little bit in the 4thquarter that we weren’t making them feel us and that’s when the lead starts to balloon a little bit. But, for the most part during the game, I guess because I’m familiar, I’ve been there, I know when Tara is feeling you and she’s concerned. And I think there were, there’s a lot of time in this game where we were making them feel us and that’s very important in trying to establish this as a legitimate rivalry. That’s what we want. We want to get our wins in this and eventually it’s going to come. But they have to know like ok, we’re playing Cal.”

Up next for Cal is a road trip to the Oregon schools. On Friday they’ll see #3 Oregon State before seeing #2 Oregon on Sunday. Cal knows it won’t get any easier, but after today, they seem more up for the challenge that lies ahead.

Note: With 6:56 to go in the first half, Cal freshman guard Jazlen Green went down hard and headed to the locker room. She would not return and is out indefinitely. Below is what Charmin Smith had to say about her injury:

“Yeah, that’s unfortunate because she was getting going and she’s someone that steps up in big moments, but it happens. We hope that she’s ok, I haven’t gotten any feedback just yet. She’s a tough kid and honestly, I’m really proud of how we rallied being one person down. It shortened our bench a lot. She’s played significant minutes and these two [Anastasieska & Crocker] had to play a lot more because of that and I think they both did really well.”