On Thursday, Cal women’s basketball survived their first round game of the Pac-12 Tournament against Washington, winning by a final score of 71-68. Junior guard Asha Thomas led the way for Cal with 22 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists, while sophomore guard Amber Melgoza led Washington with 30 points on 9-21 shooting from the field, 4-8 shooting from 3-point range, and 8-10 shooting from the free throw line. Cal advances to the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Tournament, where they will face UCLA on Friday at 2:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks.
“We didn’t make it the prettiest, but I think our players were really gritty and tough, which is what you need in March,” Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb told Pac-12.com after the game. “I will really credit Jody Wynn and her staff. For a team with not a lot of wins in conference, they were better than that record and she had them playing hard. I knew that was going to be the case. We go way back. Credit to Washington for their effort, but proud of our grittiness and AT (Asha Thomas) was pretty big there down the stretch.”
Part of what made this game challenging was that Cal had just played Washington in their previous game. Cal played in Seattle on Sunday and had to return to Seattle 48 hours later to face Washington once again. Washington was able to learn from their loss on Sunday and make some adjustments to make this game much closer. It’s always tough to beat the same team back-to-back, especially when both of those games are on the road.
A major adjustment that the Huskies made in this game was they were able to defend Kristine Anigwe much tighter. After Anigwe had 23 points and 12 rebounds on Sunday, she was held scoreless in the first half, finishing with 8 points and 9 rebounds. Cal struggled to make up for her lack of production, making this game go down to the wire.
The player who really came up big for Cal was Asha Thomas, who lifted her team in the second half. When Washington went up 51-45 in the 3rd quarter, Thomas went on a 5-0 run to cut the Huskies lead to one point entering the 4th quarter. Cal was able to extend that to a 14-0 run during the 4th quarter, giving them the edge down the stretch.
“You know what, to me it’s so way beyond the 20 points,” Gottlieb said of Thomas’ performance. “She is the most balanced, I use this word ‘equanimous’ kid and then she can make big time plays and show her toughness. She is special, we’re glad she’s on our team. She represents for East Oakland and Cal and all the Pac-12, but really proud of her effort and she just does it in the most understated way. She’s our little general and we’ll ride along with her again.”
The final minutes of this game were nerve-wracking for Cal. Despite extending their lead to seven points with 5:35 to go, Cal had a long ways to the finish line. Washington shaved Cal’s lead to just four points with 1:33 to go and had the ball down by three points with 10 seconds to go. Fortunately for Cal, Washington was unable to get their final shot to drop and they escaped with the win.
While this game was much closer than Cal would have wanted, they deserve a ton of credit for pulling out the win, which is all that really matters. It’s always tough to beat the same team three times in a season, especially if you are facing them on the road for the second consecutive time. Cal could have given up when they were down in the 3rd quarter, but they found a way to dig deep and still pull out this win.
