On Thursday, Cal women’s basketball upset #24 Arizona State 71-67 in the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada. Cal senior forward Jaelyn Brown (22 points & 6 rebounds) and Cal freshman guard Cailyn Crocker (20 points & 6 rebounds) led the way for the Golden Bears while senior guard Reili Richardson (20 points, 6 rebounds, & 6 assists) was the top performer for the Sun Devils. All of Crocker’s 20 points came in the second half. Cal came in as the #12 seed in the tournament while Arizona State came in as the #5 seed. Cal becomes the second #12 seed to win a game in the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament.
“We’re a group of fighters, right?” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said to her players on Pac-12 Networks after the game. “We fight. We never quit and we knew that there were things that we could do better and we wanted this for our seniors and we were able to get it done in the second half. I’m so proud of our fight and this senior group.”
Arizona State got off to an early 11-7 lead with 4:51 to go in the 1st quarter. Richardson had 5 points early for the Sun Devils while Brown had 4 points for the Golden Bears. Arizona State was shooting 4-7 from the field while Cal was shooting 3-5. At the end of the quarter, Arizona State would lead 18-12 as Richardson was up to 7 points. Cal freshman guard Leilani McIntosh had 5 points. Arizona State’s defense inside was making a difference early. With 7:23 to go in the half, Arizona State led 21-12. Cal was now 4-12 (33.3%) from the field. Arizona State’s defense continued to give Cal trouble.
At the half, Arizona State led 32-21. Richardson led the Sun Devils with 9 points on 4-5 shooting from the field while McIntosh led the Golden Bears with 8 points on 2-3 shooting from the field and 3-4 shooting from the foul line. Cal was in some trouble, but to their credit, they were fighting hard.
To open up the 3rd quarter, Cal started to claw their way back into the game, trailing 38-31 with 4:23 to go. After a scoreless first half, Crocker was starting to find her mojo for Cal with 7 points. Both teams were struggling to score. Arizona State made 1 of their last 7 field goal attempts while Cal had 0 field goals in the last 4:05. With 2:46 to go in the 3rd quarter, Cal would trail 40-35 after Jaelyn Brown grabbed a rebound and made a clutch outlet pass to freshman forward Evelien Lutje Schipholt for the transition layup. Arizona State called for time, hoping to regroup.
The next couple of minutes to close out the 3rd quarter were nuts. Arizona State would go up 46-35 with 1:55 to go in the quarter, looking like they would have a comfortable 4th quarter lead. Instead, Cal aggressively trapped and pressed Arizona State, resulting in multiple turnovers and offensive fouls. Most notably a steal from Brown followed by a 3-pointer from Crocker.
Amid all this mayhem, Cal put together a blistering 13-0 run to lead 48-46 at the end of the 3rd quarter. In less than 2 minutes, Cal went from looking like they were dead to having the momentum. Their pressing and trapping truly worked miracles.
“We decided if we’re going to get this game, we have to take it from them,” Smith said. “We have to be the tougher team and our full court pressure is a way that we get our aggressiveness going and we were able to turn them over and get some easy looks. It really did spark us.”
With 8:23 to go, Cal led 55-48. Brown (16 points), Green (14 points), and Crocker (12 points) were leading the attack. It was pretty crazy what was going on. Cal had found new life while Arizona State was looking for answers.
With 5:33 to go, Cal led 62-53 after a huge 3-pointer from Crocker. Cal was close to being in a position to close the game out. They just needed to finish strong.
Cal would lead 66-58 with 2:48 to go after an easy layup from Crocker. Arizona State had a couple of possessions on defense where they fell asleep and Cal made them pay. It was very uncharacteristic of them.
Rather than close out the game easily, thanks to some questionable calls, most notably an intentional offensive foul called on Crocker, Cal led 66-65 with 1:03 to go. Cal benefited from a sketchy call soon thereafter as Brown drew an offensive foul. It looked like Brown may have not been outside of the restricted circle, but the refs let the call stand. Crocker would then go 1-2 at the foul line at the next possession, giving Cal a 67-65 lead.
After a missed 3-pointer from Reili Richardson, Cal senior forward CJ West grabbed a huge rebound and was subsequently fouled with 13.8 to go. After missing both free throws at the end of last week’s win at Arizona, West was hoping to redeem herself with two clutch free throws. And that she did, knocking both down. Up 69-65 with 13.8 to go, Cal was now in the driver’s seat to win.
In the end, Richardson would make a layup with around 2 seconds to go to cut Cal’s lead to two points. Cal successfully inbounded the ball to Crocker, who got fouled and would make two free throws. In the end, it was a 71-67 win for the Golden Bears.
After upsetting #13 Arizona last week in Tucson, it shouldn’t be shocking that Cal could pull off another big win, but it still is. Especially when you consider the fact that last Friday in Tempe, Cal lost to Arizona State by a final score of 77-54. Charmin Smith has her young Cal team believing in themselves and they are showing just how dangerous they can be.
“Yeah, I think the things that we needed to improve were simple,” Smith said of what adjustments they made just six days later. “Keep them off the o-boards, take care of the ball, and stop Ruden. And I haven’t looked at the final stat sheet, but those were things that we felt were under our control. And so when you have that type of confidence and you see that we can be tough. We showed it against Arizona, so why not be that team every single day?”
We saw this Cal team show flashes of this earlier in the year. They beat Arkansas, they nearly beat Kentucky, and they also gave UConn a scare on the road. Cal has shown they can hang with elite teams. They just haven’t been able to do so consistently. Now that the year is ending, they’re finally finding their swagger again and have the rest of the Pac-12 on notice.
“During a huge part of that run, I think we had the four freshmen on the floor,” Smith said. “I think we just want to make it go another day. It’s such a special feeling when you don’t want the season to end. Even though you’ve had so much adversity. And we were just like, we’re fighting for one more day. We want to be here. They are bought in. They’ve been extremely disciplined and they’re doing everything we’ve asked them to do.
“I’m just so proud. I’m just so proud that we stuck together through some of the butt-kickings we took in this conference and we did it because we knew these moments were possible. It’s just a really cool feeling as a coach when you get to see your players dance and your players jump up and down. They’ve worked so hard. They never quit. They come into practice every day. Try to do what we’re asking them to do and this is the reward. So, I’m glad they got this.”
Up next for Cal will be a rematch with the #13 Arizona Wildcats, who they beat in Tucson on Sunday. That game will tipoff on Friday at 11:30 AM PST on Pac-12 Networks.
Keys to beating Arizona: I won’t do a full preview of that game since the turnaround is so quick but let me quickly address three things Cal needs to do to once again beat Arizona.
First, Cal needs to do a better job at the foul line. Against Arizona State today, Cal shot 25-30 (83.3%) from the foul line. Against Arizona on Sunday, Cal shot 17-27 (63.0%). We saw the difference most notably with CJ West making her two free throws today while missing them on Sunday. If Cal does well at the foul line tomorrow, they should put themselves in a good position to win.
Secondly, Cal needs to win the battle on the boards. Cal out-rebounded Arizona 42-34 on Sunday, needing every one of those rebounds to win. If Cal wins the battle on the boards again and especially cleans up on the offensive glass, they could stun Arizona once more.
Finally, Cal needs to keep up the good work with their pressing and trapping. If Cal can put the same level of pressure on Arizona that they did on Arizona State, that more than anything should make the difference. When this Cal team is pressing and trapping, they’re very difficult to stop.
