On Thursday night, Cal women’s basketball knocked off #8 Stanford by a final score of 81-80. Kristine Anigwe led the way for Cal with 25 points and 24 rebounds while Jaelyn Brown finished with 18 points. Asha Thomas, despite having an off night with 4 points on 1-7 shooting from the field, hit the game winning layup right before time expired. DiJonai Carrington was the top performer for Stanford with 23 points and 12 rebounds. Cal improves to 14-6 overall and 5-4 in the Pac-12 while Stanford falls to 17-3 overall and 7-2 in the Pac-12.
“What can you say,” Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said after the game. “We come to the office every day and there’s so many reasons you do it, but days like today are the ones that you just never forget. It goes without saying that any win against Stanford feels extra special because of how good they are. How well prepared they are. Their everything. Their consistency, their playmakers, so it makes everything more meaningful.
“I’m kinda speechless here sitting with these two. Janie from the AP did a really nice piece this week about Kristine and I think I was most moved by the quotes from her classmate and her point guard, AT. I can’t speak enough to their relationship what they’ve done for this team this year. We’re different, right? I’ve said that all year and I think that really showed tonight. I’ve coached a lot of games against Stanford as an assistant and as a head coach. They’re the best at taking away a team’s strength that I’ve ever seen. So, the fact that Kristine has 25 and 24 against Stanford, I’d like to know the last time anyone could have 20 and 20 against them.”
“I’ll dare say this was the game of the night, for people that were at the Warriors game, they missed a great game,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said in her post game remarks. “I thought both teams played really hard. I’m really proud of our team, how we battled. Came down to one play. DiJonai got us that one play by making her free throws and we just didn’t get a stop when we needed to down the stretch. But, I think that one of the big things, we did not knock down threes and we gave them too many threes, and that was something that is disappointing.”
Cal got off to a strong start leading 13-9 midway through the 1st quarter. Kianna Smith had 7 of those 13 points on 3-3 shooting from the field while Kristine Anigwe had 6 points on 3-4 shooting from the field. DiJonai Carrington was off to a strong start as well, scoring 5 of Stanford’s 9 points on 2-3 shooting from the field.
That strong start for Cal propelled them to a 22-20 lead at the end of the 1st quarter. Smith (10 points) and Anigwe (8 points) had 18 of Cal’s 22 points, really carrying the load while Carrington was leading a more balanced attack with 9 of Stanford’s 20 points. Both teams were in a groove early offensively as Cal was shooting 10-20 from the field at the end of the quarter while Stanford was shooting 9-19.
With 4:25 to go in the 2nd quarter, Cal had a 30-27 lead, doing a good job of keeping the pressure on Stanford. Receé Caldwell was starting to get things going for Cal with 6 points on 2-3 shooting from 3-point range, giving Anigwe and Smith the help that they needed.
Caldwell would continue her hot shooting, finishing the quarter with 11 points. Just like Sunday’s game at Colorado, Caldwell’s only points would come in the 2nd quarter, but without her hot hand, Cal wouldn’t have gone into halftime tied 38-38. Kristine Anigwe already had a double-double at halftime with 10 points and 13 rebounds while DiJonai Carrington was leading Stanford with 15 points and 6 rebounds.
“No, no,” Tara VanDerveer said when asked if Cal’s 3-point shooting (12-30) surprised her. “I think they’ve been shooting the ball pretty well. Sometimes we’ve shot that well, but we have to play better defense. We have to get out on them. We have to be more aggressive defensively and we’ll get another chance on Saturday.”
Midway through the 3rd quarter, Stanford had a 50-46 lead. It wasn’t quite danger time for Cal, but it was clear that they needed to pick up their game in order to not be trailing going into the 4th quarter. Fortunately for Cal, Kristine Anigwe would get things going again after being held scoreless for the first 5 minutes of the quarter. With 19 points at the end of the 3rd quarter, Anigwe had her team tied 61-61 going into the 4th quarter. As an act of foreshadowing of what was to come, Asha Thomas hit a 3-pointer at the end of the quarter that was waived off. Little did she know that she would get that same opportunity just 10 minutes later.
The 4th quarter continued to be a back and forth affair as both Cal and Stanford were tied 69-69 with 4:53 to go. Kristine Anigwe (21 points) and Jaelyn Brown (17 points) continued to carry the load for Cal while Alanna Smith and DiJonai Carrington each had 17 points for Stanford. Despite putting up big numbers, Smith had to really earn her points, a credit to the Cal defense.
“I mean she got to 21 points, but she did it on 22 shots,” Lindsay Gottlieb said of Smith. “She’s a terrific player. She can get you inside, she can get you outside. But I think we made her uncomfortable all game. You watch film and she’s a four or five player shooting threes and that’s uncomfortable for four or fives to guard that, so we really drilled it. Kristine did extra today, extra film. We had multiple different people on her at times, but I think she never got the easy one where someone just forgot that she can shoot. And so, maybe that led to a lower shooting percentage.
“She’ll be back in the gym. I’m sure she’ll be ready to go on Saturday, but I think we did a pretty good job not letting her get the easy looks tonight. When someone’s so good, you can’t give them the easy ones. We’ll try to find a way to do a better job on DiJonai as well, she had a day.”
During the next couple of minutes, Cal finally started to gain some separation leading 76-71 with 2:13 to go. Kristine Anigwe converted a huge 3-point play while Kianna Smith also knocked down a huge 3-pointer to put herself up to 16 points. With so little time to spare, the night finally looked like it might belong to Cal.
Stanford wasn’t about to hand the game over to their Bay Area rivals, though. DiJonai Carrington was able to get her team back to within one point of the lead before Alanna Smith hit a huge bucket inside to give the Cardinal a 78-77 lead with 30.7 to go. Down by one point with the ball, Cal was in need of a good possession. Things didn’t go exactly the way Cal planned, but fortunately for them, they got the two points that they needed. McKenzie Forbes missed a 3-pointer that was rebounded by Asha Thomas, sending her to the foul line after Kiana Williams committed a foul. After making both of her foul shots, Thomas had Cal up 79-78 with 9.5 seconds to go.
Coming out of a timeout, Stanford was able to get DiJonai Carrington back to the foul line and as a bonus present get Kristine Anigwe her fifth personal foul. Carrington would make both of her free throws, forcing Cal to have to win the game with their star player out of the game. Down 80-79 with 7.2 seconds to go, Cal would have to look for someone other than Anigwe to get them across the finish line. With the ball in her hands, Asha Thomas took it upon herself to get her team the victory and boy did she deliver the goods, hitting a tricky left handed layup that kissed off the rim and into the net right as time expired. After reviewing the clock to see if there was any more time left, the officials determined that the game was indeed over, resulting in an 81-80 win for Cal.
“The fact that she [Anigwe] fouled out and AT hadn’t hit a shot all game, and I just felt so confident to put the ball in her hands and say you’re going to have to make a play, I couldn’t script it better,” Lindsay Gottlieb said. “Excited, the team should be celebrating and happy, but at the same time, this gives us a chance to get a sweep. And that’s what we’ve talked about starting this. Let’s win this one so we have a chance to do something a Cal team hasn’t done since they made this twice in one week. So, we’re going to head down to the Farm with an opportunity to do something great.”
“I like big moments,” Asha Thomas added. “So, yeah the ball is in my hand and I have the chance to make a play for myself, whether it’s for others, yeah I want the ball in my hands…The play was basically like a high ball screen and then on the other side it was like a pin-down for somebody else coming off. And she said if you have that lane go at it, if you have the person coming off the pin-down, go. If not, just make a play and I saw the lane open on that left side, took my little self to the lane, and got where I needed to go.”
For Kristine Anigwe, it was really tough for her to not be on the floor in those final moments, but she had all the faith in the world in Asha Thomas to come through in the clutch. After the game, Anigwe was so proud to talk about her teammate.
“I get my fifth foul and I know something big is going to happen,” Anigwe said. “Because this whole game we had just something to us that was different. We started the game off very very fast and good and then again, I got to the bench, the ball’s in Teezy’s hand and she makes an unreal, incredible play. That’s just something we expect from her. It’s something that’s unreal to you guys, but to us, that’s Teezy. I’ve seen her grow and it’s really incredible that she hits big shots and that she stays so humble and the next game she’s gonna come out with even more fire.
“She had 4 points tonight. Last game against Stanford I think she had like twenty something. Tara was doing her job, then she comes and makes this unreal play and we win the game and we beat the #7 or #8 team in the nation and we can’t beat them if she doesn’t come to every single practice with leadership challenging us and making us better. She said in the article that I inspire her, and she inspires me. I think every single practice she comes with the same attitude, picking everybody up and now this is her game where she shines. She deserves that. She deserves all that because she comes doing everything for everybody else. Always giving…I’m really proud of her.”
After having so many heartbreaking losses this year, this game feels really good for Cal. They needed to at least get a split in this series against Stanford and by winning this game, they get to head into Palo Alto on Saturday with the chance to get a sweep over Stanford. That game will tipoff at 4:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks.
