Recap: Cal blows the doors off Colorado
On Sunday, Cal women’s basketball blew the doors off the Colorado Buffaloes 80-60 in Boulder. Kristine Anigwe led the way for the Golden Bears with 16 points and 11 rebounds in 18 minutes of action, preserving her consecutive double-double streak to start the season. Mya Hollingshed was the top performer for Colorado with 20 points and 3 rebounds while Colorado’s top scorer Kennedy Leonard sat out with a foot sprain. Cal improves to 13-6 overall and 4-4 in the Pac-12 while Colorado falls to 10-9 overall and 0-8 in the Pac-12.
One of the keys coming into the game for Cal was to avoid foul trouble and they were put to the test early as Kristine Anigwe picked up two quick fouls within the first minute and a half. Fortunately for Cal, Kianna Smith was able to get into a good rhythm from the start, knocking down her first two shots for 5 points, giving Cal a 13-11 lead with 4:54 to go in the 1st quarter. After sitting for a couple of minutes, Lindsay Gottlieb put a lot of faith in her senior forward, putting her back in the game before the end of the quarter. Gottlieb’s gamble paid off as Anigwe would finish the quarter with 5 points, helping Cal take a 22-18 lead.
After a relatively close 1st quarter, Cal did serious damage in the 2nd quarter, outscoring Colorado 27-13 to go up 49-31 at halftime. Kianna Smith had 14 points on 4-5 shooting from 3-point range while Jaelyn Brown had 12 points on 4-6 shooting from the field. Receé Caldwell oddly enough only scored in the 2nd quarter, but she did work, making three 3-pointers on three attempts, giving her 9 points.
As a team, Cal was shooting 9-11 (81.8%) from 3-point range and 15-24 (62.5%) from the field, getting whatever they wanted on offense. Colorado in contrast was shooting 9-27 (33.3%) from the field and 3-10 from 3-point range, really struggling to find any sort of rhythm on offense. Without Kennedy Leonard, this Colorado team doesn’t have a lot of other options for scoring, making her absence so significant.
In the 3rd quarter, it was more one way traffic for Cal. Cal outscored Colorado 21-13 and was up to 10-13 shooting from 3-point range. Asha Thomas scored 7 of her 15 points in the quarter on 3-5 shooting from the field while Kristine Anigwe scored 10 of her 16 points on 4-6 shooting from the field to go along with 2-3 shooting from the foul line. Up 70-44 at the end of the quarter, Cal was in a perfect spot.
During the 4th quarter, it was all garbage time. Colorado outscored Cal 16-10 behind 10 points from Mya Hollingshed on 5-5 shooting from the field, but it was all too late. Kristine Anigwe would only log 3 minutes and Cal would get a chance to give their bench players some minutes. Chen Yue was actually the leading scorer for Cal in the quarter, finishing with 4 points off a couple of pretty jump hooks.
Even though Cal came in as heavy favorites, they have to feel good about the way this game went. They didn’t mess around and they put Colorado away early. When you consider that Utah beat Stanford earlier in the day, their loss at Utah on Friday suddenly doesn’t look as bad. The old saying is defend your home floor and get a split on the road. Cal has done just that over the past couple of weeks.
Up next for Cal is a home game against Stanford on Thursday night (8:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks). That game will be the first of three games played between Cal and Stanford in both men’s and women’s basketball. Following Thursday, Cal women’s basketball will travel to Stanford on Saturday (4:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks) while Cal men’s basketball will host Stanford on Super Bowl Sunday (1:00 PM PST on ESPNU).