On Sunday, #14 Cal women’s basketball fell to Harvard by a final score of 85-79. Katie Benzan (19 points) and Madeline Raster (16 points) led the way for Harvard while McKenzie Forbes (22 points) and Kianna Smith (15 points) were the top scorers for Cal. Harvard improves to 7-6 on the season while Cal falls to 9-2.
“We’re super disappointed to end our non-conference schedule with a loss,” Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said after the game. “Just not what the expectations are for this group. With that said, I just told the players in the locker room that Harvard outplayed us in these 40 minutes. They did. They came in here and shot the heck out of the ball. I knew they were capable of doing that. We talked about their ability to do that. We let them feel very comfortable in our gym and they outplayed us. I thought we battled back to take a lead, you gotta win the game when you’re up with 3 minutes to go, that’s on me, but the only recourse is to force this to make us better for the upcoming weekend. That’s it. I’m not a big believer in this happens for a reason or this or that, it’s what you do about something.
“And so, I think the only recourse is that we absolutely decide that it has to make us better for next weekend and beyond. But, kudos to Harvard, they came out here. Kathy [Delaney-Smith] said to me before the game, I said why did you make two trips to California, they played CSUN earlier in the year, and she said because no one will play us. We appreciate you guys playing us, so they’re really good, she does a great job, they had lost a couple close ones to good teams, and they were hot from the beginning tonight.”
Similar to their men’s basketball counterparts, Cal got down early in this game, trailing 14-9 midway through the 1st quarter. Madeline Raster got off to a hot start scoring 6 points on 2-3 shooting from 3-point range. Cal knew she could really shoot the ball, but they were unable to slow her down.
“I thought Raster shot it better than, she’s shooting 30 percent on the year, but she’s probably the one on the team clearly who looks like she’s a better shooter than her percentages,” Lindsay Gottlieb said. “But when you shoot 27 threes a game and make around 9, which they do, I said you’re capable then of having games where you make 12 or 13 or 14 if you’re averaging 9, so it’s on us.”
Trailing 30-22 at the end of the 1st quarter, the only good thing Cal had going for them was the way McKenzie Forbes was shooting the ball. She had 11 of her career-high 22 points in the 1st quarter and did a really good job of capitalizing on the open looks that were being given to her, shooting 6-8 from 3-point range for the entire game.
In the 2nd quarter, Harvard continued to put the pressure on Cal, leading 39-30 with 4:49 to go in the first half. Harvard was shooting 15-23 (65.2%) from the field and 7-11 (63.6%) from 3-point range up until this point, really hurting Cal with their perimeter shooting. During the latter part of the quarter, Cal was able to close the half out on a 10-4 run, going down 43-40 at halftime. Cal started to get things going a bit in the transition and looked like they were going to come back like they’ve often done.
Coming out of halftime, Cal came out strong thanks to 4 quick points from Kianna Smith, who had 7 points in the first half. Harvard called for time up 45-44 with 8:06 to go in the 3rd quarter and all things started to point in Cal’s favor. Unfortunately for Cal, they were unable to build on that momentum, going on a real dry spell in which they had no field goals in 3 minutes and 4 seconds. Down 57-51 with 4:03 to go in the 3rd quarter, Cal found themselves right back in the same spot as they were in the middle of the 2nd quarter. To Cal’s credit, they were able to once again close the gap and trail 60-58 at the end of the 3rd quarter, but at this point, it was clear that Harvard had a real chance to win this game and that Cal was going to need to play well in order to survive.
Cal started out the 4th quarter strong thanks to McKenzie Forbes, who scored 8 of her 11 second half points during the first 3 minutes and 10 seconds of the 4th quarter. Forbes continued to do a lot of the same things she was doing in the 1st quarter, making open shots and taking advantage of what the defense gave her.
“A lot of teams are doubling K.A. (Kristine Anigwe),” Forbes said. “So, I think we’ve gotten better and better at being able to score out of that. K.A. does a good job passing out of the post, C.J. does a good job passing out of the post and diving, I just try to play my role. If the shots are open, then I try to knock them down.”
Thanks to Forbes’ hot shooting, Cal had a 72-68 lead with 4:55 to go. Things weren’t going as expected, but at least they had the lead. Unlike previous games, Cal wasn’t able to put Harvard away. Instead, the Crimson continued to battle and trimmed the Cal lead to 3 points (73-70) with 3:21 to go, calling timeout after Madeline Raster dove on the floor for the loose ball.
Coming out of that timeout, Raster hit a huge 3-pointer to tie the game up 73-73. Cal then went inside to Kristine Anigwe, who wasn’t able to score, resulting in a steal from Rachel Levy and two free throws from Sydney Skinner. Down by 2 points, Cal was able to take a 76-75 lead thanks to a 3-point jumper from Asha Thomas with 1:26 to go.
After more trading of baskets, Cal found themselves down 79-78 with the ball with just 44.7 to go. Cal went inside to Kristine Anigwe once more and she was rejected by Jeannie Boehm, who rebounded the ball. Up by 1 with 24.4 to go, Harvard was finally in the driver’s seat and from there they were able to make their free throws and walk away with an 85-79 win.
Cal wasn’t able to execute down the stretch and what makes it sting all the more is the opportunities that they had to still come out on top. When looking at the stat sheet, what stands out the most is the way in which Kristine Anigwe was held to 12 points and 14 rebounds on 3-11 shooting from the field and 6-14 shooting from the foul line.
“They played a game on the 27th or 28th where they did a weird defense and I showed it to them on film,” Lindsay Gottlieb said of the way Harvard defended Anigwe. “I said I bet you they’re practicing this for us. So, we knew that there was going to be something junky. It was like a junk defense. So, I think it got us a little bit out of rhythm early, but I said at halftime we have 40 points, that’s above our average. It’s the 43 that we’ve given up that is the issue.”
Touching more on the missed free throws, Lindsay Gottlieb said all she can do is keep feeding Anigwe the ball and do her part to help her stay confident at the foul line:
“The message is going to be keep getting to the line, big kid. You drew nine fouls, you foul out other people, we’re gonna keep going to you. Knock’em down. I mean she takes a lot extra, she just wasn’t in a good rhythm today from the line, some were in and out, just all confidence stuff. She’ll be the first one in the gym taking more, no one’s going to be harder on her than herself on that, but we’re going to continue to have that be an advantage for us, that we go to the line more than people, we just didn’t convert today.”
For Cal, this loss stings. After having such an emotionally charged game against UConn, it really hurts for them to lose this game and not head into Pac-12 play with a little bit of momentum. All that they can do at this point is learn from this loss and make sure they play better going forward.
“I think when you have our expectations, it’s hard to look at this one as a good one,” Lindsay Gottlieb admitted. “I think the only thing you can do, sports are hard in that you can’t go back, you can only control what’s under your control going forward. And so, you have to make it positive in some way. You can’t change the outcome, so we have to do things that make us look back and say we were better because of that Harvard loss, but I wish that we were in a different situation trying to be better off of a close win against Harvard, but all you can do is use it to help you and that’s what we will do.”
Up next for Cal is a home game against UCLA on Friday at 7:00 PM PST. That will be their first game of Pac-12 play.
