Fewer points, greater success
Kristine Anigwe will probably work herself into an absolute frenzy before Friday’s homecoming game at Arizona State.
Cal’s junior center, who hails from Phoenix, will deal with her mind trying to convince her that she hasn’t improved since her All-America freshman season. She’ll think of the swarm of social media that has noted she is winless in Tempe since coming to Cal. Then she’ll think about how it’s impossible to please her mother.
But in the moments just before it’s time to take the floor, Anigwe will remind herself that she’s put up better numbers than most every other player in the country, remember her AAU days playing in Wells Fargo Arena and rediscover the joy of the game.
The last point is the most salient in what Anigwe calls her “bump
year” — a season in which she is finding herself as a basketball player, and more importantly, gets a second chance at defining her best self outside the arena.
“I’m obsessed with basketball. It consumes me,” Anigwe said a day ahead of flying to Arizona for this season’s game played closest to Phoenix. “I’m selfish. I guess that’s bad to say in women’s basketball, but I want to be the best, dominate every game and help my team in every way possible.”
In that vein, Anigwe has allowed her scoring average to dip from the 20 points per game that gained national notice in her first two seasons to 16.8. After failing to get to the Sweet 16 in her first two seasons, she wanted more. That means getting her teammates more involved.
Anigwe is commanding just as much attention from opponents and more from her teammates. They’ll get her the ball against a double team in the low post, and she’ll emphatically motion for them to move to the basket — knowing the rhythm and flow of the game will empower her teammates and create the best results.
Cal went 13-0 against a lesser schedule during the last nonconference season and then had to sneak into the NCAA Tournament as the Pac-12’s seventh-best team. The Bears went 9-2 against a loaded nonconference slate this season and proved the ability to beat opponents when Anigwe is playing decoy. “I felt like I had to put up 20 (points) and 10 (rebounds) every game, and it was stressful,” Anigwe said. “The night before games, I would think: ‘How am I going to do it? They know all of my moves.’
“But, now I’m getting better at trusting my teammates and watching it evolve.”
The evolution will really be tested this week, when Cal plays Arizona State in one of the most tightly contested rivalries in the Pac-12. The Sun Devils hold an all-time lead of 36-35 after sweeping the past two season series.
That’s not an easy thing to accept for a perfectionist, especially a perfectionist from that area. Anigwe moved to Phoenix from London at about 6 months old and found basketball when middle school and then club coaches starting clamoring for her 6-foot-plus frame in seventh and eighth grade.
“I didn’t know she was going to be good. She wasn’t good, at all. She didn’t know anything about the game. I can remember her going to the wrong basket,” Anigwe’s mom, Annette said. “Thank God, she found basketball.
“I just do the pushing. She does the work.” It’s a work in progress. Anigwe had a gut-checking knee injury right before the season and possibly a lifechanging experience a couple months before that, when she was cut from Team USA.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, I’m used to being one of the best. I need to change something up. These people are bigger. I have to do something else.’” she said. “I’m learning how to play within the system, but make the smart play. I don’t like being a fundamental robot. I don’t like being a robot.
… To do that, I need to take care of all the external things before I get into the game. I have to isolate the world around me.”
Already introspective, Anigwe has kept a close circle of thinkers in her mom, head coach Lindsay Gottlieb and director of basketball operations Jill Culbertson. During a recent trip to a children’s hospital, Anigwe changed the name of a text chain among the trio to “Mothers’ Group Chat.”
They’re about the only ones who know that her older brother, who has been accepted to medical school at UCSF, was struck by a drunk driver and suffered a broken neck and wrist right before Thanksgiving.
“If Kristine could just eat, sleep and play basketball, she probably would,” said Culbertson, who jokingly termed her relationship with Anigwe as co-parenting. “The great athletes have this — I won’t say ‘loose bolt,’ but — loose bolt that makes them be hard on themselves. She’s her biggest critic.
“There’s a constant: ‘I need to be better. I need to be the best. I need to be this.’ But, the being critical of herself is what’s going to make her successful in life.”
Anigwe is known for doing 45-minute cardio sessions on her days off, but this season, she’s taken a longer view. She watches a ton of college basketball that doesn’t involve Top 25 teams and more WNBA games than many of the coaches and talent evaluators involved.
“A lot of people don’t watch women’s basketball, so they see 20 and 10 and think I played great,” she said. “Really, I played awful or my knees hurt or I was just throwing up shots. Now, I want to make the right reads and plays and be efficient.”
Ask about the 50-point game Anigwe had against Sacramento State last season, and she’ll remind you that she missed seven free throws. Ask her about the 25-rebound game she had against Brown this season, and she’ll remind you that 31 were claimed by the opponent.
Anigwe wants to be efficient, play within the flow and rhythm of the offense — things that sometimes don’t show up in the box score or when she’s demanding that teammates cut off her possession in the high post.
“I know I don’t make the right reads all the time. I just want a game where I can play and I don’t want to hear it from my mom,” Anigwe said. “I’m trying to find myself as a basketball player …
“I experienced all the highs of college basketball at 17, getting all the love and all the fans. You’re playing well, so you don’t really realize the importance of winning. But if I want to be the WNBA’s No. 1 draft pick, I have to really win. I have to be a dominant player and elevate everyone else around me.”