Gottlieb welcomes the task
The game-ending horn had barely gone silent Sunday when Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb rushed to the scorer’s table and grabbed a microphone.
She pleaded with fans to come to Maples Pavilion on Thursday and to return to Haas Pavilion on Saturday for the Bears’ rivalry matchups against Stanford, even rousing people to email her if they didn’t already have tickets.
“I hope I get a lot,” Gottlieb said when asked how many emails she expected. “The people who are here are diehards. We want them to bring even more fans, so I don’t want it to be a matter of access to tickets. …
“When people come, they fall in love with this group. How can you not?”
During a season when the men’s teams in the Pac-12 are middling (or worse) and St. Mary’s already has twice played its only real in-conference challenge, Gonzaga, the doubleheader between the Cal and Stanford women’s teams might be the best college show around.
After a mini funk that cost the Bears their national ranking, Cal (17-8, 8-6 Pac-12) responded by scoring 81 points per game while sweeping Colorado and Utah last weekend.
No. 14 Stanford (18-8, 12-2), the Pac-12’s only undefeated home team, has allowed opponents to score only 53.3 points per game at Maples. Remarkably, the Cardinal are shooting better from three-point range (35.7 percent) than opponents shoot from the floor (32.6 percent) during those games.
“They’re arguably playing the best in conference right now,” Gottlieb said. “I never worry about (Stanford coach) Tara (VanDerveer). I’m never worried about Tara-coached teams, no matter what they do in the nonconference season. They get it ready for conference and get it figured out.
“I’m not surprised at how well they’re playing.”
“What a fun opportunity,” Gottlieb said. “I think the ‘Battle of the Bay’ is the best rivalry, in terms of the excitement around it. The Bay Area loves women’s basketball. We like each other a lot, but we compete really hard. I think we root for each other, except for during these two games. …
“I think our players like the challenge. I’m glad that Stanford is doing so well. It’s an opportunity for us to potentially knock off one of the best teams in the country. They always give us that opportunity. Similarly, we hope that us playing well right now is a challenge to them.”
Stanford has won 18 of the past 20 games in the matchup, with four of the past five having been decided by a single digit. Cal hasn’t beaten the Cardinal since Feb. 22, 2015.
Back then, Cal seniors Mikayla Cowling and Penina Davidson were freshmen. The two have gone 76-49 (.608) during their careers, a fact that will be celebrated when the rivalry heads back to Haas Pavilion on Saturday.
After Cowling and Davidson combined for 27 points, 16 points and three steals last week, Colorado head coach JR Payne offered this:
“Cal is a team that can explode at any moment. When you’ve got that much talent on your roster and that much versatility on your ball club, at any moment, they can be one of the best teams in America.”