Winless Bears focus on the small victories during trying season
Rather than focusing on the daunting list of defeats in a season like no other for Cal women’s basketball, Archer Olson and her teammates instead decided to find the small victories from within each game.
They celebrate even the smallest signs of progress in practice, too.
That might be point guard Leilani McIntosh making strides leading the offense and looking for her 3point shot to become a perimeter threat. Maybe it’s freshman midseason addition Mia Mastrov gaining confidence in her ballhandling and scoring abilities. Or perhaps the post players committing to using their bodies on the low block to create highpercentage scoring opportunities.
It might be as simple as oncourt communication.
“With such a young team, we are looking for growth every step of the way,” Cal assistant coach Kai Felton said. “Talking is a skill and something this team needs to continue to work on.”
Olson is the lone senior member of the winless Bears, who will honor the 6foot guard in the coming days during their final weekend of home games at Haas Pavilion.
Cal dropped the weekend opener Friday, falling 5950 to No. 10 Arizona.
Aari McDonald scored 28 points as the Wildcats (152, 132 Pac12) won their seventh straight.
Dalayah Daniels scored 24 points on 9for13 shooting to go with 10 rebounds in leading scrappy Cal (014, 011), which trailed by three with 2:31 left after losing 6933 at Tucson on Jan. 3.
Olson is a former freshman walkon who worked her way to a scholarship and is now starting for a team devastated by injury. In a rarely seen scenario, Mastrov graduated early from Miramonte HighOrinda last month and enrolled at Cal given she will gain this year of eligibility back because of the pandemic.
Thrown right into Pac12 competition, Mastrov scored 20 points playing 35 minutes in her collegiate debut against Utah on Feb. 5.
“With the freshmen coming in we were always very excited for them to play a huge role. Regardless that was always the plan,” Olson said. “Potentially not to this extent.”
No, not to this extent whatsoever.
Coach Charmin Smith remembers to remind herself about perspective as she plows through each unpredictable day during her second season as head coach. She has just eight healthy scholarship players, thankful that despite the limits Cal can keep playing when so many programs nationwide have opted out of the season altogether because of concerns caused by COVID19.
“It’s been a really challenging year. I’m just really grateful I have a phenomenal group of young women who have continued to show up and enjoy being around each other. Even though the results haven’t been great, I think it’s been good for us to be together,” Smith said. “We try to put some perspective on things that this is basketball. … There’s a lot to kind of point to to help us get through a tough time.”
Smith and her staff realize the extra effort is worth it: Their players want to stick together. They depend on each other for far more than just basketball support. And Olson wanted to play her final season.
For Smith and her staff there are countless Zoom meetings, checkins with academic support, the training staff and campus medical experts, film sessions and practice — “Just trying to survive” as Felton puts it.
By the time Smith looks up to finally catch her breath from it all after another busy day, it’s often well past dinner hour — 8:30 p.m. is a typical finish.
There are just seven recruited players — healthy from the coronavirus aside from some contact tracing cases — five of them freshmen and four of those post players, with Olson and fellow walkon Sierra Richey now on scholarship to help fill out the depleted rotation.
Before Friday’s game, they hadn’t played since Feb. 7 after missing last weekend’s scheduled trip to face the Oregon schools.
Three potential starting guards were lost to seasonending injuries, a huge hit to both the Bears’ depth and ability to compete in a talented conference.
Cal has found creative ways to stay connected through it all.
Smith delivered holiday gifts to her players and got everyone a copy of “Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great,” so the Bears could have their own book club of sorts and something to discuss as a group besides basketball.
“One of the strengths of our program is the connection and the culture, so not having studentathletes in our office every day hanging out, doing Tik Tok videos, just spending time laughing together, that’s a big difference,” Smith said. “We haven’t been able to have those things, so that’s another piece that’s really hard.”