San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Record crowd treated to show at Haas
Bears put up fight before falling to top-ranked Huskies
Connecticut head women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma had an insightful take after his top-ranked Huskies played in front of the largest crowd in the history of the Cal program on Saturday afternoon at Haas Pavilion.
“When we play, the absolute best thing that can happen is the home team wins. Now, a couple thousand of those people who were there to see us will come back and see Cal play,” the 11-time NCAA champion said. “That’s the ideal situation. Someday, Cal will be in that situation. Just not today.”
On this day, Cal did the next best thing.
The No. 14 Bears traded punches with the transcendent Connecticut program, rallied from 17 down to make it a six-point game with 79 seconds left and convinced many of the 10,818 in attendance to return for more wildly entertaining games like the Huskies’ 76-66 victory they had just witnessed.
“I am really proud of our team. I’m proud of how they handled this week of preparation. I’m proud of how they handled the media and craziness that comes with playing UConn. I’m proud of how they
performed on the court,” Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “It’s not a moral-victory-type thing, saying: ‘Oh, we kept it close.’ I’m more proud of what I saw and how good our team can be. I think we made UConn have to beat us.”
Cal (9-1) led for six minutes in the first quarter and didn’t back down when Connecticut (11-0) used a methodical approach to build a 17-point lead midway through the fourth quarter. Instead, the Bears — known for their inside domination with post Kristine Anigwe — showcased an all-around effort that made it 72-66 on a Kianna Smith layup with 1:19 on the clock. Auriemma made the pregame decision to double-team Anigwe and give up three-pointers to Cal, which averaged 5.3 makes in its first nine games. After the Bears connected on eight threepointers in the first half, Gottlieb heard him screaming to get out on shooters.
“I was thinking: ‘This is where we want to get to. We have the best interior player in the country, a scorer who demands double-teams, and we also have other good players who have a coach worried about them shooting threes,’ ” Gottlieb said. “That’s going to get us where we want to go.”
Gottlieb said the game should empower her team to think about championships and making a deep NCAA Tournament run, thoughts that come with the territory at Connecticut. The Huskies have won 126 consecutive regularseason games, and they won this one in the same fashion as many of those. Connecticut showcased highly skilled offensive players and the balance every coach seeks in getting five double-digit scorers.
With a handful of WNBA scouts charting every move, Katie Lou Samuelson led the way with 20 points and 11 rebounds and Napheesa Collier added 16 points and six rebounds. The Huskies limited Anigwe to 10 points and 14 rebounds — her 10th straight double-double on a day when she shot only 5-for-16.
The Bears made it a big-time event with more than just Friday night’s appetizer, “A Chat With Champions,” and a halftime performance Saturday by Red Panda. Cal got 22 points on 6-of-13 three-point shooting from Asha Thomas, who has played under more pressure on East Oakland blacktops.
“It was just like me shooting in a gym by myself, just getting reps,” the senior point guard said. “Yes, we were playing UConn in a big game, but I don’t necessarily think these shots were better than I’ve made in another game. I have to knock down shots. I have to come alive for my team.”
Cal led 15-9 at the 5:07 mark of the first quarter after three straight threepointers from Thomas, but the Bears couldn’t get Anigwe going inside. Connecticut marched to a 44-34 advantage three minutes into the second half as Anigwe opened the game 1-for-9 from the floor.
Auriemma likes to say when the Huskies roll through a college campus it’s like the circus coming to town, and it started to feel like that in the third quarter when the Huskies shot out of a cannon and torched the nets with 71.4 percent shooting to pull away 61-46.
But Thomas made two free throws after a technical foul was called on Auriemma with about two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter to trim the Huskies’ lead to 72-64, and Smith’s layup made it a six-point game before Connecticut iced it.
“This is how the majority of the world lives,” Auriemma said. “They go on the road and play a team ranked in the top 20 that’s undefeated, and they expect a game like this. The only problem is: We’re Connecticut. We’re supposed to walk into this building, be up by 30 at halftime and win by 60.”