Starters to carry load for No. 4 seed Cal TV: 4:30 p.m. ESPN2
NCAA women’s tournament
BERKELEY — Mercedes Jefflo has been playing nearly 40 minutes a game for the past month, but she doesn’t feel like she’s wearing down. In fact, Cal’s sophomore guard comes into the Bears’ NCAA tournament opener against No. 13 seed Wichita State playing some of the best basketball of her career.
It’s a similar story for her Cal teammates, who host the Missouri Valley Conference champions at Haas Pavilion on Friday at 4:30 p.m.
Fifth-seeded Texas faces 12th-seeded Western Kentucky at 2 p.m., also in Berkeley, with the winners meeting in the second round Sunday.
Cal’s starters are logging more minutes than they ever have in Lindsay Gottlieb’s four years as head coach, and go deeper than seven only in blowouts. In tight games, the Bears’ top six are usually logging the vast majority of the minutes.
Yet, No. 4 seeded Cal (23-9) ended the regular season by playing three games in three days, and fell a basket short against Stanford in the Pac-12 tournament championship game.
So much for fatigue derailing the Bears’ season.
“It’s not hard during the game, but you feel it after,” said Jefflo, who played all but three minutes of the Pac-12 tournament and averaged 14 points in the three games. “It’s not really a conditioning thing. I don’t really get tired. Whatever Lindsay needs from me I’m willing to do it.”
Physical fatigue did look like it could be a problem for the Bears just a month ago, though.
Cal let halftime leads disappear against Arizona State, UCLA, USC and Stanford in successive games, though the Bears recovered late to edge the Sun Devils and Bruins.
The primary six-player rotation of Jefflo, Brittany Boyd, Mikalya Cowling, Gabby Green, Reshanda Gray and Courtney Range played 95 percent of Cal’s minutes in those games.
“I analyze everything that can be, and my conclusion is it was more mental than physical,” Gottlieb said of the four-game stretch. “So we addressed some of those things. I do think that sometimes it takes a little bit of an adjustment to know how to play through some ups and downs.”
Said Jefflo: “I think not really being focused at the start of second halves kind of did that. I don’t think us playing 40 minutes did anything.”
Wichita State (29-4), whose starters play even heavier minutes than Cal’s, has followed a similar trajectory this season.
The Shockers are peaking heading into the postseason with 12 straight wins, including three by double figures to win their third straight MVC tournament. All five starters average over 30 minutes a game, and only one other player averaged doubledigit minutes in conference play.
The short bench isn’t what coach Jody Adams prefers, but it’s working for her team this year.
“These guys have grown up together,” Adams said. “The chemistry of these five that start, they know like the back of their hand what each other is going to do. The trust between them is something that is really hard to explain.”
Besides Jefflo, fellow guards Boyd and Green play the most minutes for Cal. All three ranked in the top 10 in the Pac-12 in minutes played, averaging over 33 each in conference play.
“I think I’ve done a better job of, even though we’re really only going seven deep, of strategically getting a minute or two here or there for people to keep them fresh,” Gottlieb said. “But I also think our players locked in mentally.”
They’ll need that kind of focus against a Shockers team that allows just 51 points per game and nearly stunned Tennessee, Adams’ alma mater, before losing 54-51 on Dec. 16.