Although Cal women’s basketball has gone through some noticeable struggles in the preseason, it seems as if the Bears are back on track to their usually dominant ways. Bouncing back from a three-game losing streak, Cal has kept pounding and has now won two straight games as the team opens up Pac-12 play with a commanding 67-49 win over visiting Utah.
Led by three Bears who would score 15 points or more, in addition to a lackluster Utah offense, Cal was in control for the majority of the game. Holding Utah to 35 percent shooting, the Bears made it a priority to prevent the Utes from developing any sort of rhythm and made it difficult for Utah to execute on offense. As a result, Utah played sloppily and gift-wrapped many transition opportunities for the Bears — who initially struggled with their half-court offense — to capitalize on.
“Utah is really big, and they’re methodical in how they want to run their offense,” said Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb. “So we knew we kind of wanted to jack them up and make a play faster.”
For most of the games so far this season, Cal’s modus operandi has been to feed senior forward Reshanda Gray in the post, a strategy that has usually worked. Entering Saturday’s contest, Gray had been averaging more than 18 points per game at a blistering rate of 62.7 percent from the field.
But Gray could not get things going Saturday, especially in the first half. Struggling against Utah’s size and physicality in the frontcourt, Gray only managed to throw up nine points.
With Gray not playing at her usual level, Cal needed to find an offensive spark from somewhere else. And there to pick up the slack for the Bears was the trio of Brittany Boyd, Mercedes Jefflo and Penina Davidson, who scored 48 of the team’s total 67 points.
“We need to be able to win a game when Reshanda can’t score 25,” Gottlieb said.
Usually, the game plan on offense isn’t too complicated. Boyd would dribble the ball up court and dump it to Gray in the post. With Gray uncharacteristically cold against Utah, the Bears went away from that strategy and instead built their offense by focusing first on defense.
By forcing turnovers, Cal was able to attack Utah before the Utes could even set up their defense. As soon as the Bears started pushing the break, those not named Gray found opportunities and quickly got hot.
“We had eight steals and a couple of almost steals, even,” Gottlieb said. “But it shifted the tempo and obviously got the offense going, and our players like to play that way, so it worked well.”
Two players who benefited from the up-tempo pace were Jefflo and Davidson, two role players who — in the absence of Gray’s scoring — helped Boyd lead the offense. Jefflo, who also has the handling ability to create her own shot, had the game high with 17 points, as she was able to let loose and have her way with Utah’s perimeter defenders. While Jefflo and Boyd sliced through Utah’s defense, Davidson found herself open numerous times behind the arc as she shot three for four from 3-point land and finished with 15 points.
But with the Bears constantly contesting shots, pressuring ball handlers and jumping in between passing lanes, the defense was the deciding factor behind Saturday’s matchup.
“We think we can be a really great defensive team,” Gottlieb said. “We think it can help kickstart our offense, so I definitely think it’s getting better.”
Richard Lee covers women’s basketball. Contact him at richardlee@dailycal.org.