Women's Basketball Recap & Elite 8 Open Thread
At least we had one good half. Not many people can say that against the Gino Machine. Good luck in the pros you two.
via imgs.sfgate.com
Use this as a place to discuss the game and the season for Cal hoops, and as an open thread for the final two games of the Elite 8. Do you consider this a successful year for the Bears on the hardwood?
Already underway--Michigan St.-Louisville
This afternoon--UNC-Oklahoma
1st I'm the best bracket maker ever (91)
T-2nd Rishi & cleancutmedia (86)
4th Takimoto (84)
T-5th TwistNHook & dballisloose (82)
T-7th Ohio Bear, UCONNBEAR FAN!!!, Beast Mode, royrules22 (81)
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Congrats to the Bears!
First Sweet 16 and a pretty decent showing against UCONN.
I think our team can hang with anyone in the first half … our lack of depth killed us in the second and of course, their freshman going crazy (why doesn’t OUR freshman go crazy and shoot 7-8 from three?).
Think that really was the turning point. We were hanging decently in defending UCONN’s Big Three.
7-8 from 3 just makes you sick. Wish we had the official season stats, but I’m pretty sure they’ve never shot better all year.
by Avinash Kunnath on Mar 29, 2009 11:49 AM PDT up reply actions
Does anybody ever read my posts?
I am the Tyrant Boy King Of UC Eugene! An endless cavalcade of worthless inanities is my currency!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
I am thoroughly satisfied with both basketball teams. The men were able to exceed expectations and showed a lot of potential for next year and the women had a historic season only to be the beat by the tourney favorites.
So yeah. Color me very satisfied!
by CaliforniaBone on Mar 29, 2009 12:12 PM PDT reply actions
Well, now that Louisville went down, maybe I have a chance of not losing! Go Michigan State! Screw everyone else’s brackets up!
JAI HO!
No dice. “I’m the best bracket maker” already has 3 teams in the Final 4, so he’s guaranteed another 16 points and 115 overall. You can only get 110 max.
by Avinash Kunnath on Mar 29, 2009 3:04 PM PDT up reply actions
Wait, what the hell am I talking about
Ignore that.
by Avinash Kunnath on Mar 29, 2009 3:13 PM PDT up reply actions
My Bracket
Is completely toast. I was 6 for 8 in the Elite 8 (almost 7/8), and I go 0 for 4 in the Final 4. That SUCKS.
Alright, fine, I admit it! "Hydration Technician" really DOES just mean "water boy!"
I’m toast, too. I have 2 teams in the Final Four (UNC and UConn). But the two teams I had going to the championship game were Louisville and Pitt. Both are out. So, basically, I’ve peaked right now at 6. I can’t get any more points. Le sigh!
I am the Tyrant Boy King Of UC Eugene! An endless cavalcade of worthless inanities is my currency!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
I'm very happy with the season.. but...
I watched my first womens BB game last year during the Olympics and truly enjoyed watching team USA sweep everyone… it was fun.
This year, I tried to watch as many of our own women’s BB games and it was great… esp the Stanford game. It made me incredibly happy for the entire week.
BUT..
The way our girls played during the 2H of the Uconn game pissed me off somewhat. Hampton couldn’t make a bucket if her life depended on it. She was waaay to slow to make her moves to the basket. She took too long which resulted in a second or third defender coming in to defend her.
Plus when Hampton would get doubled underneath NOBODY would slide in for the quick outlet pass. Where the fuck was everybody? You should never stand around and just WATCH your teammates play.
Nobody was jumping up for rebounds and the pick and rolls were slow, slow, slow.
Finally, the defense was horrible during the 2H. It really did look like they were just tired or something. OK, Coach Boyle made the choice to play her best without much rest, fine… but it backfired (I think).
Now I saw how truly good Uconn was. They are a fast team with good size and have incredibly accurate shooters. Plus they don’t foul unless it’s in the paint or during a fast break; they’re very disciplined. However, I felt – based on the 1H – that we could have been shooting for the win during the final minutes had we played more defense around the perimeter… and helped Hampton out in the paint… and maybe taken more of our TOs and rotated in more players. This is all 20/20 hindsight, I know… but it was just frustrating to watch.
But overall: I loved this season and I really have become of fan of Women’s BB… or at least Cal Womens BB. I am in love with Coach Boyle, Sandy and our players and I’m going to have so much fun watching our kick ass recruiting class grow up in our system.
BTW: I had tickets for this game, but didn’t end up going b/c of my laziness and cuz it was raining/hangover/constipation etc this morning. But I’m hating myself cuz I should’ve gone anyway… would’ve been fun.
HAIL HYDROTECH!
Thoughts on the women's game
So for 14 minutes, the best Cal woman’s team ever (I think we can all agree on that, right) played the best they have ever played. They passed and shot well, they got back on defense, they pushed the ball when they could and took what UConn gave them.
Then Natasha Vital picked up her 2nd foul and coach subbed in Adrian, and it all fell apart. After Vital left I think Cal really lost the quickness they needed to play with UConn. Lexi started bringing the ball up the court and did it really slowly, so that there were only 20 seconds on the shot clock when we started our offensive set. Plus, Adrian is significantly weaker passer and ball handler than Vital. We were unable to get the ball to Hampton or Walker and we settled for crummy jump shots. When we missed those UConn was able to get out in transition and without Vital there was nobody fast enough to slow down UConn’s guards.
So in 6 minutes an 8 point lead turned into a two point deficit. That wasn’t necessarily what decided the game, but I would imagine that it really took the momentum out of Cal’s players. And as we’ve seen for much of the last few years, Cal doesn’t play well from behind. Boyle’s strategy of playing the starters is great if we stay in the game, because the adrenalin of staying with the best team in the country should have kept them energized. But if you fall behind you have a very real danger of feeling both tired AND demoralized, which is a great formula for losing effort, and that happened to a certain extent. Having said that, I think coach made the right choice because clearly the only way we win is with our best 5 on the court.
Seeing how Cal played for the first 94 minutes of the NCAA tournament it really makes me wonder what would have happened if they had won a game or two more down the stretch and avoided UConn in the bracket. It’s a shame that when the Big Three finally seemed to be putting everything together and playing like so many Cal fans hoped they’d play in the tournament, they ran into the buzz saw that is perhaps the greatest woman’s team ever assembled (at least according to some talking heads).
It will be interesting to see what we can do in a clear rebuilding year in 2010. Thanks to Ashley and Devanai for reviving the program and representing our university so well.
The #1 greatest threat to America: BEARS
Or… the committee could have made the rule change NOT retroactive and we could have played in the Berkeley regional! Ugh.
I would love to have the Iowa State position… I think we could have beaten the teams that Iowa State did.
If we didn’t stumble toward the finish line, we would’ve been in a far better position to make noise.
The committee might not have done us favors, but we didn’t actually show we were worthy of anything better than what we got.
by Avinash Kunnath on Mar 29, 2009 7:01 PM PDT up reply actions
I feel pretty confident that we WEREN’T the worst 4 seed. I’m thinking we were better than ISU hopefully but that we were automatically barred from being considered there because of the Berkeley regional aspect.
The difference is so negligible between 12th and 16th though, isn’t it?
by Avinash Kunnath on Apr 1, 2009 12:12 AM PDT up reply actions
Hey NorCalNick, can you email us at either the contact email (GoldenBlogs) or my account (TwistnHook). Both are GMail.com accounts as soon as possible? I write this in this odd style only to try to avoid bots, because danzig’s proclamations have me fearful.
I am the Tyrant Boy King Of UC Eugene! An endless cavalcade of worthless inanities is my currency!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com

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