Basketball Joy: Cal men beat UCLA, Cal women earn home sweep

A weekend of basketball happiness that cannot and will not be taken for granted

Me, to Cal basketball, after watching games all weekend.

Michelle Onyiah is a rare player: she is currently in the middle of her 4th year of basketball in one place.

She has had to struggle through tough times on the court, and wins have been few and far between. Individually, she’s a potentially dominant player felled by an inability to avoid foul trouble.

But she played well in the first half of Cal’s game against Wazzu and didn’t pick up any fouls.

With 9:18 left in the 3rd quarter, she gives ground to a driving Cougar, staying perfectly vertical without even jumping. It looks for all the world like she identified that she couldn’t contest the shot without fouling, so she restrains herself.

The refs call a foul anyway.

With 7:30 left in the 3rd quarter, Wazzu big Bella Murekatete grapples for position inside with Onyiah. It’s a 50/50 call. Many refs would swallow their whistle.

These refs whistle Onyiah for the foul.

With 6:47 left in the 3rd quarter, Murekatete and Onyiah are fighting for position again. Murekatete is leaning on Onyiah, who disengages and moves away. Murekatete, who had all of her weight leaning against Onyiah, falls over.

The refs whistle Onyiah for a foul, presumably for the crime of not letting an opponent lean on her.

In 2:31 of game action, Onyiah picks up three fouls when she reasonably could have felt hard done by to pick up one foul. She sits until the early 4th quarter . . . and 8 seconds after re-entering the game picks up her 4th foul fighting for a rebound. She goes back to the bench for another five+ minutes.

Meanwhile, Cal is in a back-and-forth dogfight (catfight?) with the Cougars, who have been in and out of the top 25 all season long. Marta Suarez hits a huge 3 to give Cal the lead, only for Clarisse Leger-Walker to answer back with a logo three to tie the game. We’re going to OT. On the first possession of OT, Leilani McIntosh fouls out. Wazzu takes a 1 point lead from the subsequent free throws. Cal appears to be on the ropes.

Then the following happens:

1. With 3:00 left and trailing by 1, Kemery Martin misses a shot. Onyiah brings down the rebound and scores the put-back to put Cal back ahead.

2. With 2:00 left and trailing by 1, Mia Mastrov misses a shot. Onyiah brings down the rebound and scores the put-back to put Cal back ahead.

3. With 0:08 left and trailing by 1, Marta Suarez misses a shot. Onyiah brings down the rebound and scores the put-back to put Cal back ahead.

4. Throughout ALL of this, Onyiah is playing with 4 fouls and contributes on defense, where she’s playing critical help defense on Leger-Walker’s dribble drives. Watch her hedge and cut off the driving lane on Wazzu’s final possession as a secondary defender to seal the Cal win.

When it was all over, all that was left was the joy on Onyiah’s face as she was interviewed by the Pac-12 broadcast, beaming from a 14 point, 8 rebound, game saving performance while selflessly singing the praises of her teammates.

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Cal MBB’s road losing streak to UCLA is somewhat overblown. The broadcast talked about how Cal hadn’t beaten UCLA in Pauley since 2010, but that ignores a Cal win over UCLA in Los Angeles in 2012 when Pauley was being renovated. UCLA was also lucky to duck the 2016 Bears, who probably would’ve beaten the Bruins in Westwood if UCLA didn’t have the good fortune of not having to host Jaylen Brown, Ivan Rabb, and company that year.

But Beating UCLA is always sweet, beating UCLA on the road sweeter still, and beating UCLA in the final game in LA as conference rivals as sweet as you can imagine.

How much of this game was Cal playing well vs. UCLA playing poorly? On one hand, Cal generally and Fardaws Aimaq specifically dominated the glass, Jaylon Tyson was generally unguardable, and Cal didn’t give UCLA anything easy on offense.

On the other hand, based on both the stats and what I saw, this year’s UCLA squad might have the worst offense in UCLA history. The Bruins are currently 318th in the country in 2 point shooting percentage, 329th in 3 point shooting percentage, AND they turn the ball over a lot. Every time UCLA put up a jump shot I celebrated internally, and I was right to do so almost every time.

So am I currently celebrating a strong Cal performance for a deserved, streak breaking road win? YES!

Am I simultaneously reveling in UCLA’s shocking decline, while wishing our conference destroying former rivals nothing but defeat after mid-west defeat in the Big-10 next year? ALSO YES!

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Will either of these wins mean anything a week from now, a month from now, a year from now?

In one sense, I don’t know. Cal MBB is vastly improved from last year, but not improved enough that you can reasonably expect even a .500 record this year. Maybe this is a win that Mark Madsen can point to when he’s trying to convince future recruits and transfers to come to Berkeley. Maybe not.

Cal WBB is, based on their NET rankings, currently on the fringes of NCAA contention and they picked up two top 50 NET wins this weekend. Maybe this weekend is a springboard to the kind of performance that will end with an NCAA bid. Maybe not.

On the other hand, this is the happiest Cal basketball has made me since March of 2019, when Cal WBB blew out North Carolina in the first round of teh NCAA tournament. That was nearly 5 years ago, and it’s been nothing but losses and transfers out and recruiting failures since then.

These wins may not lead to anything greater. But I will remember watching Michelle Onyiah put Cal on her back and earn the OT win. I’ll remember watching Cal clown UCLA in Pauley as a particularly fun milestone in the Madsen rebuilding project.

When you’re not a fan of a team that expects to contend for conference and NCAA titles, this is how you measure your fandom, this is why you keep tuning in.