Cal Women’s Basketball Cruises to Easy Win Over Cal Poly

A strong shooting performance from Lulu Twidale helps the Bears close out non-conference play.

photo via @calwbball twitter

Last Monday I reviewed Cal WBB’s performance in non-conference play, and wrote the following (perhaps overly dismissive) blurb about their upcoming game against Cal Poly:

. . . the Cal women play Cal Poly next weekend before they start ACC play on New Year’s Day. But Cal Poly is 0-9 against D-1 competition, and lost to UCLA 115-28 a week ago. The outcome is a foregone conclusion and whatever happens is not a useful piece of data for projecting the rest of the season.

I still broadly stand by the blurb, even though it took Cal the better part of 30 minutes to really put this game away with a 15-4 run that turned it decent lead of 12 points into a dominant lead of 25. Cal continued to pull away throughout an offensively prolific 2nd half, closing out a routine 91-50 win to wrap up both 2025 and non-conference play.

If there is ANYTHING that can be taken away from this game, here’s one hopeful note: maybe this is the game that jump starts Lulu Twidale’s 3 point shooting.

Cal’s only established offensive threat entering the season came into the Cal Poly game shooting an uncharacteristic 23-91 (25%) from deep for the season. Twidale’s 3-point shot has always tended to be a little streaky, but this year has had more rough shooting nights than you would have expected.

Some of that might have something to do with becoming opponent-defensive-game-plan-target-#1. But against a Cal Poly team that defaulted to packing the paint defensively didn’t have the cohesion or athleticism to close out behind the line, Twidale had good looks all game long.

The result? A 5-11 performance from behind the line for 19 total points, plus a career-high-tying 6 assists.

Doing it against Cal Poly is far from a guarantee of doing it against North Carolina on the road this Thursday. But the Bears need their best shooting to find her touch if they want to get over the hump against power conference opponents. Consider what I’ve highlighted here:

Just a few more made 3s in any of these games could have swung some of these games, or at least kept Cal close with a chance to win late.

I’m actually encouraged that Twidale took fewer 3s against Stanford and USC, and that Cal played comparatively better against those tougher teams. I think that’s a sign that Twidale is being a little more selective with her shot in part because Cal has found other sources of offense as compared to earlier in the year, when Twidale was putting up more shots out of necessity.

But Twidale’s shooting threat is still a key part of Cal’s offense, and even though her percentages are down other teams are still going to work very hard to deny her looks. Much of Cal’s success or failure in ACC play may well stem from how well Cal takes advantage of the attention Twidale’s shooting draws, and how well Twidale hits on the occasional opportunities she gets anyway.

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We’re going to immediately find out how much the Bears have learned from non-conference play, as they start ACC play with two brutal road games on Tobacco Road.

North Carolina and NC State have both had frustrating non-conference performances of their own, as both teams have dropped all of their major games. But make no mistakes - both teams have top 25 efficiency profiles and Cal would do well to keep either game close, let alone win. Heck, NC State is already 2-0 in ACC play with two wins by 26 and 29 points respectively.

But if the Bears can play the same kind of strong defense that kept them close against Stanford and USC, but get a little bit more timely shooting . . . well, who knows? I do think that this team is a year away from knocking off teams with top 25 level talent, but I also think that somebody is eventually going to be surprised at some point this season. If the Bears could do it now, in their two toughest games of the season, it would portend well for the rest of the year.