Women's Basketball: Cal Overcomes Cold Shooting to Beat Santa Clara
Sakima Walker leads the comeback to advance out of the first round of the WBIT.
At halftime, the Bears led Santa Clara by 7 points, at one point had led by 10, and I felt like the lead should’ve been bigger. The Bears were faster, taller, and stronger than Santa Clara physically, and were easily winning the rebounding battle and the shot quality contest. I said the following in the WFC discord at the half:
We’re much bigger and more athletic than Santa Clara, they only way we lose this is if there’s a big shooting discrepancy.
Over the next 12:15 of gametime, the Bears subsequently shot 1-10 from three, 4-13 from 2, and saw a 7 point lead turn into an 8 point deficit. The season was hanging on by a thread.
But then two things happened:
Cal suddenly remembered that Sakima Walker is 6’5’’, and that Santa Clara had one player in their rotation taller than 5’11’’.
Cal suddenly remembers that they’re faster, taller, and stronger than Santa Clara, and clamped down on defense.
Until a final second, meaningless 3, Santa Clara scored just 8 points in the final 8 minutes of the game. Sakima Walker, fed relentlessly in the quarter, scored 8 points by herself. Throw in one critical Taylor Barnes 3, one critical steal-and-layup from Mjracle Sheppard, and a bunch of free throws from Lulu Twidale and that’s how you turn an 8 point deficit into a Cal win.
This game was close because Cal couldn’t hit a 3 pointer. The Bears went 5-29 on the game, mostly on good looks. The looks were good because Santa Clara more or less had to collapse into the paint to have a prayer of guarding Walker and Cal’s driving guards, and so the kick out three was ALWAYS open. For 3 quarters, the Bears got open look after open look and clanked almost all of them.
Santa Clara was also cold from 3, but the Broncos’ looks were worse on average, and they seemed to realize sooner than Cal did that this was a game for getting looks inside. Santa Clara’s 3rd quarter run was mostly built on tough contested 2 point looks or open back-door cuts.
It was almost enough to win a game when the Bears were otherwise physically dominant. But ultimately, Santa Clara ran out of bodies and fouls to throw at Sakima Walker, and the Bears pivoted to what worked offensively just in time to avoid a home loss in the first round of the WBIT.
It was ultimately defense that won Cal this game. The broadcast spent a lot of time talking about how Santa Clara loves taking 3s - 43% of their possessions, to be exact. What the broadcast didn’t mention is that Cal has been nationally elite a 3 point prevention across the last few years - the Bears are 3rd nationally at preventing their opponents from attempting 3 pointers. In a battle of a team that loves to take 3s and a team that won’t let you, Cal won. Santa Clara only attempted 3s on 32% of their shots, and those 3s were generally not high quality looks.
And while Santa Clara is a very secure ball handling team and Cal isn’t a huge turnover forcing defense, the Bears were opportunistic, collecting 7 steals and 17 fast break points. That source of offense to go along with 15 second chance points from 19 offensive rebounds kept Cal’s offense afloat when shooting abandoned the Bears.
Basketball is mostly a game of making shots. But if you’re fast enough, tall enough, strong enough, you can overcome that disadvantage. On Thursday night, an ACC team played a WCC team, and the physical differences were stark.
Cal now advances to the 2nd round of the WBIT against Kansas State. The Bears will have to travel to Manhattan for a 4:00 tip off on Sunday.
The Wildcats are in some ways similar to Cal - they had a really strong 2025 season behind a huge senior class, and are rebuilding this year with a combination of freshmen and transfers. Kansas State is 19-17 against a really brutal schedule. Cal is probably the slightly better team, but home court advantage means that Kansas State is probably the slight favorite to win the game.
Kansas State’s biggest strength? Three point shooting. Their entire starting lineup can shoot the 3, and their best player, Taryn Sides, has Ioanna-Krimili-esque shooting stats. Can the Bears shut down two three-point-dominant teams in a row?
You forgot to give the final score