Cal Women's Basketball Sweeps the Raising the BAR Invitational

Cal beats Charlotte with their best defensive performance of the season, then bests Harvard with their best offensive performance of the season.

The four head coaches at the Raising the BAR Invitational, highlighted by an INCREDIBLE jersey from Harvard head coach Carrie Moore - via @calwbball instagram

When you’re watching a rebuilt team play early in the season, you’re looking for flashes of what the team could become in a week, a month, a year. What does the latest transfer bring to the table? What kind of promise does a freshman flash? How do the pieces fit together, now and tomorrow.

In Cal’s weekend wins over Charlotte and Harvard, the Bears showed off some intriguing promise on both sides of the ball. They suffocating Charlotte defensively on Saturday, then showed off surprising ball movement and offense against Harvard on Sunday. In the process, they picked up two solid wins over dangerous mid-major teams to move to 4-1 on the season.

Cal 69, Charlotte 44

The 49ers came into this game only 2-2, but one of the losses was to top 5 LSU, and the other was an overtime loss to Auburn, and the wins included a win over UCF out of the Big-12. Charlotte gave themselves a challenging schedule and had largely showed they belonged.

And more or less from the opening tip, they couldn’t find a way through Cal’s defense. The Bears held Charlotte to 0.63 points/possession, and the stars of the show were Mjiracle Sheppard and Sakima Walker.

Walker’s impact is mostly unsurprising. Standing at 6’5’’, the only question about her ability to be an impact defender is health. One of the positive developments so far this season is that Walker has looked healthy and her conditioning solid; she has played at least 20 minutes in every game so far, and played 46 total minutes on Saturday and Sunday without looking particularly tired.

Sheppard meanwhile [turns on the Hot Take machine] might be the best perimeter defender in program history.

OK, that’s probably too far. That’s an insane suggestion after five games, particularly when only one of those games has been against power conference competition.

Still, when I think about the best perimeter defenders in Cal history, I’m typically thinking of lightning quick but undersized players. Think Eliza Pierre or Brittany Boyd. Sheppard’s skillset reminds me of those players . . . except Sheppard is 5’10’’ and plays even bigger than that, with long arms that disrupt passing lanes and discourage ball movement. She’s averaging a steal about every 9 minutes of court time, and she gets a fast break layup about once a game through her speed and instincts.

Against Charlotte specifically she controlled the game defensively in a way that is very rare, constantly disrupting Charlotte as they tried to initiate their offense, eventually collecting 5 steals and 2 blocks to go along with 6 defensive rebounds, all in just 25 minutes.

The rest of Cal’s roster has been solid defensively, to be sure. Puff Morris makes up for her lack of size with speed. Lola Donez has taken a step forward on the defensive end. Naya Ojukwu plays much bigger than her 6’1’’ height would suggest. But it’s Walker inside and Sheppard outside that make me think that this Cal team could be special defensively.

Because Cal was so dominant defensively, this was never likely to be a close game. Still, for a half Cal struggled badly on offense and it was an ugly 24-24 tie at halftime. That was at least partly down to the absence of Lulu Twidale, who was a precautionary scratch. A flurry of 2nd half threes, mostly from Puff Morris (more on her below), turned the game from a low scoring slog into a rout.

Cal 76, Harvard 65

While Cal’s defense against Charlotte was particularly great, it wasn’t a shock - Cal’s defense has been uniformly good all season outside of serious rebounding issues against Vanderbilt.

Cal’s offense has not been uniformly good. The Bears have had long scoring droughts in almost every game, struggling with turnovers and iffy shooting to varying degrees. When you lose four really excellent offensive players, including two of the best shooters in program history, these kinds of struggles aren’t exactly a huge shock.

Which is why Cal’s offensive showing against Harvard is maybe the most encouraging part of the weekend.

Harvard is in fact a legitimate defensive test. The Crimson earned a 10 seed in last year’s NCAA tournament and return plenty of talent off of that team, which was better defensively than offensively. Cal took it to Harvard’s defensive with a gameplan that had them getting the ball to the bucket relentlessly.

The Bears took 54 shots against Harvard. 21 of them were three pointers, five of them were long jumpers. The other 33? Shots at the rim, of all varieties. Lob entries to bigs when Harvard fronted. Dribble drives from guards. Mostly a TON of pick and rolls, well executed, with some truly beautiful pocket passes to the roller.

Cal collected 17 total assists for the game, with Gisella Maul, Morris, and Twidale all getting at least 4. Ojukwu and Walker were the primary beneficiaries, collectively finishing 12-19 at the rim. Later in the game, Cal’s focus paid dividends as Harvard collapsed more and more into the interior, opening up space for kick out passes to perimeter shooters.

One of the stories of the early season has been a head-scratching shooting drought from Twidale, who started the season 1-22 from deep. I can imagine that Twidale felt some pressure to be the focal point of the offense without any other proven scorers, and some of her shot selection earlier this season felt rushed.

Against Harvard, she was given three beautiful catch-and-shoot opportunities in the 2nd half and drained all of them, perhaps giving Cal a blueprint for the rest of the season in the process. My theory: Cal might have enough passers that nobody needs to force their own offense.

That theory will be tested in ACC play, when defenses get bigger and more athletic. But so far this season and particularly against Harvard, we’ve seen three different players show solid passing skills - Sheppard, Twidale, and Morris are all able to initiate the offense and create for others.

It’s not yet clear how much shooting Cal has. Twidale is too good a shooter not to recover from her slump, and will terrify defensive with her catch and shoot ability. Morris had a breakout weekend as a shooter and is now at 39% for the season. Lola Donez has had an encouraging start in her 3-and-D role, stretching the defense from the corner. But it should be enough shooting to keep the defense honest so that there is space for Cal’s guards to drive, or create in the pick and roll.

To be clear, there are going to be rough games offensively. Morris and Taylor Barnes are still adapting to the speed of college basketball. Outside shooting is iffy enough that there will be cold streaks, and Cal is turnover prone enough that it will cut into offensive efficiency.

But Harvard was a reminder of what Cal is capable of when they’re running on something close to all cylinders, when the ball is moving sharply and there are threats inside and outside.

Cal will be back in action this Thursday at home against St. Mary’s before travelling to Texas for two neutral site games that includes a tougher test against Auburn.