Cal Women’s Basketball Ekes Out Win Over the Hawai’i Rainbow Wahine in Inaugural WBIT

The Bears' season continues on Sunday

Courtesy Cal Athletics

After being left out of the Women’s NCAA Tournament, the Cal (19-14) Women’s Basketball team secured an invitation (and number 2 overall seeding!) to the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament and drew the Big West champion Hawai’i Rainbow Wahine last night in Haas Pavilion in Berkeley.

Cal defeated the Hawai’i Rainbow Wahine 65-60, surviving a late game flurry of three-pointers from Hawai’i guard IImani Perez. Though Cal committed too many turnovers down the stretch, freshman Lulu Twidale stepped up with big buckets in the fourth quarter. Twidale was the game’s leading scorer, scoring 20 points in only 26 minutes off the bench, hitting 4-5 from 3 point range, and 6-7 overall in the final period.

Coming into the game, the Hawai’i team (17-3 in conference, 20-10 overall) had been upset in their conference tourney and had been on the road in various parts of California (Bakersfield, Davis, Northridge) for better part of the month.

The game started much slower, as the Wahine’s balanced line-up (5 players averaging between 11.6 and 5.2 points per game) came into the game favoring volume 3 point shooting and a 3 guard line-up.

Early on, the Cal women started strong – with Michelle Oniyah dominating inside and outside shooting from Kemery Martin kep Cal ahead of the Wahine. Hawai’i started to find the basket and Cal stopped scoring, and the Rainbow Wahine ended the first quarter up by five, 18-13.

The biggest concern at this point was the lack of scoring  from three of the Bear’s stars players – Marta Suarez, Ionanna Krimili, and Lei McIntosh couldn’t get anything to fall.

That changed quickly. Early in the second quarter, behind the three point shooting of Leilani McIntosh and Claudia Langarita, the Bears whipped off a quick 9-0 run, taking only 2 minutes to go ahead and force Hawai’i into a timeout.

Both teams then proceeded to go ice cold, as Hawai’i managed to only score 4 points in the quarter, and Cal only added one Oniyah free throw and Bears headed into the half up by one, 23-22.

It was a frustrating first half of basketball. From the eye test, the Bears were physically dominant, but never really turned that into a substantial lead, and showed a lot of carelessness in taking care of the basketball with 10 first half turnovers, many resulting from a lack of focus and not Hawai’i’s defense.

Hawai’i came out of halftime shooting well and took a quick 5 point lead. For much of the third quarter, the teams traded turnovers and missed shots until two the Bears transfers started to cook. Ioanna Krimili and Marta Suarez – the program’s two leading scorers this season, along with freshman Lulu Twidale, unlocked the offense and quickly ran off a mini run. For a good portion of the third quarter, this was the Cal Women’s team at it’s best – Ioanna and Lei trading off ball handling duties, some really fun sets with Suarez running a pick-and-pop with Krimili and then attacking the close-out or looking for the pass back to Krimili behind a flare screen. Some really fun offense. The third quarter ended with Cal leading 43-34.

The fourth quarter became tight down the stretch. The Bears looked comfortable, holding a 9-point lead with just over 6 minutes remaining. The Bears turned the ball over on the next three possessions, and Hawai’i’s Imani Perez hit back-toback 3 pointers to get the Wahine to within two points, 62-60 with 45 seconds remaining. Cal would slow the game down, and Kemery Martin hit a 3-pointer with 18 seconds left to give Cal a 5 point lead. Hawai’i would not score again and Cal moves on after the 65-60 win. Lulu Twidale scored 12 of Cal’s 22 fourth quarter points to hold of the Wahine.

Cal will next face St. Joseph’s (PA) (27-5, Second in the A-10) in Haas Pavilion on Sunday March 24 at 1PM Pacific. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ - if you’re in the Bay Area come out to Haas to cheer for the Bears!