Women's Basketball: Complete Effort Leads Cal Past Kansas State
Sakima Walker's 28 points help the Bears advance to the WBIT quarterfinals with an 83-75 road win.
Close your eyes, and imagine what your ideal Cal WBB performance would look like this year.
You would imagine a game where Cal drains a bunch of 3s, led by Lulu Twidale. You would picture Sakima Walker collecting open entry passes and collecting easy layups over smaller opponents. You see Mjracle Sheppard intercepting passes and scoring fast break buckets. Puff Morris is there, making smart decisions with the basketball. Gisella Maul and Taylor Barnes are doing a little bit of everything. The Bears are playing solid team defense as a unit.
Now open your eyes and go to ESPN+ to rewatch Cal’s win over Kansas State, because that’s exactly what the Bears did to advance in the WBIT.
The final score looks deceptively close because the Bears closed up shop a little early, but don’t be fooled. When Taylor Barnes hit her 5th three of the game to put Cal up 25 points with 6:45 left in the game, it was over. Kudos to K. St. for fighting the rest of the way, but it was academic.
I don’t want to sound like a broken record after my recap of Cal’s win over Santa Clara, but there’s a glaring reason why Cal won this game: Sakima Walker is 6’5’’, and Kansas State’s tallest rotation player is 6’1’’. The Wildcats have been playing small and forcing opponents to react to their speed and shooting. Sakima Walker asked Kansas State to adapt to her size, and the Wildcats had no answer.
Also, I don’t want to be glib about Walker’s talents - she’s much more than just her height. She has impressive mobility for her size, has excellent touch around the basket, knows when to get rid of the ball, and has generally blossomed into an effective all-around post player.
Entry pass, pocket pass, offensive rebound, pick and roll - name a method for getting the ball to Walker, Cal used it often and to great effect. 28 points (on just 18 shots), 16 rebounds, and even 4 assists when K St. collapsed on her is an entirely fair reflection of how dominant Walker was throughout the game.
It took a truly special performance to earn top billing ahead of Lulu Twidale, who hit 4 threes on the night to set two program records for most 3s in a season (99) and most 3s in Cal career history (234). That she set the record in just three seasons is incredible, and she’ll have the chance to set a very, very high bar as a senior next year.
The game was expected to be close, and played to form for the first 25 minutes. But behind Walker, Cal put the hammer down in an extended 25-4 run across the final 5 minutes of the 3rd quarter and into the 4th quarter. The 25 points Cal scored in that span were impressive. But the run was just as much about Cal’s defense, which finally quieted K. St. for a long stretch after 25 minutes where the Wildcats more or less matched Cal bucket for bucket in a very fun offensive back-and-forth.
It’s hard to watch your team play in a secondary tournament like the WBIT and not think about next year. That’s maybe not fair to the players who want to achieve something RIGHT NOW, but it’s natural.
And if you’re a Cal fan who watched Taylor Barnes and Puff Morris against Kansas State, you’re probably pretty excited.
Barnes finished the night with 17 points (tying for a career high) and also played 38 minutes after a few games back from injury where she was playing more limited minutes while working herself back up to game speed.
Morris, meanwhile, racked up 7 assists against just 1 turnover in just 16 minutes, but was on the floor for much of Cal’s decisive run that turned the game into a blowout. She had one of the biggest buckets of the game, a mid-range tear drop to end a mini-run for K. St. that briefly had the crowd into the game, and a few beautiful lobs to Walker for easy buckets.
It’s hard not to imagine a 2026-27 season watching a Morris, Twidale, Maul, Sheppard and Barnes tear up opposing defenses.
On the other side of Cal’s WBIT region of the bracket, Columbia went on the road and destroyed North Dakota State by 29, three days after beating St. John’s by 48. No, that is not a typo, the Lions actually beat a team in the post-season by 48 points. If you believe the tempo-free rankings, Columbia might just be the best team left in the WBIT.
Of course, if you believe the tempo-free rankings, Cal is another team in the conversation for best team left in the WBIT. And the Bears are lucky enough to be playing host on Thursday night.
Columbia’s calling card is an aggressive defense that forces lots of turnovers - 28% of their opponent’s possessions end in turnovers, to be exact.
If Cal can deal with Columbia’s defensive pressure, there are opportunities. As you would expect for an Ivy League team, the Lions are undersized and will often play lineups with nobody taller than 6’1’’ . . . which has been a recipe for disaster for Cal’s first two WBIT opponents so far.
If the Bears win, they will advance to the WBIT semi-finals, which take place in Wichita, Kansas on Monday night.
The whole team was clicking for much of the game, but Walker was dominating like prime Shaq in there. The team did a great job getting the ball inside, something they can struggle with.
Great win!
Playing like they're playing for something, all you can ask.