Cal Women's Basketball: Ioanna Krimili Scores 24 Points as Bears Beat Oregon

Cal rules the boards and forces the Ducks into 20 turnovers for its third Pac-12 win.

Dominating the boards and using their defense to create offense, the Cal women’s basketball team ended an eight-game losing streak to Oregon by posting a 66-57 victory at Haas Pavilion on Sunday afternoon.

The Bears (13-6, 3-4 Pac-12) also snapped a three-game skid in conference play and matched their best overall win total of the past four seasons.

“This was a must-win game us,” Cal coach Charmin Smith said. “We knew it and I’m glad that we responded. This wasn’t easy.”

The Bears hoisted a program-record 39 3-point shots (making 10) but the keys to winning were rebounding and their ability to force mistakes by the Ducks (11-9, 2-5).

Cal outrebounded Oregon 45-35 and had a 22-9 edge in offensive rebounds. The Bears transformed that into a 24-8 advantage in second-chance points.

“They’re massive,” Smith said of the Ducks, who start 6-foot-8 Phillipina Kyei, 6-7 Kennedy Bashum and 6-3 Grace VanSlooten. “We joked about them being 7-2 and 6-10. They’re just really big and talented. We just would not be denied. I’m really proud of our response to a really heart-breaking loss on Friday.”

On the heels of that 71-64 defeat to Oregon State in which the Bears led by seven entering the fourth quarter, they forced 20 Oregon giveaways, leading to a 28-11 edge in points off turnovers. Cal had 11 steals, four of them by Michelle Onyiah.

USF transfer Ioanna Krimili, who made five 3’s on Friday to reach 300 for her career, made five more on her way to scoring a Cal career-best 24 points.

“I think I’ve started understanding my role a little bit, and my role is to score,” Krimili said.

“You were confused about that?” Smith joked.

“No, I wasn’t confused but I feel more comfortable,” the graduate student from Greece explained. “My teammates do a very good job pushing in transition and then I get shots. I’m very confident that I will make those shots. Even if I don’t make them, I feel good taking every shot.

“A lot of it has to do with my coaches and my teammates — they tell me to shoot the ball. So that’s what I do.”

Marta Suarez had 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Bears and Makayla Williams contributed 10 rebounds and five assists. Leilani McIntosh had four assists and two steals, climbing to fourth on Cal’s career assists list (487) and seventh in steals (206).

Cal missed its first six shots of the game and was just 3 for15 in the first quarter. Oregon led throughout the first half, except twice when the Bears tied it on 3-pointers by Krimili.

The Bears took their first lead at 47-46 on a jumper by Suarez with 1:13 left in the third quarter and another basket by Suarez, with 8:18 to play in the fourth quarter, put Cal in front for good at 49-48.

Cal held the Ducks scoreless over the final 3 1/2 minutes iced the game by making 5 of 8 free throws in the final minute.

Cal’s 39 attempts beyond the 3-point arc broke the program record of 34.. The Bears have shot a lot of 3s in recent weeks, averaging just over 28 tries the past eight games.

Kyei had 17 points and 14 rebounds for Oregon, which hadn’t lost to Cal since a 55-49 win by the Bears on Feb. 24, 2017.

Smith talks in the video below about the Bears' need to continue improving at the defensive end as they prepare to face Arizona on Friday night in Tucson.

Cover photo of Ioanna Krimili by Kelley L. Cox, KLC fotos

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo