Cal Women's Basketball: Bears Lose to USC, Stay Winless

The 23-point loss to the Trojans was the Bears' closest Pac-12 game so far

Cal is still looking for its first women's basketball victory of the season after losing to USC 77-54 on Monday afternoon in Los Angeles.

At this point, the Golden Bears (0-7 overall, 0-4 Pac-12) are looking for signs of progress from their freshman-laden team, hoping they can become competitive in the conference by February.

Cal freshman Michelle Onyiah is raw, but she is athletic as she showed in his frist start of the season Saturday, when she collected a team-high 16 points and seven rebounds.  

Dalayah Daniels is the most polished of the Cal freshman, although her shooting percentage is nothing to be proud of.  She had 11 points and a team-high 12 rebounds while playing all 40 minutes for the second game in a row, but after going 4-for-16 from the field in Saturday's loss to UCLA, Daniels was 4-for-15 from the floor on Monday.

Cal took care of the ball better than they had in the recent past. After committing 33 turnovers in the loss to Stanford and 30 in the defeat to UCLA, the Bears turned it over just 13 times against the Trojans.

USC (2-4, 1-4) was a team Cal figured to have a chance to beat. The Trojans also came into the game winless in the Pac-12, but they broke away from a 15-15 tie late in the first quarter by scoring 13 straight points to take command.

The 23-point margin of defeat represented the Bears' closest conference game this season.  They have lost their four conference games by an average margin of 32.3 points.

And it does not figure to get any easier. The Bears' next game is a January 1 road game against Arizona State, followed by a game against sixth-ranked Arizona.  Cal then returns home to play No. 8 Oregon and Oregon State.

Cover photo by Soobum Im, USA TODAY Sports

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