Cal Women's Basketball: Bears Picked to Finish Last in Pac-12

Defending national champion Stanford is the coaches' choice to win the conference again

Not surprisingly Cal's women's basketball team is picked to finish last in the Pac-12 this season in a vote of the conference coaches that was released on Tuesday.

Defending national champion Stanford was the pick to finish first, although Arizona, which was the NCAA tournament runnerup after losing a dramatic championship game to Stanford, is only picked to finish fifth.

Oregon is picked to finish second and received the one first-place vote that Stanford did not receive.

Cal has finished last in the Pac-12 in each of Charmin Smith's first two seasons as the Bears' head coach. They went 12-19 overall and 3-15 in the conference in 2019-20 and finished 1-16 overall and 1-12 in the conference last year, when the Bears were young and were hit with a barrage of injuries.

Cal is still a young team this season, but return all the key players from last year's squad.

The Bears received only 16 voting points in the coaches poll, leaving them well behind Utah and Washington, which tied for 10th in the poll with 25 voting points apiece.

The Pac-12 is generally considered the best women's basketball conference in the country, a claim that was strengthened by the fact that both teams in the NCAA tournament finals were from the Pac-12.

A number of Pac-12 teams are expected to be ranked in the preseason top-25 polls.

Here is the complete Pac-12 poll:

Cover photo of Charmin Smith by Soobum Im, USA TODAY Sports

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