Cal Women Lose by 20 Points to USC

Bears cannot match their performance against No. 2 Stanford and were 'uncharacteristically bad' according to coach Charmin Smith

The Cal women's team that nearly upset second-ranked Stanford on Sunday in Berkeley did not show up for Friday's game at USC.

The players were the same for the Golden Bears, but the result was very different as Cal suffered through a horrible first half in a 63-43 loss to the Trojans.

The 43 points was by far the Bears' lowest scoring total of the season, 13 points fewer than their previous low mark of 56 points.

"I thought we were really uncharacteristically bad," Cal head coach Charmin Smith said. "It was just a rough night for us I don't think we came ready to play. We know can't do that in this conference.

The Bears (10-6, 1-4 Pac-12) got hopelesly behind in the first half, when they had more turnovers (18) than points (14) and could never seriously threaten in the second half.

Smith said the team did not practice well all week despite the encouraging showing against Stanford.

"This is Pac-12 play you know," Smith said, "so either we're going to show up and compete, or we're going to have more embarrassing nights like this. So I think we're the type of team that will bounce back and be ready to be competitive on Sunday and that's the good thing about our conference -- every night you have a chance to kind of change the narrative. You know, we do something well on Sunday, and this game doesn't feel as bad as it feels right now."

USC, which is coached by former Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb, improved to 9-1 at home, the only home loss being a three-point defeat against UCLA. Smith was a Cal assistant under Gottlieb for eight years before succeeding Gottlieb as the Golden Bears' head coach.

Cal's leading scorer Jayda Curry had just six points on 2-for-9 shooting, but she did make one three-pointer to extend her streak of consecutive games with at least one made three-pointer to 38 straight games.  That tied Kelsey Plum for the second-longest such streak in the Pac-12 since 1999-2000.  Curry is just seven games shy of the record of 45 consecutive games held by Shay Murphy of USC.

However, Curry did little offensively against the Trojans (12-4, 2-3), who are one of the best defensive teams in the country and provied it against a Cal teram that five days ealier barely lost to Stanford 60-56 after holding a three-point lead with four minutes to go.

Cal never held a lead against USC, whichb took command from the start.  The Trojans shot out ot a 13-0 lead and the Golden Bears never recovered.

With 3:30 left in the second quarter, Cal had just eight points on 3-for-17 shooting as well as 15 turnovers and a 23-point deficit.

Cal started the second half by making its first five shots, but it never got closer than 13 points. The Bears took care of the ball better in the second half, committing just two turnovers after halftime to finish with 20.

By making their final shot of the game, the Bears ended up shooting 30% from the field while going 4-for-16 from three-point range.

Evelien Lutje Schipholt was the only Cal player to score in double figures, scoring 14 points.

Destiny Littleton had 18 points and Rayha Marshall added 17 for the Trojans, who shot just 38.6% and committed 18 turnovers.

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Cover photo of Evelien Lutje Schipholt by Cal Athletics

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