Cal Women Win by Their Biggest Margin in Nine Years

The Golden Bears women's basketball team improves to 2-0 with a 52-point win over Idaho State

Lulu Twidale / {hoto by Kelley L Cox, KLC fotos

Cal’s women’s basketball team was not competing against an opponent as much as it was competing against the record book on Thursday.

The Golden Bears outclassed Idaho State 88-36 in Berkeley in the School Haas Rock game, which started in the morning and finished in the early afternoon before a crowd of East Bay school students.

The outcome was never in doubt, as Cal (2-0) sped to an early 14-1 lead and was never threatened.

As the game wore on the only question was whether the Bears might set a school record for largest margin of victory. Cal’s 52-point victory did not threaten the school record set in 1978, when Cal defeated UC Santa Cruz by 65 points in a 90-25 rout.  However, this was Cal’s largest margin of victory in nine years, since it blew out CSUN (Cal State Northridge) by a score of 106-44 for a 62-point victory on December 30, 2015.

Not much else was accomplished in the victory over Idaho State, which was picked to finish seventh in the 10-team Big West Conference in the preseason poll.  The Bengals had defeated Arizona Christian 91-52 in their opener, but Cal proved to be a very different opponent.

Ioanna Krimili led the Bears with 18 points while hitting 4-for-7 three-pointers in just 23 minutes of court time.  But besides being a reliable perimeter threat, Krimili this season will be asked to be a floor general and playmaker.

Each of the past five seasons Leilani McIntosh was Cal’s starting point guard, and she took care of involving teammates and directing the offense, leading the team in assists in each of those five seasons.

Krimili and Kayla Williams took turns as the Bears point guard on Monday, and each contributed four assists.

The team leader in assists on Thursday, though, was Lulu Twidale, who had six assists to go along with 13 points in her 24 minutes of playing time. Williams (11 points) and Michelle Onyiah (10 points, eight rebounds) were the other two Cal players to reach double figures in scoring.

Cal again showed that it will be relying heavily on three-point shooting this season. Nearly half of the Bears’ 59 field-goal attempts were from long range, and Bears hit 35.7 percent of their three-point shots, going 10-for-28.

In Monday’s 90-58 victory over Saint Mary’s, more than half of Cal’s 57 shots were three-pointers and the Bears were 14-for-30 on long-range shots in that game.

For the season, so far, Cal has attempted 58 two-point shots and 58 three-point shots. Some may call that a balanced offense, but it is really a heavy reliance on perimeter shooting.

Cal has made 41.4 percent of its three-point shots over the first two games, and that’s an excellent percentage, although those shots will be harder to come by when the Bears step into ACC play against some of the best teams in the country.