Cal Sports Report

Cal Women's Basketball: Jayda Curry Enters Transfer Portal

The sophomore led the Bears in scoring in each of her two seasons in Berkeley

Jake Curtis

The Cal women's basketball team suffered a serious blow this past week when Jayda Curry, the team's top scorer the past two seasons, entered the transfer portal, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Curry led the Pac-12 in scoring as a freshman in 2021-22 at 18.6 points per game, and she was fifth in the conference is scoring this past season as a sophomore, averaging 15.5 points.

The 5-foot-6 Curry was named the Pac-12 freshman of the year by the media in 2022, and was selected to the all-conference team by the media this season.

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Curry was not a highly rated recruit coming out of high school, but Cal head coach Charmin Smith noticed her talent and offered her a scholarship.

Cal has not had a winning season in any of Smith's four years as the Bears' head coach, and the Bears finished with a 13-17 overall record this past season, including 4-14 in conference play.

The Bears' best win was on overtime victory over USC and former Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb. The Trojans earned an NCAA tournament berth.

This is the second straight season Cal has lost a key player. Dalayah Daniels, who was Cal's leading scorer as a freshman in 2020-21 at 11.9 points a game and averaged 7.9 points as a Cal sophomore in 2021-22, transferred to Washington following the 2021-22 season. Daniels was the leading scorer this past season for the Huskies, who upset Stanford during the regular season.

Fatou Samb and Cailyn Crocker also trasferred from Cal after the 2021-22 season, with Samb going to Rice and Crocker going to Colorado State. Meanwhile, Cal picked up three transfers prior to this season -- Kemery Martin (from Utah), Peanut Tuitele (from Colorado) and Claudia Langarita (from San Francisco).

Jazlen Green did not play this season for Cal and announced she has retired from basketball. Jadyn Bush also left left the Cal team during the season, reportedly for personal reasons.

The key remaining returning starters are Martin and Leilani McIntosh, who is opting to return for a fifth seasons.

The Bears top incoming freshman is probably guard Lulu Laditan-Twidale of Australia.

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Cover photo of Jayda Curry by Kyle Terada, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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