Michelle Onyiah Stayed, and Now She's Reaping the Rewards

Fifth-year Cal center Onyiah is the key to the Bears' chances in Saturday's women's NCAA tournament game against Mississippi State

Cal's Michelle Onyaih (left) battles Notre Dame forward Maddy Westbeld / MICHAEL CLUBB/SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Michelle Onyiah is a college basketball oddity: She stayed at the same school for five years.

She is the only player on the current Cal women’s basketball roster that was recruited to Berkeley by Lindsay Gottlieb, now the USC head coach. She is the only current Cal player who suffered through the Bears’ 1-16, Covid season in 2020-21. 

That was Onyiah’s freshman season, when she was a starter most of the time.  She then saw Cal struggle through losing seasons the next two years when she was coming off the bench, and even considered transferring after her sophomore year.

Onyiah was made aware of offers from other schools.

“I was like, ‘Should I go? Should I go? Should I go,’” she said. “It was very close.”

But she made what must be considered a mature decision.

“I was so close to finishing at Berkeley, and I didn’t want to go to another school and not have the same degree,” she said.

So as Cal players came and went through the transfer portal over the next few years, Onyiah hung around.

Things got better last season, and now Cal (25-8) is in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2019 on the strength of a starting lineup that consists of three players who came to Cal as transfers, a sophomore, and Onyiah.

And you can make a pretty good case that Onyiah, now a graduate student at Cal, is the key to whether the No. 8-seeded Golden Bears will win or lose their first-round game Saturday against ninth-seeded Mississippi State (2:30 p.m., ESPN2).

Onyiah provides the critical inside complement for a Cal offense that relies heavily on three-pointers, and she has been playing the best basketball of her college career over the past two weeks.

Over the past four games, including two against teams in the NCAA tournament, Onyiah has averaged 19.8 points, by far the most on the team in that stretch, on 70% shooting from the field, while hitting 9-of-10 free strows and averaging 9.5 rebounds, the most on the team.

Cal won three of those four games, the only loss coming against sixth-ranked Notre Dame in the ACC tournament when the Bears were within three points after Onyiah hit a couple of baskets early in the fourth quarter.

“She has played her best basketball,” Cal coach Charmin Smith said of the 6-foot-3 Onyiah. “Watching her finish and stay out of foul trouble, it really makes a difference for our team for sure.”

Mississippi State (21-11) offers a challenge to Onyiah in the form of 6-foot-6 center Madina Okot, whose season numbers (11.3 points, 65.8% shooting, 9.6 rebounds) are similar to Onyiah’s stats (12.2 points, 61.3% shooting, 7.5 rebounds).

“She’s tall, strong,” said Onyiah, “but we’ve played against strong players. I played against [Maria] Gadenk at UNC, in the Pac-12 I played against [Stanford’s] Cameron Brink, I played against [Utah’s Alissa] Pili. I’m not scared of her.”

And if Cal wins, Onyiah would face the coach that recruited her to Cal, Gottlieb.

“It would be intriguing,” she said.

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