(Tucson, AZ) Today was Senior Day at McKale Center where Amari Carter, Lucia Alonso, Tee Tee Starks, and Dominique McBryde will play their last regular season game at home.
Redshirt Junior Aari McDonald will walk with her class. She will make a decision on whether to come back her redshirt senior year.
Arizona is almost a lock to host the first and second round of the upcoming NCAA Tournament the week after the PAC-12 Tournament concludes this week.
Last year’s meeting with Cal in Berkeley was a barn burner as the Golden Bears pulled away in overtime and won 82-76.
California is dead last in the conference with a record of 2-15 and 10-18 overall.
There’s a lot of firsts this season. The Cats have won twelve conference games, the last time was 2004. Arizona is first the conference in scoring defense at 55.0 points per game. Zona has been ranked in the Top 25 for fourteen consecutive weeks, the first time sine the 1999-2000 season,.
Cal went out to quick 4-0 lead before the Cats got on the scoreboard with two free throws at the 6:27 mark of the first quarter, 4-2.
Both teams struggled on the offensive end as the score remained a 4-2 Bears lead at the media timeout with 4:42 left in the opening quarter.
Arizona’s only points were from the free throw line as Sam Thomas hit one of two free throws and Helena Pueyo hit both of her attempts, Zona trialed 8-5.
The concern after a huge win like Friday’s win over #4 Stanford is that teams can come out flat the next game. That’s what happened in the opening quarter today.
At the end of the first quarter the Golden Bears led 16-10. Arizona went 1-10 from the field. Eight points came from the charity stripe.
The Cats implemented the press early trying to shake things up and force California into some turnovers.
Arizona’s second field goal of the game came with only 5:57 left in the half and a 25-12 deficit as the cold shooting continued to plague Arizona.
Cate Reese scored theWildcat’s third basket came at 4:27 left in the half and Zona still trailed 28-14.
Arizona woke up in the last two minutes going on a 12-2 run and closed the gap 30-26 after being down double digits.
The Wildcat’s weak side defense was late getting over to the ball when Cal swung it around the perimeter.
Jazlen Green was the hot hand for Cal as she went 4-5 from the field and 3-3 from beyond the arc.
Reese opened up the scoring out of the locker room on a nice twelve foot jumper and Arizona was writhing a bucket. The next possession McBryde tied the score 30-30 and the Golden Bears lost their advantage,
As cold as Zona was in the fist half, it was a 180 degree turnaround starting the third quarter. Now the Wildcats were shooting 43% (13-30) and it was Cal on the ice at 12-40 (30%).
The Bears still showed a lot of effort and heart and didn’t let things get out of hand and kept the score close 43-42 at the end of three quarters.
Both teams went head to head and the game was still anyone’s to take going into the fourth quarter..
Cal tied up the score 48-48 with 3:49 to g0 in the game on a pick and roll by Alaysia Styles.
Arzona needed at spark with a minute and a half left in the game and McDonald stepped up taking an offensive foul and converting both free throws at the other end.
The Golden Bears came right back and converted three free throws on Carter’s fourth foul, 52-52.
Zona retook the lead 54-53 off two McDonald free throws with 25 left.
Cal went to the line and missed both free throws, but Reese got the rebound stolen from her and was put back by Jaelyn Brown and the Bears had the lead 55-54 with 14.3 left in the game.
A missed three pointer by McDonald and attempted put back by Thomas were not to be and Cal left Tucson with only their third conference win of the season to spoil Senior Day for the Cats.
Final score 55-54 for the players for the Berkeley Bears.
Arizona performance was uninspired and listless. They seemed to approach this game as if they just needed to “show up” against the last place team in the PAC-12.
The Bears came out motivated and with nothing to lose. This was most likely their next to last game with a 5-12 matchup on Thursday in Las Vegas against Arizona State or Oregon State in the play in round.
It was the “little things” that Arizona did or didn’t do. Boxing out on free throws and not fouling a three point shot.
These basics will be worked on this week before their Friday matchup in Las Vegas.
Today’s attendance was 6,705 and Arizona finishes the regular season with the third highest attendance in the PAC-12 behind the Oregon schools.
The PAC-12 Tournament begins Thursday with Arizona earning a bye because of their fourth place finish in the regular season.
They will know who their opponent is when the matchups come out and will play the winner of one of the play in games from seeds 5-12.
There’s more basketball to be played, but the Cats need to get back that “hungry and aggressive” mentality in order to do well in the post season.
