San Francisco Chronicle 3/30/09: Cal women lose to UConn in Sweet 16
NCAA WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT Connecticut 77, Cal 53
Seniors had their moment
Monday, March 30, 2009
(03-30) 04:00 PDT Trenton, N.J. — For a brief moment in the first half, long shot Cal had heavily favored Connecticut on the ropes.
Then, seemingly in a flash, it was all gone: the Bears’ lead, their season and the groundbreaking and memorable careers of two seniors.
Top-seeded and unbeaten UConn used a convincing 10-minute run spanning both halves to come back from its largest deficit of the season in a 77-53 victory over the fourth-seeded Bears in the NCAA Round of 16 on Sunday at the Sovereign Bank Arena.
The Huskies (36-0), ranked No. 1 in the country all season, advance to Tuesday’s Trenton Regional final against Arizona State, an 84-69 winner over Texas A&M.
The Bears (27-7), meantime, head home with their heads held high after the best season in school history, but disappointed thinking they had a legitimate chance to unseat the queens of women’s college basketball.
Ashley Walker’s three-pointer from the top of the key gave the Bears a 31-23 lead with 6:38 left in the first half. The Huskies had not been behind by more than six points in any game this season.
“We were running all the right stuff, kids were hitting their shots, we were moving the ball, we were getting stops,” Cal coach Joanne Boyle said. “I wasn’t in my head going, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going to happen here?’ It was just like, ‘OK, next play, next stop.’ “
Then, everything changed.
UConn ran off 12 of the final 14 points of the first half to take a 35-33 advantage into the locker room, then outscored Cal 12-4 over the first three minutes after the break for a 47-37 lead with 16:41 remaining.
“The script flipped and it flipped really quick,” Boyle said.
All totaled, it was a 24-6 Huskies run over 10:07. Cal, which made 11 of 19 shots to take the eight-point lead, missed 13 of 15 field-goal attempts while committing six of its 16 turnovers during the backbreaking stretch.
“They weren’t going to give up without a fight. Great teams close out games, they make a run and they keep pushing and that’s exactly what they did,” Walker said.
Cal managed to hold UConn’s Big Three of Maya Moore (22 points), Tina Charles (five) and Renee Montgomery (13) relatively in check, but freshman Tiffany Hayes did most of the damage for the Huskies, scoring a personal-high 28 points on 9-for-10 shooting, including 5-for-6 from three-point range.
Hayes was averaging 5.2 points in her last six games, and was 1-for-9 from long range in the Huskies’ two NCAA Tournament wins.
“Tiffany’s become an ‘X-factor’ for them,” Boyle said.
Walker was excellent in her final game for the Blue and Gold, leading the Bears with 21 points to go with seven rebounds. Along with senior Devanei Hampton (seven points, 11 rebounds) and redshirt junior Alexis Gray-Lawson (10 points, five assists), Walker has laid a strong foundation at Cal for future success.
In fact, much of the talk Sunday wasn’t about the UConn loss, rather the program’s gain. The Bears matched the school record for wins this season while earning the program’s first trip to the Sweet 16.
“Our class in particular chose to come to Cal because it was in our backyard,” said Walker, who ends as Cal’s second-leading scorer (2,142 points) and leading rebounder (1,117 boards). “It was a no-name program at the time. As a group, we’ve kind of made this program what it is and left a little bit of a legacy behind us.”
“You couldn’t even tell who Cal was,” said Hampton, who fought tears in the postgame news conference. “This journey has been magnificent and I couldn’t have picked a better group of girls to play with.”
The two seniors, not wanting it all to end, had hoped to practice today. Instead, they’ve set the stage for the Bears of tomorrow.
“They laid the foundation for Cal basketball,” Boyle said of her seniors, “and took it to the next level and left their legacy.”
This article appeared on page D – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
