Women's Hoops Guru

(Guru's Note: First Duke gets winded in Chicago. Now Rutgers gets overcome by fog indoors by the shores of the San Francisco Bay. Commentary to come after the weeked. But here's the Associated Press report from Northern California on all the gory details, unless one is a fan of the Bears.)

ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERKELEY, Calif. — Alexis Gray-Lawson and Co. kept piling on the
points and telling themselves the score was 0-0 to make sure they
pushed even harder. That way California could withstand a Rutgers
run, even though it never came.

For a team focused on finishing this season — finishing out big
games, that is — the Golden Bears did just that.

Gray-Lawson hustled all over the court on the way to 25 points,
nine rebounds and four assists and No. 7 Cal pulled off the biggest
home victory of fourth-year coach Joanne Boyle’s tenure with a 66-52
upset of third-ranked Rutgers on Friday night.

The Bears beat their highest-ranked opponent since a 74-65 win
over then-No. 2 Stanford in Berkeley on Jan. 10, 1992.

“Just a great game,” Boyle said. “I’m so proud of the kids. ...
We’ve talked, this year in particular, about finishing, finishing big
games. That was the theme. I was telling them how proud I am of them
and thinking ahead, ’Where could we be in March?”’

Ashley Walker added 16 points and 10 rebounds as Cal (3-0) won
its 32nd straight non-conference game in Haas Pavilion, pushing the
tempo for the entire 40 minutes against the sluggish Scarlet Knights
(2-1).

This was the program’s most notable victory since winning at
rival and then-eighth-ranked Stanford 72-57 on Feb. 4, 2007.

Once the final buzzer sounded, Cal’s players gathered at midcourt
for a group embrace.

This Bears team was short-handed, too. Cal had said it would make
game-time decisions on the status of injured centers Devanei Hampton
— the 2007 Pac-10 Player of the Year — and Rama N’diaye as both
recover from right knee surgery. Neither even dressed.

“It’s great to see this team work the way we work without Dev and
Rama,” Walker said. “Nobody would expect us to do what we do. We said
we’re going to fight and we’re going to sacrifice what we have to
sacrifice. We told each other we all had to bring a little bit more
to this game until we get our bigs back and I think we did that.”

Of Rutgers’ highly touted freshman class, April Sykes was the
only one who did much, scoring 16 of her 18 points in the second half
for cold-shooting Rutgers. Epiphanny Prince, who led the team in
scoring in the first two games as the Scarlet Knights averaged 84.5
points, was held to 15 points on 6-for-15 shooting and limited
because of foul trouble.

Trailing 30-20, Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer subbed all five
of her starters only about 2 1/2 minutes into the second half and Cal
answered with a 9-2 spurt to go ahead by 18, 40-22.

Kia Vaughn approached Stringer to go back into the game and the
intense coach then said something to the starters and sent them back
in with 15:24 remaining — but Cal’s run to start the half still wound
up at 22-2 for a 50-22 lead.

“The problem is the group we put in, they don’t have a clue,”
Stringer said.

The 28-point deficit was Rutgers’ biggest since it trailed by 41
in an 85-45 loss to Duke on Dec. 4, 2006.

Stringer held a long meeting with her team after the game.

“We’re a work in progress, believe me,” Stringer said. “If this
game serves to wake everybody up, it’s worth it. I’d lose by 50
points. ... Some of our freshmen thought this was going to be a piece
of cake. We got our heads handed to us. I’m not surprised.”

Vaughn began the game guarding Walker, who was coming off a
27-point, 17-rebound performance against Nevada on Sunday. Walker
still found ways to stay involved in the offense and didn’t force
things when swarmed by defenders.

Gray-Lawson, who has been working to contribute more with her
rebounding, hit the offensive glass at every opportunity to set the
tone early for the Bears. She sat down for good with 1:16 to play and
received a roaring ovation. Cal held a 36-28 rebounding advantage.

“I have been ready for this game for a really long time,” a
grinning Gray-Lawson said. “I’m at a loss for words. As soon as we
got that first stop, I said, ’Let’s go!’ I was so excited after that,
I was like, ’Let’s freakin’ do this!”’

Rutgers went scoreless for a 6-minute, 10-second stretch midway
through the first half and trailed 28-20 at the break. The Scarlet
Knights then went nearly five minutes without scoring in the second
half.

Cal came out mixing its defense between a 3-2 zone and a
man-to-man in an effort to force Rutgers to beat the Bears from the
perimeter. The Scarlet Knights began the game 4-for-14, committed
nine quick fouls and were outrebounded 12-5 in the opening 11 minutes
after holding a 17.5-rebounding edge over their opponents in the
first two games.

And this Bay Area weekend doesn’t get any easier: Rutgers plays
at No. 8 Stanford on Sunday. The Scarlet Knights began the 2002-03
season on the road at Cal and Stanford, losing 64-60 to the Cardinal
at Maples Pavilion on Nov. 22, 2002, despite a 22-3 run to start the
second half.

“We’ve got to really play or they’ll take our heads off,”
Stringer said. “We’ve got to play for respect.”

Rutgers’ players were eager to hit the practice floor Saturday.

“Sunday is coming very soon,” Vaughn said. “I told my teammates
that today, we need to learn from it. We can’t let it pull us down
and we can’t look back and dwell on it.”

Rutgers had won the three previous meetings against Cal,
including a 56-51 victory at home last Dec. 10.

Boyle still isn’t sure when Hampton or N’diaye will return.

N’diaye, who tore her anterior cruciate ligament in Cal’s
first-round NCAA game against San Diego in March, wasn’t expected
back until later this month or even early December.

Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz, good friends with Cal
coach Joanne Boyle, sat in the first row above the Bears’ bench and
gave Boyle a good luck high-five before tipoff.