Our Annual Block Party & Open Practice will be held on Saturday, October 11th at Haas Pavilion and Spieker Plaza!


Open Practice: 12 Noon; Doors open at 11:45 AM.

Block Party: 2PM - 4 PM

Will post more later. Claudia looks like she will play this year. Scrimmaged the whole time.

All that played looked good. Freshman Isis Johnson-Musah was out with a tweaked ankle. She'll be back soon.

Quickness. They look good on defense. Keep an eye on #1 Mjracle Sheppard. Defensive stopper with quickness. Can handle the ball too, so we might see her at point to spell Puff Morris and Grace McCallop.

Lola Donez and Sheppard have been working with a "shooting consultant" as per Charmin.

I like Sakima Walker. She can take it to the hoop and block shots!

Charmin says 6'1 F Naya Ojuku is a very good rebounder.

The experience they bring from very successful SEC programs, Walker (South Carolina) and Sheppard (LSU), should really help the Bears. They know what it takes to win.

Really good to see Claudia back on the floor.

Every thing SFCalbear72 is correct.

1. We will have an all freshmen manning of the point guard. Grace McCallop was the backup today and she seemed to do pretty well. Charmin acknowledged that was the case.

2. Puff is short. And not lithe. But she moves well. They list her at 5'5" but I'd say she is closer to 5'3" tall. I don't think she is going to dominate with her scoring. Just be a solid point guard.

3. Lots of new players close to the same height. Hard to differentiate.But all seemed athletic.

4. I too liked Miracle Sheppard. She very fast. A demon on defense.

5. Sakima Walker won't be a stiff. she will score some points.

6. I thought Lola looked quicker than last year. And she looked like she improved her shot.

7. They didn't shoot many threes during the scrimmage so it was hard to evaluate their three point ability. The last 10 minutes of practice were devoted to shooting threes. I thought Lola looked like her release point was more toward the center of her body. and she made a lot of threes from the corner. So did Miracle.

8. Gisella seemed to be more improved from her leg injury. But still didn't thrill me with her three point shooting.

9. Nave looks like the third big. She will be undersized but looks like she has some pizazz.

10. Isis didn't practice. but I can tell you one thing about her. She wears glasses.

11. Claudia looks to be moving pretty well.

12. Lulu looks great as usual. She seemed like she lost some weight. She wasn't hefty to begin with. And she shot the three very well.

13. Taylor Barnes has good size. Drosouni moved very well.

14 the male practice players were very athletic and so I couldn't tell how we will rebound against women. We didn't dominate the men.

15. Missed seeing Stu there.

I am expecting this to be an important developmental year. Will want to give the best young players with multiple years of eligibility as many minutes as possible. Can still beat many teams, but setting a foundation for the future will be equally important. Last year, we couldn't do that, but this year I think we need to.

Encouraged to hear that Claudia is moving well. With the bad news about Gabby, Claudia's stamina for playing time will be a big factor this season. Hope she steadily increases minutes.

Over the years I must have seen 20 pratices and some are hard to evaluate. Especilly this one. Last year was easy. We had three starters returning plus Lulu had played a lot of minutes the year before. we only worried about the new point guard and that was settled pretty quickly. This year we knew Lulu was solid. We could see that Sakima was going to workout and that Puff was going to be the point guard. but who was the back up point guard? Who were the wings? Who could shoot the three?

Did figure that Grace would be backup point guard. That Miracle would play a lot. That Loloa had improved her shot.

Don't think that Sakima and Claudia will play together much.

And i still don't know who the best rebounding wings are. But feel Naya will get some time there.

I don't think it is important who starts as individual games will determine playing time. These practices are not games. S71 should come up next year and observe one.

Based on the roster there would be no need for Sakima and Claudia to be on the court at the same time. I'm hoping Claudia is healthy enough to give significant bench minutes when Sakima is out of the game.

Question:

If Langarita has an effective outside shot, when she is in at the 5, is there a chance that Cal plays "5 out," as many MBB mid-major teams often play to decent effect, pulling out the opposing bigs and potentially opening up the lane for cutters. Such as Morris or Ojukwu, perhaps in this case.

Or does that not really work in WBB?

(Caveat: Being primarily a FB and MBB fan, I am new to this generation of Cal WBB, having gone to 6 games last year for the first time in forever and had fun, twice with my son, but not having much real knowledge of the College WBB world and play styles. So the above could be a dumb question!)

OneKeg said:

---

Question:

If Langarita has an effective outside shot, when she is in at the 5, is there a chance that Cal plays "5 out," as many MBB mid-major teams often play to decent effect, pulling out the opposing bigs and potentially opening up the lane for cutters. Such as Morris or Ojukwu, perhaps in this case.

Or does that not really work in WBB?

(Caveat: Being primarily a FB and MBB fan, I am new to this generation of Cal WBB, having gone to 6 games last year for the first time in forever and had fun, twice with my son, but not having much real knowledge of the College WBB world and play styles. So the above could be a dumb question!)

---

this is a good possibility as this team needs outside shooting (it won't be nearly as good as last season where we could put 4 shooters on the perimeter)

But we also need to have post defenders, and only have two bigs so she will need to be able to defend and rebound.

The biggest concerns I have are:

1. shooting
2. interior defense, offense and rebounding
3. experience at PG