http://www.smcgaels.com/pdf9/4114109.pdf?ATCLID=1504324&SPSID=106013&SPID=12537&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=21400

The Bears and Gaels have played close and competitive games in recent years and I expect more of the same today in the tournament opener. The Gaels are (5-2)
after losing an overtime affair to UC Davis on Thursday night. The nitecap will feature the Villanova Wildcats (4-2) vs Sacramento State (1-3). Nova only allows 55
ppg will the Hornets of Sac St average a dozen treys per game. They just lost to USF (5-2), 95-94, eventhough they hit 16 threes...Something has to give here.

http://www.smcgaels.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=101620&SPID=12537&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=21400&ATCLID=210442990&Q_SEASON=2015

SMC is playing well this season largely due to true freshman, PF Sydney Raggio (6-1), from St Ignatius HS-San Francisco. She is averaging approximately 15 points and leads the team in rebounding w/ 8.6 boards/game. She is making 53% of her shots from the floor and 83% of her free throws. Sydney leads the team in shot blocks with 5. Her assists: turnover ratio of 17:12 shows a maturity beyond her years as a frosh post. Raggio has even converted 60% of her threes (3 of 5). Not bad. Nor Cal Preps only rated her the seventh best prep in Northern California last season.

The Bears are a much taller and longer team than the Gaels. The shocking stat in favor of St Marys is that they outrebound their opponents by 14.5 boards per game. They garnered 25 offensive rebounds on Thursday night which is what Liberty did to Cal last Sunday. I predict that ***the battle of the boards*** might decide the outcome. Both the teams are not strong in the ball-handling department [SM 18 TOs vs Cal 20 TOs] and are average shooting the rock.

The Gaels have 13 players available today and six are foreignors [(Aussies (4), New Zealand (1) & Germany (1)]. Their junior point guard is Samira McDonald from the state of Washington. Their gunner is senior SG Lauren Nicholson who converts 88% of her FT attempts . Their SF is a 6-0 soph from New Zealand Stella Beck who is their 2nd leading rebounder (6.9) and possesses the highest shooting percentage (65%) on the team from Moraga. The other post is 6-2 junior Devon Brookshire from Southern California who plays the most minutes (30.2). She is a dead-eye from three point land (47%) and averages 13.3 ppg. Former starting guard, senior Shannon Mauldin, plays 23 minutes per game and is their top defender with 13 steals. She is another Mauldin sister from St Marys HS-Berkeley.

Paul Thomas has been the headcoach there for the last decade. He is rotating 8-9 players double-digit minutes per game. The Bears rotate six. Cal should triumph in the end but I would not be shocked if the Gaels pull off an upset if the home team fails to play well. GO BEARS!

Cal looked like top 10 team the 1st quarter and like a JV girls basketball teams in the 2nd. Hopefully we got the one quarter of atrocious basketball out of us. 33-32 Cal at half.

Also-Loved KC coming in and knocking down a jumper first play off the bench!

This team is so frustrating to be a fan of. No words. 55-54 St. Mary's in the 4th. We should be up by 15.

I am so nervous!! Another time out and I am shouting at the office on a Saturday!

Cal falls 64-63 on a St. Mary's jumper with 2 seconds left. Great game by Kristine but wow....

Missed fast break layups, sloppy passes. If i were Sabrina I would stay far away from Cal to make sure her fundamentals stay in tact.

See you guys tomorrow at Haas for the consolation game. Sad day for our program!

CalFanatic;842611173 said:

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If i were Sabrina I would stay far away from Cal to make sure her fundamentals stay in tact.

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Unfortunately I'm afriad 2 juniors + 3 sophs + 4 freshies does not equal a clinic in fundamentals. We'll have to live with our youth for a while.

This was a rough game and the St. Mary's players looked wider and stronger to me. St. Mary's pushed and hustled and got too many of the balls up for grabs.

We lost by missing layups and free throws. One more layup or a couple more free throws would have given us a win. Also Asha hit some threes in the first half but I don't remember her attempting any in the second. On a few occasions she instead drove too far toward the hoop which resulted in turnovers or blocked shots.

Kristine looked awesome, Asha and Mikayla looked very good. Courtney and Gabby missed too many shots but did many other good things. We got very little from our bench today, that needs to improve.

The refs were bizarre. At least 5 times they stopped the game to review a play. I can't say they were biased but we took a lot more physical abuse than we dished out.

I thought they looked better in the first quarter then they have all season. After that first quarter they switched up the defense, stopped pressing and then it stopped working. Anigwe looked amazing. I thought Cowling looked great too. Was hoping to see more of Mosely today.

One of the things I've noticed is that in the offense they are just kind of standing there for long periods of time. I thought, maybe I just don't know enough about basketball, but I played in high school (at a crappy level), and that's different, but it doesn't seem helpful all the standing around. The majority of the other teams I watch they are moving around and working plays a lot more. What is going on with that? Has anyone else noticed this?

I am with Stu about the refs. There was some weird stuff there. I think they made several really bad calls at the expense of both teams. Like the play where the St. Mary's player was rolling all around the floor holding the basketball, that should be a travel call right?

stu;842611275 said:

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The refs were bizarre. At least 5 times they stopped the game to review a play. I can't say they were biased but we took a lot more physical abuse than we dished out.

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Nerd_Vernacular;842611382 said:

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I am with Stu about the refs. There was some weird stuff there. I think they made several really bad calls at the expense of both teams. Like the play where the St. Mary's player was rolling all around the floor holding the basketball, that should be a travel call right?

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There was another call I just could not figure out. In the second half, I think it was a Cal player that saved the ball back into the court from under St.Mary's basket. But the play was whistled dead, and the ball was awarded to Cal. Either the Cal player legimately saved the ball, and play should not have been stopped, or did step out of bounds, and the ball should have been awarded to St. Mary's. That play really confused me.

And I also noticed that there was too much standing around by Cal on offense.

Cal Geek;842611479 said:

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And I also noticed that there was too much standing around by Cal on offense.

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Well, I was just sitting around while giving as much offense as I could without drawing a T.

http://www.calbears.com//ViewContent.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30100&CONTENT_ID=1565762

The Gaels outplayed the Bears over the final three quarters. In the second half, for example, Anigwe hit 6-12 (50%) from the floor while the rest of the team shot 5 for 24 or 20.8%. Saint Marys outrebounded Cal 27-24, too. SMC had 8 assists to Cal's 3 during the final twenty minutes. They shutout Asha Thomas with zero points and zero assists after intermission. She dominated play in the 1st half with 10 points and a couple of assists.

Basically three of the Bears top six played reasonably well: Anigwe, Cowling & Thomas. The other three regulars should be embarrassed by their lack of offensive production: Range, Green & Davidson. This has been going on for the last four games. Courtney Range looks fine out there but was 3-15 (20%). GG made two nice driving layups but ended up 2-9 or 22%. Penina Davidson had her worst game that I can remember, playing 21 minutes and going scoreless. She was 0-5 from the floor. In combination, that's five buckets out of 29 shots! The perplexing part of this is that I happen to believe that Courtney and Penina have potential to be excellent offensive players. I've seen them shoot the lights out. Range scored 20 points in each of the initial three games this year. Davidson hit four threes in one game last season. Green is not an offensive player at this stage of her career. She plays because of her point guard skills, her rebounding and her defense.

I thought that Saint Marys played with more heart and got most of the loose balls, etc. Sydney Raggio is very good for a true freshman. GO BEARS!

....WOW! I had to attend HS girls b-ball tourney so I missed the game. Forgot to bring my Ipad so i couldn't stream...was streaming available for this one?
We have to regroup, get back on track this is the growing pains I was expecting but back to the grind! :gobears:

So Schroeder, i asked you about Raggio constantly and you poo poohed her when she was in high school. no Cal must recruit her. I Asked youm last year after they played St. Mary's of Stockton why you weren't high on her. No answer.

wvitbear;842611526 said:

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So Schroeder, i asked you about Raggio constantly and you poo poohed her when she was in high school.

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I'm sure that evaluating recruits is not easy. One example who comes to mind was UOP's Kendall Kenyon, passed over by almost every other school.

After 8 games Sydney Raggio is shooting .510 from the field and .818 from the line while adding 8.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.1 blocks, and 0.6 steals. For comparison our own Kristine Anigwe is shooting .519 from the field and .750 from the line while adding 8.9 rebounds, 0.6 assists, 0.8 blocks, and 0.6 steals. Who would have predicted that?

wvitbear;842611526 said:

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So Schroeder, i asked you about Raggio constantly and you poo poohed her when she was in high school.

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Don't remember SR71 ever poo pooing a CCS player. I liked her. Of course not athletic but has the fundamentals and can put the ball in the hoop. Just like how I liked Rachael Howard of Berkeley now at USF, who recently scored 25pts.

Speaking of USF, wasn't able to go to yesterday game but Cal better not take Sac St likely. Sac St only loss to USF by 1 pts but recently USF beat UC Riverside by 11 pts.

Santa Clara beats Stanford, Saint Mary's tops Cal. The NBA Champion Warriors win 21 in a row to start 2015-16 season. Feels surreal, but its all fact.

It was no fluke. Gaels were the aggressors. Lauren Nicholson is an under appreciated NCAA star, from the ongoing Australian-Saint Mary's pipeline. Raggio has some very nice moves. The well prepared SMC supporting cast was not exactly floating like butterflies, but they stung like bees when it counted.

Alarms are sounding. Cal, at this EARLY stage, does not appear deep and focused enough to play 40 minutes of basketball against a non-ranked and under-rated team like this.

Cal Bear starters are clearly top 25 talented; but the buzzer-buzzer focus and motivation, and bench capabilities are in question to this point.

Tip your cap to the Gaels, and cheer for them to do well the rest of the way -- it will critically impact Cal's RPI for March in a deep Pac12.

I sense... trouble... if the team does not (or cannot?) go to hoop war every time they play.

They are young, and this is was a test. They will have opportunities to take the test again before the objective of winning a lot of consecutive games in March.

Go Bears.

Referees are not perfect, at any level. Bill King got a technical foul once for screaming at a ref during an NBA broadcast. You just hope the referees don't decide a game; but it happens once or twice a year and you have to move on. Despite the refs, I think we would all agree that the Gaels beat the Bears yesterday.

Not sure how you lose to St Marys at home in your own tournament. That is quite a feat. Not saying St Marys is not a good team, but under the circumstances Cal should have won. The bench was a problem, how does Nina go 0-5? But, Green and Range were big time brick layers. Just an average game from them and Cal wins easily. Coming into the season, people worried about the freshmen being the problem. Guess what? They are not the problem. Range and Green are both very experienced and possess fantastic talent. However, both are frustrating as hell to watch with so much inconsistency and yet unfulfilled potential. Not sure how you keep Courtney focused and will Green every learn to use her size over smaller defenders to go inside? Time to get it together, ladies. Your team needs you. As for the bench, we all know its thin. But, these are pretty decent players and should be able to add something every game.

Anyway you look at it, this team has a lot of talent. But, they also look poorly coached. LG and staff has talent to work with, but are they doing their part? I guess we'll see how the Bears come out to play the 3rd place game. Will they pout and feel sorry for themselves? Or, will this embarrassing loss light a fire? We all know what well-coached teams do.

BTW, saw Cowling and LG on their way to the post-game presser after the St Marys debacle. For anyone doubting that this loss was a debacle you should have seen them. Cowling looked like her dog had just died and LG looked stunned staring at the stat sheet as she walked head down. Tells me that the fan concerns are not unfounded. Lots of work to do, Bears.

GOCAL73;842611654 said:

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Tells me that the fan concerns are not unfounded. Lots of work to do, Bears.

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This is not a way to gain new fans and keep the interest of future recruits.

OBear073akaSMFan;842611694 said:

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This is not a way to gain new fans and keep the interest of future recruits.

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It's hard to avoid a stinker now and then, e.g. Stanford lost to Santa Clara at Maples.

Kendall was one of St Mary's finest post players...rebound record in HS. Courtney use to come off the bench when Kendall needed a breather, yup.

Actually they both played together. Set up a great trap when they both double led the incoming pass.