Our defense was great in Lindsay's early years, but shooting used to be our big weakness. The coaching staff has emphasized it more in recruiting lately. Now we're a little above average for the Pac-12, and better than Stanford, but our defense isn't as strong.

Brittany Boyd was a terror on defense, and fearless with her drives, but not a good shooter.
Asha Thomas has been more of shooter and is the Cal record holder for 3 pointers made.

Cal's FT and 3PT Percentages
2011-12: 61.2% FT, 30.0% 3PT (Boyd 58.6% FT, 16.4% 3PT) 8-seed, 2nd round loss.
2012-13: 61.0% FT, 30.2% 3PT (Boyd 60.6% FT, 28.7% 3PT) 2-seed, Final Four year.
2013-14: 66.5% FT, 27.5% 3PT (Boyd 64.6% FT, 24.3% 3PT) 7-seed, 2nd round loss.
2014-15: 63.4% FT, 32.0% 3PT (Boyd 62.7% FT, 34.3% 3PT) 4-seed, 2nd round loss.
2015-16: 65.2% FT, 32.4% 3PT (Thomas 77.8% FT, 35.8% 3PT) No NCAA Tournament.
2016-17: 66.7% FT, 31.0% 3PT (Thomas 76.4% FT, 38.2% 3PT) 9-seed, 2nd round loss.
2017-18: 68.8% FT, 33.9% 3PT (Thomas 86.7% FT, 35.0% 3PT) 7-seed, no Anigwe, 1st round loss.
2018-19: 71.5% FT, 35.4% 3PT (Thomas 85.9% FT, 36.7% 3PT) TBD

These seniors are our top scorers and get much of the credit for our improvement:
Anigwe: 67.4% FT, 33.3% 3PT
Thomas: 85.9% FT, 36.7% 3PT
Caldwell: 81.8% FT, 36.8% 3PT

Next year's returning scorers aren't bad though:
K. Smith: 69.6% FT, 33.9% 3PT, So.
J. Brown: 69.2% FT, 33.3% 3PT, Jr.
M. Forbes: 66.7% FT, 36.6% 3PT, Fr.
CJ West: 78.1% FT, 0-0 3PT, Jr.
A. Styles: 75.0% FT, 0-3 3PT, So.

M. Cayton: 0-0 FT, 0-1 3PT, RS-So.
Chen Yue: 3-6 FT, 0-0 3PT, Jr.
A. Olson: 2-2 FT, 0-0 3PT, So.
S. Richey: 0-0 FT, 0-0 3PT, Fr.

Three point shooting has improved in all college programs. Cal is shooting a higher per cent age then last year when we finished 3rd in the conference. This year we are shooting better but are around 5th in the conference.

Next year's length could make us a long, strong defensive team again, playing a variety of zones.

Potential Starters:
PG 6'0" K. Smith (Jr.)
SG 6'0" M. Forbes (So.)
SF 6'1" J. Brown (Sr.)
PF 6'3" A. Styles (Jr.)
C 6'4" CJ West (Sr.)

Rotation Players:
5'9" M. Cayton (Jr.)
6'7" Chen Yue (Sr.)

Smith, Forbes and Brown are long, athletic wings who can shoot or drive.
We have size to defend the post, though they won't be the focus on offense.
Cayton is good if healthy.

Other Potential Rotation Players
5'8" C. Crocker (Fr.)
5'9" L. Fields (Fr.)
5'10" J. Green (Fr.)
5'10" S. Richey (So.)
5'11" Anastasieska (Sr.)
6'0" A. Olson (Jr.)
6'1" E. Schipholt (Fr.)

wvitbear said:

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Three point shooting has improved in all college programs. Cal is shooting a higher per cent age then last year when we finished 3rd in the conference. This year we are shooting better but are around 5th in the conference.

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It's trended up slowly over the years, but our recent improvement has been pretty dramatic.
We're 42nd nationally out of 349 teams.

Oregon, at 43%, is far above everyone else.
Oregon State is #3 at 40%.
Utah is #7 at 38.6%.
Washington State is #36 at 35.8%.

https://www.ncaa.com/stats/basketball-women/d1/current/team/118
https://stats.pac-12.com/sports/wbkb/2018-19/teams?sort=&r=0&pos=off

2013-14
3-POINT FG PCT
## Team G FG FGA Pct
---------------------------------------------
1.Oregon State........ 35 288 781 .369
2.Stanford............ 37 242 669 .362
3.Arizona............. 30 109 306 .356
4.USC................. 35 170 497 .342
5.Washington.......... 34 275 810 .340
6.Utah................ 31 172 512 .336
7.Arizona State....... 33 145 443 .327
8.Washington State.... 34 215 657 .327
9.UCLA................ 31 121 397 .305
10.Oregon.............. 32 301 1004 .300
11.Colorado............ 34 144 482 .299
12.California.......... 32 128 466 .275

The sobering numbers are what we are losing in our three seniors - Anigwe, Caldwell, and Thomas. Combined, those three have accounted for 56% of our total points, 55% of our made three pointers, 60% of our rebounds, and 58% of our assists. A lot of people are going to need to develop further in order to replace that much production.

Also, no other team in the league will be losing all three of their top three leading scorers.

So we could still really use a grad transfer post to materialize from some place.