Bears Add Fourth Piece to 2020 Class in Greek Guard, Ornella Muca

The Bears dipped into the international market for their fourth commit in the last week and a half with the verbal they received from Greek guard Ornella Muca on Tuesday.

The 5’10 point guard averaged 14.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists playing for her parents’ home country, Albania in the U18 European championships most recently, showing a confident shooting touch from behind the arc as well as the ability to penetrate and distribute.

Muca took her official visit to Cal and found that everything she experienced on her trip reinforced her initial impressions of her future program.

“I was very impressed and excited when I visited Cal,” said Muca. “First of all, I loved the campus and San Francisco, in general. Everything there seemed just perfect for me. I also liked the fact that there is such a strong community on campus. There’s a lot of support from all the people on and off campus for other people. 

“Of course, I liked the players, too. All of them were working very hard and were very determined and focused in the practice and the game that I saw during my visit. I enjoy watching people working hard towards a goal and that is essential to promote the kind of work ethic needed in the rest of the athletes and people, in general. I also appreciated the fact that the coaches and everyone involved in Cal's women's basketball program were supporting all the players with all the available means and energy that they personally had and that showed great engagement and care for their family at Cal.”

Beyond the chemistry with the team, the future Bear found the environment very much to her liking.

“The campus was amazing,” said Muca. “The architecture was very interesting and beautiful and also I was pretty amazed by how many trees there were on campus. It looked like a small forest. I think this creates a very peaceful and appropriate environment for students to work on, so I think they are very lucky to be able to live in such a wonderful place.”

Beyond Cal’s watchful eye on European talent, the versatile guard had another connection to Cal that helped put the Bears on her radar for many years.

“My high school, the American Community Schools (ACS) of Athens, Greece has a longtime academic advisor and athletic recruiting counselor, Dr. Anastasios Kaburakis, whose wife (Kristin Folkl) grew up with and played with Coach Charmin Smith,” noted Muca. “I remember vividly asking Dr. Kaburakis one day, ‘Can we shoot for Berkeley? It's my dream school!’ 

“I am sure glad I did! He reached out to Coach Smith, then Coach Felton came to Athens to check me out, and the rest is history, as they say.”

Muca is also thrilled to be joining her fellow future classmates in the talented trio of 5 star 2020 commits; Fatou Samb, Michelle Onyiah and Dalayah Daniels.

“This is such an honor and special privilege!,” said Muca. “I am absolutely thrilled, elated and ecstatic to be able to practice and play with such tremendously talented girls like Lay Lay, Michelle and Fatou! Practices will be intense, and competition very high as we are all going to work very hard for our goals.

“Pac-12 watch out!”