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Turnovers and free throws give ASU a 58-47 win 

If this is a pattern, it could be a long season for the Cal women’s basketball team. 

In their first two Pac-10 games of the year, the Bears have taken a one-point lead into halftime. Thursday, they were beaten in the second half by a fired up Arizona squad that simply had more talent on the court. But the second-half collapse against Arizona State (8-5 overall, 1-1 Pac-10) on Saturday was more disturbing, because not only are the Sun Devils not more talented overall, they didn’t even play very well in beating the Bears (4-8, 0-2), 58-47. 

The Sun Devils only outrebounded the Bears by three, and turned the ball over 19 times. They got 14 points from guard Betsy Boardman and 13 points from center Melody Johnson, but shot just 37 percent from the floor. And they really didn’t take advantage of a Cal scoring drought that lasted nearly 10 minutes sandwiched around halftime. When Cal guard Kenya Corley finally hit her team’s first basket of the second half, the Bears were down by just three points at 33-30.  

Point guard Courtney Johnson followed with a layup, and the Bears were within one despite their offensive woes. But they could never quite take the lead away from the Sun Devils, mostly because they didn’t take care of the ball on offense. Cal committed 10 turnovers in the first 10 minutes of the half, and tacked on six more before the game ended. 

“We lost intensity in the second half,” said Cal head coach Caren Horstmeyer. “We’re just not putting the whole game together. We have to be better than that offensively.” 

With neither team performing well on offense, the game came down to free throws. ASU went to the line 25 times, making 17 of their free throws. And the Bears, who were averaging more than 25 trips to the line coming into the game, shot just five on Saturday. Horstmeyer was clearly upset with several calls by the officials during the game. 

“I find it hard to believe that we only shot five free throws in the game, and none by our post players,” she said. 

Johnson, Cal’s leading scorer, has struggled on the offensive end since returning from an illness that kept her out of the team’s final preseason game two weeks ago. She shot just 3-of-12 against Arizona, and followed that up with a 1-of-7 showing on Saturday, scoring just two points. Combine that with forward Lauren Ashbaugh’s scoreless performance against ASU, and it’s not hard to see why the Bears struggled on offense. When two of your top three scorers combine for just two points, it’s tough to win. 

“We need Courtney to be more confident out there,” Horstmeyer said. “We’ve been playing her more at the two spot to get her more shots.” 

Ami Forney was the only Bear to break double figures in points against the Sun Devils, scoring eight points in the first 10 minutes of the game. But she missed several shots in close and finished the game with just 12 points. 

“We have yet to have five players play well on the same night,” Horstmeyer said.