After resurgent year ends, Cal immediately pivots to building next NCAA Tournament-worthy team

And true to the new world of women’s basketball, it will take that again almost immediately after the Bears exited the NCAA Tournament in the first round with a 59-46 loss to Mississippi State at the Galen Center Saturday.

“The (transfer) portal opens on Monday,” Smith said. “And it’s going to be crazy. There’s no break … We will be aggressive.”

Order ‘Becoming Caitlin Clark’ and save 30%

Howard Megdal, founder and editor of The Next and The IX, just announced his latest book. It captures both the historic nature of Caitlin Clark’s rise and the critical context over the previous century that helped make it possible. Interviews with Clark, Lisa Bluder (who also wrote the foreword), C. Vivian Stringer, Jan Jensen, Molly Kazmer and so many others were vital to the process.

If you enjoy his coverage of women’s basketball every Wednesday at The IX, you will love “Becoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar.” Click the link below to preorder and enter MEGDAL30 at checkout.

Preorder “Becoming Caitlin Clark”

The Bears were shaken hard by the previous few seasons, the COVID mess, the big-name transfers and the inability to generate the momentum that Smith knew they would need as they left the Pac-12 and began the cross-country odyssey of ACC membership.

But Smith hit the transfer portal hard, kept her best players in the program and assembled a hungry team of veterans ready to turn the corner.

The Bears (25-9) were led by five graduate seniors, and two “regular” seniors. Five players, including three of those graduate seniors, came to Berkeley through the transfer portal. Picked to finish 14th in the first ACC season, they would end up in seventh. They won more games than any Cal team since 1992-93, the year they reached their first Final Four. Their 16-1 home record was the best the program had seen since 1982-83.

They would sweep their season series against Stanford for the first time in 40 years, including a 20-point in December that was its largest margin of victory in the series of 43 years. Cal would collect wins over Gonzaga, Auburn, Arizona, Alabama, SMU and North Carolina State and Georgia Tech — all postseason teams.

Want even more women’s sports in your inbox?

Subscribe now to our sister publication The IX and receive our independent women’s sports newsletter six days a week. Learn more about your favorite athletes and teams around the world competing in soccer, tennis, basketball, golf, hockey and gymnastics from our incredible team of writers.

Readers of The Next now save 50% on their subscription to The IX.

But after Saturday’s loss, in which the Bears got off to a horrible offensive start and never recovered. Cal shot 25 percent from the floor, 3-of-21 from beyond the 3-point line, which has been the Bears’ bread-and-butter all season, and turned the ball over 24 times.

“We didn’t have our best day,” Smith said. “Aside from this (holding up the stat sheet), I’m really proud of this group and what we did this year … We’re obviously really disappointed in our performance today, but I think when our seven seniors think about this year down the road, they’ll remember how they put their name on Cal women’s basketball and got us back to a really special place.”

The page turns now without the luxury of much time to reflect. Smith will quickly go back to a drawing board that is not quite a blank slate. But it’s close.

Cal will graduate 75 percent of its scoring this season, and 70 percent of their rebounding. The three sophomores – including standout Lulu Twidale – and five freshmen slated to return (and that is an important qualifier) could be the foundation for the next remodeling project. The Bears will bring in a four-player class that includes McDonald’s All-American Aliyahna “Puff” Morris, a point guard out of Rancho Cucamonga rated as one of the top 25 players in the nation, and Taylor Barnes, a wing out of Grand Prairie, Texas.

Order ‘Rare Gems’ and save 30%

Howard Megdal, founder and editor of The Next and The IX, released his latest book on May 7, 2024. This deeply reported story follows four connected generations of women’s basketball pioneers, from Elvera “Peps” Neuman to Cheryl Reeve and from Lindsay Whalen to Sylvia Fowles and Paige Bueckers.

If you enjoy his coverage of women’s basketball every Wednesday at The IX, you will love “Rare Gems: How Four Generations of Women Paved the Way for the WNBA.” Click the link below to order and enter MEGDAL30 at checkout.

Twidale, who will be the team’s leading returning scorer come fall, said her plan next season is to lead a new group after learning from Cal’s veterans over the past two years.

“I will stay focused, take my break and then just get to work, get in the gym and get better as a basketball player,” Twidale said. “With a new team, I just need to be able to pour in as a leader and share my experience with them to make sure we are ready.”

Smith can do her offseason work in the comfort of a new contract extension that takes her through the 2029-2030 season. That extension included an explicit commitment from the university to invest in the women’s basketball program.

“The new deal includes a commitment from campus to ensure that the women’s basketball program has the adequate resources to stay competitive within the Atlantic Coast Conference and nationally,” the press release announcing her extension read. “Highlighted among those terms is significant support in revenue sharing with student-athletes as part of the proposed NCAA House Settlement, as well as facility improvements.”

The Next, a 24/7/365 women’s basketball newsroom

The Next: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.

That might be as important as any individual player she brings in during the offseason.

Smith doesn’t have to look far, or to even a particularly unfamiliar place to see a model of what could be. Former Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb spent her first three years at USC cycling graduate transfers in and out of the program, rebuilding rosters and chemistry until JuJu Watkins arrived and Rayah Marshall stayed. And Gottlieb isn’t done cycling, even as her program re-establishes itself on the short list of title contenders.

She will still need to replace graduate transfers Kiki Iriafen and Talia von Oelhoffen next season after their one-year injection of experience and leadership.

“We will be in the portal and I know that we’ll find the pieces that we need to be back here and hopefully get even further,” Smith said. “I think we put Cal women’s basketball back on the map and I can tell from the interest we have from recruits. I think the (caliber of player) we can go after is better than it was last year.

“We’ve done this before. We can offer opportunity and most people transferring want an opportunity to play. We can also say now that we’ve done this before, we know how to win. We know how to get to the NCAA Tournament and you too can put your face on the program and help us win games.”

Add Locked On Women’s Basketball to your daily routine

Here at The Next, in addition to the 24/7/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.