After traveling over 5,000 miles to play in Paris as part of the Oui-Play Paris showcase, Cal packed its bags and will return to Berkeley to play its first home match-ups of the season against Sacramento State and Pacific on Nov. 9 and Nov. 11 respectively.<\/p>\n
Under head coach Charmin Smith, who is entering her seventh season with the team, the Bears have historically played well at home, with an overall home record of 47-31 over the past five years. Cal has had a winning season at Haas Pavilion for the past four years.<\/p>\n
In fact, one of the biggest strengths of last season\u2019s team was its dominant home performances. At Haas Pavilion in 2024-25, the Bears roared to a 16-1 record with statement wins against Alabama, NC State and Stanford on their way to a NCAA tournament appearance.<\/p>\n
Over the past few years, Smith has made a considerable effort to build a culture, both within her team and also in the atmosphere surrounding the program.<\/p>\n
After home games, Smith can be found with a mic in her hand, riling up the crowd with her signature \u201cbring a freakin\u2019 friend\u201d slogan, encouraging fans and newcomers to attend games and rally behind their squad.<\/p>\n
With the growth of women\u2019s basketball over the past few years and more eyes on the sport than ever, it\u2019s clear to see the shift in enthusiasm in Berkeley and the surrounding Bay Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following the Golden State Valkyries\u2019 historic inaugural season, it\u2019s hard not to draw parallels with Cal women\u2019s basketball coming off arguably its best season in recent memory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what the Valkyries did this past summer was a really good example of where our sport is,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping that we can capitalize on that momentum. They had Ballhalla \u2014 do we have \u201cCalhalla\u201d to get people into Haas Pavilion to see this group play?\u201d<\/p>\n
While the men\u2019s basketball team has coined the \u201cHaas of Pain\u201d moniker for Haas Pavilion, it is yet to be seen whether \u201cCalhalla\u201d might start to stick for this Bears team.<\/p>\n
If Smith and the team want the name to catch on, the best way would be for the team to continue its winning ways at home.<\/p>\n
The Bears will have an opportunity to do just that during their home opener against Sacramento State on Sunday. The Hornets are coming off their first game of the season in a lopsided 124-39 contest against Stanton.<\/p>\n
Against the Elks, Sacramento State had five players reach double figures, and every player that touched the court scored at least one point. The team as a whole shot a remarkable 60% from the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Entering its final season in the Big Sky Conference, Sacramento State has struggled the past couple of seasons. While last year the Hornets improved their win total, they still finished below .500 at 15-18.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After four freshmen transferred out at the end of the season, Sacramento State reloaded its roster with six transfers, including Natalie Picton, who previously played for the Big Sky champions Montana State.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Senior Benthe Versteeg captains the Hornets squad after earning All-Big Sky first-team honors and being the team\u2019s leading scorer last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Versteeg was recently named as the Big Sky pre-season all-conference MVP and will be the name to watch when Cal plays Sacramento State.<\/p>\n
Later next week, the Bears will continue their homestand on Tuesday against Pacific University. Last year, the Tigers finished the season with a 15-19 overall record and stumbled badly on the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of those away losses for Pacific was against Cal last season at Haas Pavilion, in which the Bears prevailed in a sluggish 74-66 victory. In that game, the Bears were stagnant for most of the game and did not perform to their usual standard \u2014 something they hope to improve upon in the upcoming rematch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cal will look to start the season 2-0 at Haas Pavilion with wins against Sacramento State and Pacific. The games on Sunday and Tuesday will begin at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After traveling over 5,000 miles to play in Paris as part of the Oui-Play Paris showcase, Cal packed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[28848,11604,28852,764,10109,28846,18739,23315,28851,28850,28849,9591,28847,1602,16123,121,123,122,5481,202],"class_list":["post-43051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-alabama","tag-bears","tag-benthe-versteeg","tag-berkeley","tag-cal","tag-charmin-smith","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-haas-pavilion","tag-montana-state","tag-natalie-picton","tag-nc-state","tag-ncaa","tag-oui-play","tag-pacific","tag-paris","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sacramento-state","tag-stanford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}