The second sentence out of coach Joanne Boyle's mouth after the Cal women's basketball team fell to Connecticut in the Sweet 16 wasn't a surprising one, but it was a telling one.

"They've established a lot of history in their program," she said.

Her words were at once admiring and admonishing. While she congratulated Huskies coach Geno Auriemma for the dynasty he has built over the last quarter of a century, she cautioned her team that its recent success doesn't have that kind of longevity.

She reminded the Bears that their season is done but their work is not.

Thanks to a gifted recruiting class and a promising coach, the team made noticeable progress in each of the last four years. Even with season-ending injuries and increasingly lofty expectations, the heralded 2005 trio brought Cal to prominence.

In the last go-round for senior cornerstones Ashley Walker and Devanei Hampton, the Bears had arguably their best campaign in history, tying program bests for conference wins and overall victories while reaching the third round of the NCAA tournament for the first time ever.

"As a group we've made this program what it is and left a little bit of a legacy behind us," Walker said, "so the seven freshmen coming in can see what we have done and make another push and really put Cal on the map in the next couple years."

Walker seems to understand, however, that a legacy lasts only as long as it is carried on. For the program, creating that kind of legacy requires not settling with a second-place finish in the Pac-10, not being satisfied with an unprecedented journey to the Sweet 16 and not setting the last four years aside.

Of course, there's no doubt that Walker and Hampton more than did their part in reviving the program, but they will only be seen as pieces of a legacy if their efforts are part of something larger.

Their decorated personal careers will be remembered, but whether their replacements will be able to prolong the magic remains to be seen.

"We're not a program of 25 years," Boyle said, again referring to the approximate duration of Auriemma's tenure. "We're a program of three and a half or four years. We were able to do a lot."

Perhaps the loss to top-seeded UConn can serve as a source of comfort for the Bears, helping them realize that their opponent's dominance was not made overnight.

About a quarter of a century ago, Auriemma and a class at Connecticut set the groundwork for what it has today.

And that's what Walker and Hampton may have done for the Bears.

"They came in without a lot of upperclassmen," Boyle said. "(They had to) find their way and figure it out all on their own. They laid the foundation for Cal basketball, they took it to the next level and they left their legacy."

Well, not just yet.

"Cal hasn't had any history," Boyle said.

But because of this year's team, there's history in the making.

Tags: CAL WOMEN'S BASKETBALL