Charmin Smith

Cal will head to Arizona to play the Sun Devils this Friday night and the Wildcats on Sunday morning with good odds of adding one more blip to what is otherwise a skid.

In one of the best conferences in women’s basketball, if the Bears can keep their opponents under 70 points, there is a fighting chance. If not, the odds no longer lie in their favor. This weekend, two Washington schools got the best of Cal.

Cal women’s basketball split the weekend, losing to Oregon but besting Oregon State. With both games coming down to the wire, the Bears finally came up clutch to earn their second Pac-12 victory of the season.

Stuck in a five game losing streak, it’s clear that the Bears have stumbled in Pac-12 play. They are in desperate need of some wins versus the Ducks and the Beavers this week.

The Bears now sit at 10-9 after a 9-2 start to the season. Cal now has at least 11 games left, including the first round of the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas, to recover what seemed to be such a promising year for fourth-year head coach Charmin Smith.

This Friday, No. 24 Colorado will come to Berkeley for Smith’s 50th. Then, on Sunday, the Bears will welcome the No. 8 Utes to Haas Pavilion to cap off a daunting weekend home stretch.

A breakthrough in their sights, the Bears hit the road for a weekend in Southern California — only to revel in frustration by its conclusion.

Despite late-game heroics from senior point guard Leilani McIntosh and Stephen Curry cheering from the sideline, Cameron Brink’s outstanding double-double earned Stanford the nail-biting 60-56 victory.

Pac-12 play has officially begun and the Bears learned exactly why Stanford is the No. 2-ranked team in the nation. The blue and gold look to earn their first Pac-12 win before 2022 closes as they face the Wildcats.