Cal offers more stars for Wichita State women to negate

The more the commentators said it, the more ingrained it became in the mind of Alex Harden.

Brittany Boyd and Reshanda Gray have each generated interest from the WNBA with their play as seniors on the California women’s basketball team, a fact that television commentators love to bring up after one of them makes a daring play.

Or at least that’s how it seemed to Harden after watching game film in preparing for Boyd, Gray, and No. 4-seed California in the first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament. The No. 13 Shockers will play at about 6:30 p.m. Friday at Haas Pavilion.

Harden and Wichita State hope to give the commentators something new to talk about.

“They always talk about them being pros,” Harden said. “So we’re going to do our best to play our kind of defense and make them think about us first.”

Wichita State enters with a 29-4 record and the fourth-ranked scoring defense in the nation, as it has held its 33 opponents to an average of 50.9 points.

WSU coach Jody Adams and her staff have established a completely new language of defense that all five starters are fluent in. The concept doesn’t change from whether the Shockers play Tennessee or Illinois State, but the details do.

“I think I would classify our defense as a stingy one,” Adams said. “We identify what the other team likes to do, and then it is our job as a stingy defense to take away what they like to do.”

A subplot that could play a crucial factor in the game is how effective Wichita State’s various zone-trapping schemes are against Boyd. The 5-foot-9 point guard averages 6.8 assists, but more than 4 turnovers.

Wichita State has had the luxury of playing overaggressively against Missouri Valley teams that can’t handle WSU’s athleticism. California not only can match it, it can exceed it. In Thursday’s news conference, California coach Lindsay Gottlieb called Boyd a “one-woman press break.”

“She’s relentless and she’s going to put her team on her back and do what she has to do to get the job done,” Adams said of Boyd. “That’s how pros are. They do whatever they have to do win games.”

Gray, a 6-foot-3 agile post, is another crucial matchup for WSU.

But as Adams said Thursday, Wichita State has played against future professional players this season.

The Shockers actually beat a handful of them on Ohio State and took another cast of them down to the final minute at Tennessee.

The players will not be awe-struck by the talent they see on Friday. They have seen it the last three seasons and proven they are capable of competing. California has appeared faulty at times this season, including a 23-point loss at Kansas in December.

But to Wichita State, this doesn’t have anything to with California. It’s about playing Wichita State basketball and proving it can win with it on the biggest stage in the country.

“I don’t think our team is focused, ‘OK, we’re going up against two pros,’” Adams said. “I think this is a veteran team that gets what this is all about. They want to see all of their hard work evolve on a big stage like the one we’re on now.”

This story was originally published March 19, 2015 at 8:04 PM with the headline "Cal offers more stars for Wichita State women to negate."