California Golden Bears women's basketball
| California Golden Bears | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
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| University | University of California, Berkeley | |||
| Conference | Pac-12 | |||
| Location | Berkeley, CA | |||
| Head coach | Lindsay Gottlieb (3rd year) | |||
| Arena |
Haas Pavilion (Capacity: 11,877) |
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| Nickname | Golden Bears | |||
| Student section | The Bench | |||
| Colors | Blue and Gold |
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| Uniforms | ||||
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| NCAA Tournament Final Four | ||||
| 2013 | ||||
| NCAA Tournament appearances | ||||
| 1990, 1992, 1993, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 | ||||
| AIAW Tournament appearances | ||||
| 1982 | ||||
| Conference regular season champions | ||||
| 1981, 1982, 2013 | ||||
The California Golden Bears women's basketball team is the women's college basketball team of the University of California, Berkeley. The program has been to the NCAA tournament a total of nine times, and won three conference championships. The current head coach is Lindsay Gottlieb, who began her tenure in 2011.
The team plays its home games at Haas Pavilion, which was built on top of the old Harmon Gymnasium using money donated in part by the owners of Levi-Strauss. The arena was originally known as Men's Gymnasium and then later Harmon Gymnasium until the late 1990s when it went through massive renovations which displaced the team for two seasons.
The first season of women's basketball at Cal was played from 1972–1973, right after Title IX went into effect. The longest tenured coach in Cal history was Gooch Foster, who captained the team from 1979 to 1996. Cal was quite successful during this period; it won the conference twice in a row, and had 11 winning seasons. Since the early 1990s and through the early 2000s, however, success had been hard to come by, as the Bears had only three winning seasons through the 2005–2006 season.
In 2006–2007, Cal women's basketball began a resurgence, with its first 20 win season since 1992, a second straight trip to the NCAA Women's Tournament, beating Stanford and ending their 50-game Pac-10 winning streak at Maples Pavilion, a No. 25 ranking in the final USA Today–ESPN women's basketball poll, and Boyle and Devannei Hampton receiving Pac-10 Coach and Player of the Year trophies, respectively.
In 2007–08, Cal tied the 1983–84 Bears for the most wins in school history (24-4, with one game remaining in the regular season). The Bears have been ranked as high as 8th in the national polls and set a Pac-10 record attendance in women's basketball with 10,525 witnessing Cal's 60-58 loss to Stanford at Haas Pavilion.
2008-09 was another good season for Cal women, as the team led by seniors Ashley Walker and Devanei Hampton completed a successful 15-3 conference record. They had reeled off 11 straight wins to open the season, including a home win over rival Stanford (their first home win against the Cardinal in over 20 years), but fell to the Cardinal in the rematch on the road, and later suffered back to back losses towards the end of the season that took them out of the running for the conference title. Despite a heartbreaking early exit from the Pac-10 tournament at the hands of Southern California, the Bears completed a successful tournament run as the Bears saw their first Sweet 16 in school history. They went up against the undefeated UConn Huskies and even had a nice lead in the opening minutes but ultimately fell to the eventual national champions.
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