This week the women's basketball team at Berkeley ended their season with a loss during the Women's NIT. I attended one of their games last month, somewhat by accident. While standing in a restaurant waiting for a table, the person behind me asked if anyone wanted a pair of free tickets to see the women's basketball team play a game later that evening. I said "yes" and got the tickets:
The game was scheduled to start an hour after I began dinner, so during the meal I called some people I knew in Berkeley to see if anyone wanted to go to the game. Everyone I called had something else planned, so I went by myself.
Here are two scenes from early in the game:
The most surprising thing to me is how empty the arena was. At my school, if the women's basketball team is playing a game it is nearly always sold out.
One of the students in my class at Berkeley is on the women's basketball team: Talia Caldwell #33. She is the player making the foul shot in the first photo above. Here are some more action shots of Caldwell under the basket (in the white, not green, uniform)
and making a foul shot on the other side of the court:
Even though there were very few fans, the team was cheered on by the marching band (and bear)
some flag wavers
and a group of guys who took off their shirts to reveal an eloquent message:
If you're having trouble reading that, you can click on the photo to get a larger image. I'll also just tell you: the painted letters say GOLDEN BEARS ARE GOOD! (The last guy on the right has an exclamation point on his chest.)
Here are all of the cheering groups together:
At one point the painted guys turned around and started shaking their butts to whatever music was playing over the loudspeakers (Lady Gaga?):
Unfortunately the game did not go well for Berkeley. The opposing team, Oregon, jumped out to a lead and never looked back. Near the end of the first half, the score was California 16, Oregon 28:
In the second half Cal got close to 28 points, but by that time Oregon was at 45:
There were some cheers in the middle of the game when the men's basketball team final score against Oregon (being played up in Oregon) was shown on a screen as Cal 81 and Oregon 71:
Back in the women's game, near the end Cal got to 46, at which point Oregon had 55:
A sign that things were not going well was that the Golden Bears Are Good guys left:
When the final buzzer rang, Oregon had added a few more unanswered points to win the game 60 to 46:
An article in the school newspaper later said, about the women's basketball season, "The low point may have been the Bears' 14-point home loss to Oregon, a team that went 4-14 in Pac-10 play." In other words, I attended the worst possible game.
After the game was over, the two teams walked passed each other to shake (or slap) hands
and the Cal marching band played and cheerleaders sang the school song "Hail to California" (lyrics here):
I have some videos of the marching band at the end of the game (including a pair of tuba players high-stepping around the basketball court) which I'll post later.
The game was scheduled to start an hour after I began dinner, so during the meal I called some people I knew in Berkeley to see if anyone wanted to go to the game. Everyone I called had something else planned, so I went by myself.
Here are two scenes from early in the game:
The most surprising thing to me is how empty the arena was. At my school, if the women's basketball team is playing a game it is nearly always sold out.
One of the students in my class at Berkeley is on the women's basketball team: Talia Caldwell #33. She is the player making the foul shot in the first photo above. Here are some more action shots of Caldwell under the basket (in the white, not green, uniform)
and making a foul shot on the other side of the court:
Even though there were very few fans, the team was cheered on by the marching band (and bear)
some flag wavers
and a group of guys who took off their shirts to reveal an eloquent message:
If you're having trouble reading that, you can click on the photo to get a larger image. I'll also just tell you: the painted letters say GOLDEN BEARS ARE GOOD! (The last guy on the right has an exclamation point on his chest.)
Here are all of the cheering groups together:
At one point the painted guys turned around and started shaking their butts to whatever music was playing over the loudspeakers (Lady Gaga?):
Unfortunately the game did not go well for Berkeley. The opposing team, Oregon, jumped out to a lead and never looked back. Near the end of the first half, the score was California 16, Oregon 28:
In the second half Cal got close to 28 points, but by that time Oregon was at 45:
There were some cheers in the middle of the game when the men's basketball team final score against Oregon (being played up in Oregon) was shown on a screen as Cal 81 and Oregon 71:
Back in the women's game, near the end Cal got to 46, at which point Oregon had 55:
A sign that things were not going well was that the Golden Bears Are Good guys left:
When the final buzzer rang, Oregon had added a few more unanswered points to win the game 60 to 46:
An article in the school newspaper later said, about the women's basketball season, "The low point may have been the Bears' 14-point home loss to Oregon, a team that went 4-14 in Pac-10 play." In other words, I attended the worst possible game.
After the game was over, the two teams walked passed each other to shake (or slap) hands
and the Cal marching band played and cheerleaders sang the school song "Hail to California" (lyrics here):
I have some videos of the marching band at the end of the game (including a pair of tuba players high-stepping around the basketball court) which I'll post later.
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