UM women’s basketball team beats Cal 69-60 to boost NCAA Tournament hopes
.jpg "University of Miami guard Ahnay Adams brings the ball up the court during the Hurricanes’ 69-60 win over the California Bears on Feb. 22, 2026 at the Watsco Center.")
The University of Miami women’s basketball team, aiming to move up the ACC standings and jockey for an NCAA Tournament berth, got a big boost Sunday with a 69-60 victory over the California Bears at the Watsco Center.
It was Miami’s third win in a row after a four-game losing skid.
Hurricanes coach Tricia Cullop stressed how important this matchup was because Cal sat in 10th place in the ACC standings, two spots above Miami and on the edge of the NCAA Tournament bubble. Miami moved up to 11th place with the win with two games remaining.
“I’m really proud of this team for regrouping, keeping their composure and reeling off three wins in a row,” Cullop said. “We climbed up to 11th, which looks a lot better than where we were a couple of weeks ago. We just want to make sure we control what we can control, let the others duke it out and see what happens.”
Cullop added that her team is peaking at the right time and seeing the results of the hard work they have put in all season, particularly the past two weeks, when the coaching staff made them run extra hard and do pushups if they slacked.
The players thought the coaches would take it easy on them during the off week before the road trip to Boston College, “but we did quite the opposite,” Cullop said. “It was wake up time.”
And wake up they did, beating Boston College on the road and Stanford and Cal back-to-back at home.
“We ran a lot in practice, everything was up-tempo, everything full court,” said UM center Ra Shay Kyle, a grad student who recorded her 18th double-double of the season with 16 points and 14 rebounds. Kyle is a finalist for the Lisa Leslie Center of Year Award.
“We were not allowed to have any mental lapses. You needed to be on top of our A game every time you came to practice.”
Guard Ahnay Adams, who had 10 points, nine rebounds and six assists, agreed that picking up the pace in practice resulted in the three wins in a row.
“We were being way more competitive in practice, making practice harder than the games,” Adams said.
The Canes came out with intensity and played with purpose from the opening whistle, and led all but five minutes of the game. After falling behind 15-14 at the end of the first quarter the Hurricanes took over and went on a 13-2 run at the start of the second quarter to take a 10-point lead.
Victoria Blasigh, an Italian guard who transferred from University of South Florida, came off the bench to score seven points during that stretch.
Miami outshot Cal 50% to 33% from the field during the first half and made four of five three-point attempts (80%) while the Bears went 5 of 17 from beyond the arc. The Hurricanes led 35-27 at the break after back-to-back baskets from Adams.
One of the Canes’ biggest challenges against the Bears was finding a way to limit junior guard Lulu Twidale, who was coming off a 30-point performance in a win over Florida State.
Twidale ranks second in the ACC with 74 three pointers this season. She led the Bears with 18 points, but went 4-of-16 from three-point range.
Twidale made a three with four minutes to go to shrink Miami’s lead to 60-55, but the Canes responded with a pair of threes from Gal Raviv and Blasigh.
“That was big for us, our composure to not let a big three by their best player get us down,” Cullop said. “We didn’t hang our heads, we played hard and answered.”
The Hurricanes (15-12, 7-9 ACC) are back home Thursday night to play Pittsburgh before closing out the regular season on the road at Georgia Tech on March 1.
This story was originally published February 22, 2026 at 4:49 PM.