Complete sweep of Washington schools

With its 82-69 victory over Washington on Feb. 2 in Maples Pavilion, the Stanford women’s basketball team finished with a 4-0 record over the Pac-12’s two Washington schools and a 9-1 conference record overall.

The Cardinal beat both Washington and Washington State on the road in January and took care of WSU again on Jan. 31.

The latest victory over Washington came more easily than the Jan. 9 meeting in Seattle, when Stanford eked out a 60-56 win.

Five score in double figures

Making the job easier were the five players who scored in double figures, led by senior forward Bonnie Samuelson with 17. She was followed by sophomore guard Briana Roberson with 15, senior guard Amber Orrange with 14, freshman forward Kaylee Johnson with 11 and sophomore guard Karlie Samuelson with 10.

Also helpful were Kaylee’s 17 rebounds, resulting in the fifth double-double of her first year on the Farm. On top of that, Kaylee is the leading freshman rebounder in the NCAA with an average 10.5 per game.

Moreover, Kaylee tied her career high of four blocks. Now with 30 blocks on the season, she has moved into a third-place tie for freshmen with Kristen Newlin, ’07. They trail Val Whiting, ’93, who had 57 during her freshman year, and the record-holder, Jayne Appel, ’10, who had 61.

Defense squeezes Plum

Credit for the win also goes to Stanford’s stingy defense on the Huskies’ leading scorer, Kelsey Plum, who finished with just 8 points, two of them from free throws. The sophomore had ranked third in the nation in scoring with an average of 24.1 points per game. She didn’t make her first basket until the 3:45 mark of the first half thanks to blanketing by Amber and the other guards.

Both teams were 10-for-28, or 35.7 percent, on 3-point shooting. Stanford’s 3’s came from Bri with three; Amber, Bonnie and Karlie with two each; and senior forward Taylor Greenfield with one.

Bonnie’s second trey was the 200th of her Stanford career, moving into the elite 200 club with Nicole Powell, ’04, 201; Sebnem Kimyacioglu, ’05, 205; Kelley Suminski, ’05, 208; Vanessa Nygaard, ’98, 210; Jeanette Pohlen, ’11, 268; and Candice Wiggins,’08, 295.

In my report on the Washington State game, I should have mentioned that Amber dished out her 500th career assist.

Stanford finished the first half with a comfortable 45-29 lead, but Washington edged to within 6 points with less than 10 minutes to go. That’s when Stanford picked up steam again to close out the victory with only bench players in the game during the final minutes. Nevertheless, Washington had outscored Stanford 40-37 during that half.

Good work at the charity stripe

Free-throw shooting was noteworthy, especially in the first half, when the team was 8-for-8. It was 14-for-19 in the second half, finishing the game with an 81.5 percent success rate. For its part, Washington made seven of its 10 attempts, or 70 percent.

Washington had the advantage in rebounds, 39-36, but it had 10 turnovers compared with Stanford’s seven. Stanford had five blocks and six steals, compared with Washington’s three and four, respectively.

Thirteen of the Cardinal’s 15 available players got into the game, and eight scored. The five starters logged the most minutes, led by Amber and sophomore guard Lili Thompson with 33 each, followed by Bri with 32, Bonnie with 29 and Kaylee with 26.

Freshman guard Brittany McPhee, who hails from the Seattle area, was the game’s featured player.

Girls and women in sports honored

Because it was National Girls and Women in Sports Day, the video board featured highlights from Stanford’s women teams. A number of VIP Stanford women faculty members were seated together as their names and positions were flashed on the video board.

In keeping with the theme, the game’s trivia question deviated from Stanford WBB and instead asked how many all-Americans the women’s cross country team has had since 1980 . The answer was 364.

Halftime featured a game by the Stanford Bloomers, 12 women ranging in age from 52 to over 80. Wearing red or white bloomers, they played by the old half-court rules that kept six players – three red guards and three white forwards – on one side of the court with their counterparts on the other. Only forwards were allowed to shoot. When guards got the ball, they passed it across the center line to their forward teammates.

Up next for SWBB are two contests in the desert. The first is at 7 p.m. Feb. 6 against Arizona State, the only Pac-12 team to defeat the Cardinal this season, 60-57 on Jan. 19. Arizona is scheduled for 2 p.m. Feb. 8. In their previous meeting, Stanford beat Arizona 77-47 on Jan. 16.