Tara joins Anna, Kiana and Alyssa right after Senior Day. (Stanford Athletics)
The Stanford women’s basketball team celebrated Senior Day and completed its regular season with a 72-33 home victory over Cal on Feb. 28.
Thus the team will take its 22-2 record and Pac-12
season championship to the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas March 3-7. As the No.
1 seed, Stanford has a bye and will meet the Arizona State-USC winner at 2 p.m.
March 4. The complete bracket is on this Fast Break Club site.
The first half of the Cal game saw Stanford with
only a 31-25 advantage after Cal outscored the host team 18-17 in the second
quarter.
Team
gets tough in the third quarter
However, after coming out of the locker room, the
Cardinal turned up the pressure both offensively and defensively, including
some full-court pressure. The result allowed only two points by Cal and gave
Stanford a 58-27 advantage after three quarters.
Head coach Tara VanDerveer tapped bench players to
complete most of the fourth quarter and clinch the win. For the game, the bench
scored 36 points, half of the total and three more than Cal’s total for the
game.
Although the young Cal team has won only one of its
16 games this season, Stanford fans have reason to be heartened by what the
Cardinal accomplished in this game.
For example, all 11 available players scored. Junior
guard Lacie Hull remained on the bench while recovering from an injury.
Hannah is congratulated by Haley and Kiana. (Stanford Athletics)
Hannah
leads the way with 14
No one played more than 29 minutes. Perhaps by
coincidence, that player was sophomore guard Hannah Jump, coming off the bench
to lead the team with 14 points. Her four 3-pointers accounted for most of
those points.
Also in double figures were sophomore guard Haley
Jones with 10 and senior guard Kiana Williams with 12. During the game, Kiana
rose to 10th on the program’s all-time scoring list, passing Alanna
Smith, ’19.
Besides Hannah’s four 3’s, the team got treys from Kiana
and junior guard Lexie Hull with two each, and from freshman guard Jana Van
Gytenbeek and senior forward Alyssa Jerome with one each for a total of 10.
The team had only six turnovers while logging 15
assists, four of them by sophomore forward Ashten Prechtel. The team had four
blocks and 12 steals, with fifth-year guard Anna Wilson and Hannah snaring
three each.
Stanford had 44 rebounds to Cal’s 37.
On the minus side, the team had 11 fouls, while Cal
had five. However, the team (actually Anna) made both of its free throws.
For the game, Stanford shot 41.7 percent, Cal 25.9
percent.
TV
airs Senior Day ceremony
The game ended in time for the TV broadcast to show the
Senior Day ceremony, hosted by Tara.
It began with the other players’ video tributes to
Kiana, a science, technology and society major; Alyssa, a human biology major;
and Anna, an art practice major and now focusing on media studies.
Then each senior’s many accomplishments were
enumerated.
Holding flowers, all three of them thanked their
families, the fans and their teammates for their support throughout this
unusual season, which kept the team out of Maples for 72 days because of
coronavirus restrictions.
“Being on the road” for all that time was among
Anna’s favorite memories of her time at Stanford, she said. It gave everyone a
chance to bond.
Alyssa cited her sophomore year when Stanford
defeated UCLA 65-51 on Feb. 15, 2019, just a few days after suffering a
40-point loss to Oregon, its worst-ever during Tara’s tenure.
Kiana recalled walking along Palm Drive early in her
freshman year and feeling how blessed she was “to be here.”
The seniors’ families also saluted them via Zoom.
After the Pac-12 tournament, seeding for the NCAA
tournament will be announced March 15. All of the tournament games will be played
in Texas from March 21 to April 4.
The first-round games will be in San Antonio, San Marcos and Austin. Subsequent rounds will be in San Antonio. Last year’s tournament was scrapped because of the pandemic.
