A determined Haley drives to the basket through a pair of defenders.
After breezing to five easy wins to start the season, the No. 2 Stanford women’s basketball team faced its first big test and faltered. No. 1 South Carolina prevailed 76-71 in overtime Nov. 20 at Maples.
Stanford had the edge for most of the nationally
televised game, leading 21-11 after the first quarter, 35-31 at the half and
54-44 after the third quarter before South Carolina tied the score 61-61 at the
fourth quarter buzzer.
The overtime score seesawed until the final few
seconds when, as the SF Chronicle put it the next day, “Errors cost Cardinal.”
With 10 seconds left and Stanford trailing 71-73,
senior guard Haley Jones failed to inbound the ball in time, giving possession
to South Carolina.
With the clock showing 3.1 seconds, Stanford secured
the ball in front of the opponent’s bench. Sophomore forward Kiki Iriafen
called a timeout to advance to ball to home court, but there were no timeouts
left. Kiki was called for a technical, and South Carolina was able to score
three more points to ice the win.
“This was a game that could have gone either way,”
associate head coach Kate Paye said afterward during the season’s first Behind
the Bench.
Large
crowd backs home team
Maples was packed with a reported crowd of 7,287
that lent vocal support to the home team throughout the game.
The starting lineup featured Haley, Kiki, junior
forward Cameron Brink, senior guard Hannah Jump and freshman guard Talana
Lepolo, who served as point guard.
Unlike previous games, the bulk of minutes went to
the starters, with Hannah and Haley each logging 44 minutes. Talana was close
behind with 41.
Of the six bench players who got in, only senior
guard Ashten Prechtel had double-digit minutes with 32. Moreover, the bench
added only 9 points, while South Carolina’s bench had 34.
Cameron is closely guarded by South Carolina's Aliyah Boston.
Cameron
leads everyone in scoring
Despite foul trouble that limited her to 24 minutes
(she fouled out in overtime), Cameron led both teams in scoring with 25 points.
Kiki and Hannah were her only other teammates in double figures, each with 11.
Stanford had only six 3’s, in part because South
Carolina guard Zia Cooke stuck to
sharp-shooting Hannah like Velcro throughout the game. Thus, Hannah had
only two 3’s. Cameron also had two 3’s. Talana and Ashten added the other two.
Stanford had 47 rebounds to the Gamecocks’ 41, and
had 15 assists to the opponent’s nine. Stanford led in blocks, 10-7, including
five from Ashten, four from Cameron and one from Haley.
On the other hand, turnovers were costly with
Stanford committing 22 to South Carolina’s 11.
Free-throw shooting also favored South Carolina, who
made 15 to Stanford’s 11 – a 4-point difference that might have affected the
final outcome.
Grads
join the crowd
The crowd included 2022 SWBB alumnae Lexie and Lacie
Hull and Alyssa Jerome, who were shown during the game and introduced at the
Behind the Bench. Teammate Anna Wilson also was reported to be there, and I
spotted several other grads.
Jayne Appel-Marinelli, ’10, associate director of
player operations for the WNBA Players Association, was on the sidelines with
her family. Jayne has been a leader in the campaign to free Phoenix Suns star
Brittney Griner from Russian custody.
Jayne, several other alums, the two head coaches and
others wore long-sleeve T-shirts supporting Brittney. A table in the west
concourse had paper for people to write notes of support. A video before the
game and a moment of silence also honored her.
At the Behind the Bench, Kate introduced the five
freshmen: Talana, center Lauren Betts and guards Indya Nivar, Stavi Papadaki
and Lauren Green.
During that session, head coach Tara VanDerveer
praised Talana, calling her fantastic.
She called the game exciting and said, “We’ll only
get better. We played toe-to-toe with them.”
SC
coach praises Tara
She was followed by South Carolina head coach Dawn
Staley, who played on the 1996 USA Olympic gold-winning team coached by Tara.
“She led the way,” Dawn said of Tara, adding that
she learned a lot from Tara.
With this game in the record books, the Stanford
women now set their sights on Thanksgiving weekend at the Rainbow Wahine
Showdown in Honolulu. On the schedule are Florida Gulf Coast at 2 p.m. Nov. 25,
Grambling State at 2 p.m. Nov. 26 and Hawaii at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 27. All times
are Pacific Standard. Hawaii time is two hours earlier.
All
three games will be broadcast on radio by Varsity Network. The Hawaii game also
will be shown on Spectrum Sports.
After
flying home, the team will host Santa Clara at 7 p.m. Nov. 30 and Gonzaga at
noon Dec. 4. The Santa Clara game will be available on Stanford Live Stream.
Pac-12 Bay Area will show the Gonzaga game.
Photos by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
