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| Indya Nivar (12) watches as Agnes's 3-point buzzer beater goes in. (ASU Athletics) |
The Stanford women’s basketball team returned from a
road trip by adding two decisive wins to its resume: 84-60 over Arizona on Feb.
9 and 96-64 over Arizona State on Feb. 12, raising its season record to 24-3
and its Pac-12 record to 12-2.
These two wins, combined with losses by teams ranked
higher than Stanford, elevated the Cardinal to AP’s No. 3 from No. 6.
The ASU game was notable for major contributions
from bench players. Junior guard Agnes Emma-Nnopu led the team with 17 points,
while freshman center Lauren Betts added 13.
This performance by Lauren, combined with what she
did against Arizona, earned her the honor of Pac-12 Freshman of the Week for
the first time.
Thirteen players saw action against Arizona State, 11
scored and all contributed in some way.
Among the starters, junior forward Cameron Brink had
15 points and eight rebounds in 12 minutes. She had one block, leaving her just
one shy of the Stanford season record of 94 set by Jayne Appel-Marinelli, ’10.
Senior guard Hannah Jump and sophomore forward Kiki
Iriafen each had 12 points. Kiki, like Cameron, also had eight rebounds in 13
minutes.
Hannah’s points came from four 3’s, three in the
first quarter and one in the second.
Agnes
leads team in points, 3’s
But she wasn’t the 3-point leader. That honor went to Agnes, who made five of six in 16 minutes. One of them was a buzzer-beater
to end the second quarter.
Adding to the team’s 12 3’s were freshman guard
Talana Lepolo, sophomore forward Brooke Demetre and senior forward Ashten
Prechtel with one each.
No one played more than 22 minutes (senior forward
Fran Belibi, who had 9 points and eight rebounds). Senior guard Haley Jones
played 21 minutes and had only 2 points, quite unusual for her, but she had
five rebounds, five assists and four blocks.
In all, the bench added 52 points, an indication of
the team’s depth. “Tag-team
basketbalI,” Cameron said after the game. “Everyone contributed. Everyone
played really well.”
Playing in front of 1,759 people, Stanford outscored
ASU in the first three quarters and tied in the fourth. For the game, the
Cardinal scored 46.1 percent on field goals and held the Sun Devils to 33.3
percent.
The team also led in rebounds, 58-35 and points in the paint, 38-24.
Arizona falls 84-60
Fans watching the Feb. 9 Arizona game on ESPN missed
about the first five and a half minutes while a hockey game wrapped up.
When the Arizona game came on, Stanford was winning
10-5. The Cardinal never tied or trailed throughout the game, going on to win
84-60.
At that time, one of Cameron’s nostrils was plugged,
but there was no explanation, and it was gone after halftime.
Although Cameron and Haley were the leading scorers
with 18 each, plus 12 rebounds for Haley, eight other players scored. Among
them was Lauren, who came off the bench to add 12 points and four rebounds in
21 minutes.
Bench
players add 31 points
In all, the team had 31 bench points. Fourteen
players got into the game, and 10 scored
while two others helped in other ways.
Lauren led the team with four of its 10 blocks.
Cameron had an unusually low two blocks, but they were enough for her to break
her own Stanford season blocking record with 92 – and counting.
Lauren and Cameron excelled in the high-low game
with one feeding the ball to the other for a score. This play also was used by
other post players, helping the team to reach 50 points in the paint.
The team registered only three 3’s, all of them from
Hannah.
Playing before a crowd of 9,868, No. 6 Stanford
dominated No. 17 Arizona in nearly every statistical category, including
rebounds, 45-27. For the game, it shot 59.3 percent, compared with Arizona’s
35.8 percent.
During the half, the first NCAA tournament reveal
was announced. It placed Stanford in the Seattle regional as a one seed, the
third of four one seeds.
The team returns to the Farm for its final two home
regular season games, hosting USC at 8 p.m. Feb. 17 and UCLA at 6 p.m. Feb. 20.
Pac-12 Networks will broadcast the USC game. The UCLA game will be on ESPN2.
