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| Lauren, Haley, Elena and Indya leave the court after the Ole Miss game. |
After an easy win in the first round of the NCAA
tournament, the one-seeded Stanford women’s basketball team and its fans saw
their hopes and expectations dashed with a stinging loss in the second round.
The easy win was a 92-49 victory over 16-seeded Sacred
Heart on March 17. The stinging loss was to eight-seeded Ole Miss, 49-54 on
March 19.
The Rebels took the opening tip, scored first and
never looked back. Stanford trailed by as many as 13 points in the third
quarter and tied the game 49-49 only briefly in the fourth quarter. Stanford
actually outscored Ole Miss 14-12 in the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t enough.
This loss marked only the first time since 2007 that
Stanford didn’t advance to the Sweet Sixteen. In that year, Stanford lost to
Florida State, 61-68, in the second round.
Team
returns to full roster
Everyone was available after junior forward
Cameron Brink and redshirt freshman Jzaniya Harriel had missed the Sacred Heart
game.
Although, as reported by head coach Tara VanDerveer,
Cameron wasn’t at full strength after a stomach bug, she led the team with a
double-double, 20 points and 13 rebounds in 34 minutes despite being harassed,
sometimes manhandled by Ole Miss’s tough defense. Half of her points came from
the free throw line, where she was 10-10. Oh, and she had seven of the team’s
12 blocks.
Senior guard Haley Jones played all 40 minutes and
had 16 points and eight rebounds. Senior guard Hannah Jump had 8 points, six of
them by making both of the team’s two 3’s.
The Ole Miss defense contributed to Stanford’s 21
turnovers, while committing 17 of its own.
During halftime, Stanford’s 2022 national
championship women’s water polo team was introduced and cheered.
The game was attended by the mostly Stanford crowd
of 5,361. However, the Ole Miss band booed the Stanford players when they took
to the court for their final pre-game warmups.
Despite the loss, fans cheered the players loudly as
they left the Maples court for the last time this season. This was an
especially poignant moment for the four seniors, the self-dubbed Funky Four --
Haley, Hannah and forwards Fran Belibi and Ashten Prechtel. However, ESPN
reports that Hannah intends to return for the extra year granted in the wake of
COVID disruptions.
“We will start off-season workouts in
the spring for returners,” said associate head coach Kate Paye in an e-mail.
Stanford is on a break until April 3, when the spring quarter starts.
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| Players on the sidelines celebrate Hannah's buzzer beater against Sacred Heart. |
Cameron
misses Sacred Heart game
Although Cameron missed the Sacred Heart game
because of illness, her teammates made up for the loss of her production with a
92-49 win over the 16 seed to open the first round of the NCAA tournament on
March 17 at Maples. It was the Cardinal’s 100th NCAA tournament win,
according to a Pac-12 tweet.
Five players posted double figures: Haley, 17;
Hannah and Fran, 12 each plus 10 rebounds for Fran; freshman guard Indya Nivar,
11; and freshman center Lauren Betts, 10.
Four players made up for Cameron’s shot-blocking
prowess: Lauren with three; freshman guard Talana Lepolo with two; and Fran and
junior guard Agnes Emma-Nnopu with one each.
All 13 available players got in. Jzaniya was the
other absentee.
Stanford dominated the team from Fairfield, Conn.,
in every way, notably rebounds, 57-28; assists, 21-4; and steals, 8-1.
The Cardinal’s six 3’s came from Hannah with four
and Indya and sophomore guard Elena Bosgana with one each. Hannah’s
buzzer-beating trey that ended the first half broke the season record of 96 held
by Karlie Samuelson, ’17, and Jeanette Pohlen, ’11. By game’s end she had 98
for the season.
The game drew a crowd of 4,020 people, some of them
sporting something green in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.
The arena was reconfigured with some courtside
seating removed to make room for coaches and others to scout the game.
Consequently, some season ticket holders had to move.
The band sat in what has been the family section.
The Sacred Heart band sat in the Stanford band’s usual area.
The Sacred Heart band taunted Stanford players who
missed a free throw by shouting, “You let your whole team down.” It added
“again” if the second free throw is missed, too.
Fran took Cameron’s place in the starting lineup,
which also included Haley, Hannah, Talana and sophomore forward Kiki Iriafen.
Sacred Heart took a lead of four points early in the
first quarter, and the score was tied several times during that period, but the
Cardinal soon took over, ending the quarter up 23-18 and leading the rest of
the way.
Everyone gets to play
Because the team was doing so well, no one played
more than 25 minutes (Haley). Thus bench players had a chance to shine with 39
points. When freshman guards Stavi Papadaki and Lauren Green, who usually don’t
play, got in with just under 3½ minutes to go, they were greeted by loud
cheers.
At one point late in the second quarter, all four
seniors were on the court along with Talana.
Live feeds from other games were shown on the videoboard
during breaks. During one break, spirit squads from both teams tossed socks to
fans.
The following matchup between No. 9 seed Gonzaga and
No. 8 Mississippi ended with Mississippi on top 71-48, making it Stanford’s
next opponent.
Before the tournament started, Haley and Cameron were named All-Americans
for the second year. Hannah was named an Academic All-American.
