1,200 wins for Tara after the Washingtons

Tara is on the verge of becoming the winningest college basketball coach. (Stanford Athletics)

Defeating Washington 71-59 on Jan. 7 and Washington State 74-65 on Jan. 5, both at home, the Stanford women’s basketball team handed head coach Tara VanDerveer her 1,200^th career victory, two away from matching the record 1,202 wins by former Duke men's coach Mike Krzyzewski.

On her way to a team- and game-high 19 points against Washington, junior forward Kiki Iriafen scored the game’s first 4 points, both resulting from passes by senior forward Cameron Brink. As for Cameron, she had 16 points and 16 rebounds along with three of the team’s five blocks. The other two were by Kiki and junior forward Elena Bosgana.

Although Elena had only four points, she had four rebounds and three assists while playing ferocious defense, like her teammates.

Hannah adds four 3’s

Graduate guard Hannah Jump also was in double figures with 13 points, most of them from her four 3’s, all of which came in the third quarter.

Freshman forward Nunu Agara added 12 points, including one of the team’s seven 3’s. Cameron and freshman forward Courtney Ogden had one each.

It was a tight game, especially in the first half, when Stanford held a 2-point lead after the first quarter and a 5-point lead in the second.

The third quarter was decisive as the Cardinal outscored the Huskies by 11 points, leading to a 60-44 advantage. Washington outscored Stanford by 4 points in the final quarter, but Stanford prevailed.

Overall, the lead changed six times, and the score was tied five times, leading to some nail-biting by the crowd of 3,924.

During the Behind the Bench after the game, associate head coach Kate Paye said, it was “a great game for our team.  … Our team had to work extremely hard to prepare for them.”

Kate expects ‘a dog fight every night’

Commenting on the strength of the Pac-12, Kate said, “It’s going to be a dog fight every night.”

She was joined by Cameron and junior forward Brooke Demetre, who answered fans’ questions. Their answers were hard to discern because of distortion by the microphone.

When Tara arrived, she was greeted by a standing ovation, but as usual, she focused on the team and its big win. “Our team worked hard defensively,” she said.

Talana launches one of her four 3's against WSU. (Stanford Athletics)

WSU game goes up and down

In the Jan. 5 WSU game, the team and crowd of 3,084 had to endure 12 lead changes and four ties before the Cardinal pulled out the 74-65 win.

It was a game marred by 17 Stanford turnovers and 19 fouls, some of which the crowd loudly booed. By comparison, the Cougars had 14 turnovers and 15 fouls.

On the other hand, Stanford was tops in assists, 19-14, and rebounds, 43-28.

Cameron led the team with 20 points, 18 rebounds and all five of its blocks despite being limited by four fouls. She briefly went to bench for attention by trainer Katelin Knox after being hit in the face in the third quarter, but she returned after the time out and scored right away.

Cameron opens scoring with a trey

She had scored the team’s first points by nailing a 3. Kiki had 17 points, followed by Talana with 13 and Brooke with 12.

Playing all 40 minutes, Hannah logged an uncharacteristically low 8 points, none of them from her two 3-point attempts, but she was being covered like a second skin. 

Sophomore guard Talana Lepolo helped to make up that gap with four of the team’s seven 3’s. Brooke had two, and Cameron had the other one.

Because the game was so tight throughout, Tara used only nine players from the 12-woman roster. Speaking of rosters, WSU’s has a strongly international flavor with only four of its 13 players from the United States.

Although the home team had a 6-point lead after the first quarter, the visitors dominated the second, putting Stanford behind 34-35. A 10-point advantage after the third quarter preserved the win because both teams scored 15 in the fourth.

WSU has never defeated Stanford in all 73 of the teams’ meetings since they started playing each other in 1983, AP reported.

Fans could get fanny packs with “Cardinal” on them at tables in the concourses. They also saw the construction equipment that took up several spaces along Campus Drive in the Maples parking lot.

After starting winter quarter classes on Jan.  8 and taking that day off from practice, the team hits the road to play Utah at 5 p.m. PST Jan. 12 and Colorado at 11 a.m. PST Jan. 14. Pac-12 Networks will air both games.