Stanford Opens Season with loss to Ohio State

Well, C and R are sure Tara Vanderveer will use this loss as a learning tool for her young team. And the Stanford Women’s Basketball team can learn from the first half, where they didn’t back down, ran the fast break and matched them bucket for bucket until the closing minutes of the second quarter.

Then in the Second half….
Then the second half stated and Ohio State, playing on their home floor, where Tara VanDerveer coached for 5 years in the 80’s, pulled away. They used timely 3-point shooting and rebounding to prevail 84-65. Oh, they started getting back on defense, too, killing Stanford’s best scoring weapon, as the three just was not there. It is obvious they still miss Karlie Samuelson and no one has filled her shoes. Yet. Stanford was 5-16 from 3-point line. And Nadia Fingall, who C and R think f as a post player was 2-3. Tara wasn’t kidding when she said they were going to play position-less basketball.
Shout out to the Stanford senior, Brittany McPhee, who single-handedly keep Stanford in the game, especially in the first half, running the transition and getting a basket when needed. And never mind that crazy three more than half a court away that banked in at the buzzer to end the first, making Stanford only down 40-46. She would finish the game with 24 points. Sadly, no other Stanford player would get to double digits.

Ohio State, on the other hand, had a balanced scoring attack, with four players in double figures, and lights out shooting from their star player Kelsey Mitchell. She poured in 30 points.
Enjoy these highlights from the Cardinal Channel.


Rebounding wins championships
And boy did Ohio State rebound. Forward Stephanie Mavunga grabbed a team-record 26 boards. In fact Ohio State out-rebounded Stanford 64-41, the most telling stat being 28 offense boards for OSU and 9 for Stanford. Wanna know who lead the team in rebounds for Stanford? Come on, guess. Time’s up! Marta Sneeze-ix, as the announcers called her. Our little 5’8’ point guard Marta Sniezek led the team in rebounding with eight. Okay, Tara has a lot of learning to do with her team.

Fun fact:
Stephanie Mavunga is the sister-in-law to Stanford great Jeanette Pohlen. JP, when asked on Twitter who she was rooting for between Stanford and Ohio State, she said she "couldn’t lose."


Second Fun Fact:
Never eat a buckeye

Freshmen
Stanford Freshmen Maya Dodson got some quality minutes and scored seven. She will have to watch the fouls, though. Alyssa Jerome, who is a 3-point specialist was 2-2 from behind the arc in her debut, and scored eight total points and made all three of her attempted shots, so she is 100% from the field.

Guess who’s next?
UConn. No, you don’t win a prize. Stanford has busted some streaks, however UConn is starting from scratch and are slightly relieved they don’t have that streak thing hanging over their heads and have nothing to lose. I don’t think I like those odds.

Forget your fave football team. Tune in to ESPN Sunday.

More Stanford Goodies at the original C and R's Stanford Women's Basketball Blog

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