Last night at Maples Pavilion, the Old Dominion women’s basketball team was blown away by Stanford 97-48 in an answer to the Cardinal’s first two close games of the season.
While Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer was awarded the Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Year award for last year’s season on the court just minutes before the start, Old Dominion (0-3) could not have begun this game in a worse manner. Committing its first mistake before tip-off, an administrative technical foul for not turning in its starting line-up on time, it was down by two points-scored from the line by sophomore guard Toni Kokenis-even before the Ogwumike sisters, senior forward Nnemkadi and sophomore forward Chiney, combined to score the first real points of the contest.
It was an ominous sign, not only would Stanford (3-0) set up a 32-point lead (56-24) by the half, the Lady Monarchs would also commit 11 more fouls in the first period, allowing the Card to add nine uncontested points from the free-throw line.
“With a team like this you can’t let them start off strong, and that’s what happened,” said Old Dominion head coach Karen Barefoot. “They were in the zone, and they were hitting shots constantly.”
Barefoot later said she noticed that her team’s inexperience caught up with them on the court.
“Some of them were overwhelmed, some of our freshmen, you could tell,” she said. “Tonight we played with three or four freshmen on the court at times.”
But that is a difficult comparison to make. The Card played all six freshmen last night, five of them getting over ten minutes of game time each. In fact, throughout most of the second half Stanford’s big players sat unneeded on the sidelines.
“Obviously Nneka had a phenomenal game against Gonzaga.” explained VanDerveer. “She’s a great player, but we’re a lot more than just one player. That’s what I think we saw tonight.”
Stepping up to illustrate that fact, senior guard Lindy La Rocque had a career-high 15 points with five buckets from beyond the arc in the first period alone. Her performance capped an impressive total of 36 points by Cardinal players from outside the line.
“Three-point shooting is definitely contagious,” explained La Rocque. “[Freshman forward] Taylor [Greenfield] made those two right off the bat, and it was just kind of like setting the tone. When you see someone else making shots it gives you confidence too.”
The big lead allowed VanDerveer to show that confidence in her younger players, letting them gain experience before next Monday’s clash with No. 4 Connecticut on the road, which will surely be a crucial point early on in this season.
“The experience is what will be different,” said Nnemkadi Ogwumike looking ahead. “We are both very young teams.”
The game against the Huskies will certainly be a less one-sided affair than last night’s contest, but with both teams having graduated key players, this may offer an ideal opportunity for the Card to follow up on last year’s victory and defeat UConn on its own hardwood.
“With the loss of [forward] Maya [Moore] it is a little bit different,” explained Nnemkadi Ogwumike. “But we lost [forward] Kayla [Pedersen] and [forward] Jeanette [Pohlen] as well. So right now we really dealing with finding our niche as a team and understanding how we work.”
Last night’s contest was a good warm-up, but Monday’s contest will be a pivotal lesson for this young team. The matchup will be on Monday, Nov. 21 at 4:30 p.m. PST, at UConn.