The Stanford women’s basketball team returned to campus after the Thanksgiving road trip last night to rout UC Davis, 93-44. Cardinal only held a lead of three points halfway through the first period, but it turned up the heat to put this game all but out of reach at the break.
Stanford (5-1) began this game with just one upperclassman in the starting lineup, senior forward Nnemkadi Ogwumike, in the starting line-up, in comparison to the three seniors and two juniors of UC Davis (6-2), and the lack of experience seemed to hamper the Cardinal in the early going.
The Aggies were more effective at pressing the Card on offense, and stole the ball several times early on to help it drag the game back to level with 12:31 remaining in the half. But from 13-13 onwards, Stanford turned the its early problems around and began to inch back into the lead and then race ahead to double UC Davis’ score with 1:23 left and lead 51-23 at the half.
“We came out with tremendous energy and a lot of confidence,” explained UC-Davis head coach Jennifer Gross of the good first few minutes by her team. “To start with we were playing our defense really well and we had really good action on our offensive side of the ball.”
“The last couple of times we’ve played at Stanford we’ve been in a very similar position where it can go one way of the other,” Gross continued. “We really tried to buckle down and we tried to get some stops and some scores, but unfortunately it went the other way and it turned into a 20-point game.”
Nnemkadi Ogwumike looked impressive through the first half, where she hit all of her 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds, followed closely by her sister, sophomore forward Chiney, who had 20 points and nine rebounds. But with the game looking all but won early on, Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer could rest both the players recently named to the Naismith Trophy watch list and give others who don’t regularly start significant playing time.
While some teams might slow down when their best players leave the floor, Stanford refused to do so. Ten of the eleven players who took to the floor scored points and junior forward Joslyn Tinkle and freshman forward Bonnie Samuelson both notched career highs in points. Tinkle played the most time of any Cardinal player and made personal records with her 19 points and nine rebounds, while Samuelson smashed her points record by hit five three-pointers to finish with 15 points.
Asked how she kept making those shots, Samuelson gave a simple explanation.
“Probably my dad,” she said. “I’ve shot with him since I was little, a lot of hours in the gym.”
The Cardinal’s next test is Fresno State on the road this Sunday, followed by a two-week break for finals.