Two days after matching Pat Summit’s record for most career wins in women’s Division I college basketball history, head coach Tara VanDerveer will have the opportunity to break Summit’s record when No. 1 Stanford (4-0, 2-0 Pac-12) plays Pacific (0-0, 0-0 WCC) on Tuesday. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m. PT, and if the Cardinal win, it will be VanDerveer’s 1,099th career win.
New Santa Clara County COVID-19 restrictions forced the Cardinal to relocate to Las Vegas in early December for nearly two weeks, where they routed UNLV and Washington on Dec. 5 and Dec. 6, respectively. The team traveled back to the Bay Area to take on Cal on Sunday night, defeating the Golden Bears 83-38 behind freshman forward Cameron Brink’s team-high 16 points. Santa Clara County’s restrictions do not expire until Dec. 21, so the Cardinal, unable to return home to Maples Pavilion, will travel 75 miles east of Berkeley to play Pacific in Stockton. Stanford was scheduled to play Pacific on Nov. 29 at Maples, but a positive COVID-19 test within the Tigers’ women’s basketball program led to the cancellation of that game. That game was the first of now four that the Cardinal have had canceled or postponed, all due to COVID-19 precautions taken by the opposing team.
Tuesday’s game will be, at long last, Pacific’s season-opener after their first matchup versus Stanford as well as their home opener against Fresno State were canceled following a positive test within the program on Nov. 25. The Tigers’ following games, a home matchup against San Jose State on Dec. 13 and a road game against Weber State in Utah on Dec. 15 were recently canceled as well due to positive COVID-19 tests within San Jose’s program and “current travel advisements and incongruent COVID testing protocols” in Utah. Tuesday’s game marks the first time since 2010 that the Tigers will host the No. 1 team in the nation at the Spanos Center; in 2010, then-No. 1 UConn defeated Pacific 85-42 in Stockton.
The Cardinal, who took over the No. 1 spot in the AP Top 25 Poll on Dec. 6 following then-No. 1 South Carolina’s loss to then-No. 8 North Carolina State, have dominated on both offense and defense through four games this season. The Cardinal average nearly 94 points per game while allowing just under 46 points per game, and the team has scored more than 100 points in two games thus far while not allowing more than 54 points in any game.
Following the team’s temporary relocation to Las Vegas, sophomore guard Haley Jones was named Pac-12 Player of the Week after averaging 27.0 points per game versus UNLV and Washington and scoring a career-high 29 points to complement a career-high 13 rebounds against the Huskies. She also shot 14-15 (.933) from the floor against Washington, the second-best mark in program history among players with 10 or more attempts in a game. Despite being held to a season-low 8 points against Cal, Jones is averaging a team-high 19.5 points per game.
Brink has also scored in double-figures in three out of four games this season and averages 12.5 points per game. Junior guard Lexie Hull, sophomore guard Hannah Jump and sophomore forward Francesca Belibi are the other three who average double-figure scoring this season for the Cardinal.
In 20 games versus Pacific since the 1976-77 season, the Cardinal hold a 17-3 all-time record. The Tigers’ last win against Stanford came in late 1983, but the Cardinal own an eight-game win streak since VanDerveer began coaching on the Farm. In the teams’ most recent matchup in December 2012, forward Chiney Ogwumike ’14 scored 31 points in 28 minutes to lead the Cardinal to a 78-43 rout in Maples Pavilion.
Contact Sofia Scekic at sscekic ‘at’ stanford.edu.