On Thanksgiving weekend, #2 Stanford women’s basketball is in Honolulu, Hawaii for the Rainbow Wahine Showdown. On Friday, they’ll face Florida Gulf Coast at 2:00 PM PT. On Saturday at 2:00 PM PT, they’ll face Grambling State. On Sunday at 4:30 PM PT, they’ll face Hawaii. All three games will be on Varsity Network Radio. The Hawaii game will also air on ESPN+ and be categorized as an away game.
Last time out: On Sunday, Stanford fell to #1 South Carolina at home in overtime by a final score of 76-71. Cameron Brink was the top performer for Stanford with 25 points, 5 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 1 steal.
RECAP: #2 Stanford WBB falls to #1 South Carolina in OT
On the competition: The top team who Stanford will face this weekend is Florida Gulf Coast, who is off to a strong 4-0 start blowing past Old Dominion, FIU, and Hawaii before having a comfortable 68-60 win over San Diego. While their wins are only against mid-majors, they’ve still taken care of business and deserve a lot of credit for doing so. The don’t have season stats posted on their site yet for this year, but their top returning scorer from last year is guard 5th year guard Tishara Morehouse. She averaged 14.7 points per game last season on 47.3% shooting from the field, 32.8% shooting from 3-point range, and 64.4% shooting from the foul line.
As for Grambling State, they do have one win over New Orleans, who they defeated 69-59, but they lost to San Diego State 66-41 and San Diego State fell to Stanford 86-48. So, doing the transitive property, Grambling State could get smoked by 60 points against Stanford.
As for Hawaii, while being winless, they are a better team than Grambling State. They fell to Oregon State 61-60, showing they can hang with Pac-12 teams. However, they fell to Portland State 70-54, who lost to Stanford 87-47. And then they also lost to Florida Gulf Coast by 20 points (65-45).
Keys to the weekend: For Stanford, it’s really simple. Just get everyone involved and take advantage of their superior talent. Stanford is loaded with weapons that these teams don’t even have one of. The talent gap is so wide that none of these games should be close.
That said, Stanford does need to make sure they keep playing good basketball and not get complacent just because they are playing powder puff teams. The first thing Stanford should focus on is not fouling. Foul trouble was a bit of an issue against South Carolina and they have to make sure they are not doing that this weekend. If they can build good habits in the foul department, that would be good.
Secondly, Stanford needs to keep taking good care of the ball. Ball security is always big and they need to make sure they are continuing to build good fundamentals. Talana Lepolo has been off to a really good start in the backcourt and if she can have a strong outing and get everyone involved, that would be good.
Finally, free throws. Free throws were a bit of an issue against South Carolina. Stanford needs to use this weekend as a chance to get to the foul line and practice their free throws. If they can improve at the foul line, that more than anything could make or break their season.
Prediction: I already basically said it, but this will be a clean 3-0 sweep for the Cardinal. Maybe Florida Gulf Coast gives them a little trouble early on or something, but it’ll be smooth sailing.
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