On Sunday, January 5th at 11:00 AM PT on The CW, Stanford women’s basketball will take on the Clemson Tigers on the road at Littlejohn Coliseum. Stanford comes in at 8-5 overall and 0-2 in the ACC while Clemson comes in at 9-5 overall and 2-1 in the ACC.

Last time out: On Thursday, Stanford fell to SMU on the road by a final score of 67-63. They made a fierce comeback late in the game, but fell just a bit short.

RECAP: Stanford WBB nearly pulls off comeback at SMU

On Clemson: The Tigers are off to a solid start in ACC play with wins over Wake Forest and No. 20 Cal while narrowly losing by just four points at No. 22 NC State. They seem to have figured some things out after a shaky non-conference season.

The Tigers are led by graduate student guard Loyal McQueen, who is averaging 13.7 points and 5.5 assists per game on 43% shooting from the field, 50% shooting from 3-point range, and 84% shooting from the foul line. Junior guard Mia Moore is the number two scorer on the team with 11.6 points and 5.6 rebounds per game while sophomore guard Hannah Kohn and senior forward Tessa Miller each are scoring 9.6 points per game.

As a team, the Tigers average 70.1 points per game on 45.4% shooting from the field, 38.0% shooting from 3-point range, and 77.4% shooting from the foul line. They average 37.9 rebounds, 15.8 assists, 5.4 steals, 2.7 blocks, and 13.7 turnovers per game. They also average a +8.1 rebound margin and a +0.1 turnover margin per game. Their opponents average 58.4 points per game on 39.6% shooting from the field, 29.7% shooting from 3-point range, and 67.8% shooting from the foul line.

Keys to the game: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is come out with the right energy. At SMU, they got down 10-0 within the first two minutes and were playing catchup the rest of the night. If they can get off to a better start and either get an early lead or at least be tied within the first few minutes, that’ll really help. They cannot expect to win this game if they get off to another cold start.

The second thing Stanford needs to do is create open looks from the perimeter. While they don’t want to live by the three and die by the three, in some respects perimeter shooting is a strength that Stanford needs to make the most of. If they can get good looks for each other from beyond the arc, that’ll go a long ways towards stealing this game.

Finally, Stanford needs to hold their own inside. Nunu Agara has been great for Stanford, but she’s really the only forward they got that bangs inside. At least among those that are in the regular rotation. If Stanford can keep it tight on the glass and not get bullied inside, that more than anything could make the difference.

Prediction: I’m not going to lie. This is a tough one. Clemson beat a very good Cal team who beat Stanford easily. In that sense, it’s easy to pick Clemson. On the other hand, I think Stanford is a team that knows they are better than how they’ve been playing. That loss at LSU just seemed to suck the life out of them for some reason. They were looking ok up until then. I’ll roll the dice a bit and say Stanford wins by a final score of 72-71. I think this will be close with the Cardinal escaping with a win.

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