Published Apr 5, 2021
Rebounding, defense and Jones countered Arizona's superb effort
Jacob Rayburn  •  CardinalSportsReport
Publisher

Arizona made almost everything difficult for Stanford on offense and the rhythm-less Cardinal had to grind their way to a 54-53 national championship victory. Stanford's depth of talent and also of its resilience were ultimately too much for Arizona.

Adia Barnes and her Wildcats were well prepared to take away what Stanford likes to do and that was clear by how little success Stanford had setting anything up off the ball. The Cardinal regularly were denied the type of passing lanes that so often leave a defender spinning to watch a Stanford player cutting to the rim for a layup.

Arizona's effectiveness on defense was helped by a migraine-inducing 21 turnovers by the Cardinal — many of which looked like textbook examples of players pressing to make a play that wasn't there to be made. What saved Stanford was that many of those turnovers didn't lead to a chance for Arizona to score in transition. The Wildcats only had a 12-7 edge in points off turnovers and 11-7 in fast-break points.

The Wildcats also got many more foul calls to go their way than Stanford managed for themselves. Arizona went to the free throw line 18 times, and made 13, but Stanford only attempted two for the whole game. The turnovers and the whistles consistently going against them might have frustrated most teams into shutting down, but the Cardinal were able to tap into the many different options they have to win a game.

Stanford combatted Arizona's tough defensive effort with one of its own and multiple defenders collaborated to make Aari McDonald as inefficient as her last two games against Stanford. She came into the game making 52% of her shots in the tournament but made only 26% in her previous two games against Stanford. Anna Wilson, Lexie Hull and Kiana Williams all took turns trying to stay in front of the lightning quick lefty.

McDonald made only five of 20 shot attempts and even though she scored 22 points her performance was not nearly as impactful as in wins over Texas A&M and UConn. Barnes tried to counter Stanford's scout-defense by having McDonald play off the ball so they could set up the action to get her looks dribbling to her left, but Tara VanDerveer had instructed the Cardinal bigs that if McDonald reached the paint they needed to converge to help. The result was a series of more difficult shots than McDonald would have liked to try.

Arizona needed big-time performances from several role players if they were going to get enough offense to win, but Stanford took Sam Thomas and Cate Reese out of the game. Thomas is one of their best three-point shooters but was held to zero points and Reese scored four points and was so ineffective that she played just 16 minutes.

While Stanford's 21 turnovers led to only a slight advantage in points off turnovers for Arizona, it kept Stanford leashed to the Wildcats and always within reach of a scoring run.

But often when Arizona got close they were undone by Stanford's rebounding. They grabbed nine offensive rebounds and the Cardinal converted those rebounds into an 11-0 advantage in second-chance points.

Stanford dominated the boards in a way you'd expect with Cameron Brink, Ashten Prechtel, Haley Jones, Lexie Hull and others chipping in. Hull had 10 rebounds, Jones and Prechtel each had eight. Brink had four. When Stanford's bigs got into trouble senior Alyssa Jerome was the bridge spanning the time they were on the bench and she had four rebounds.

Kiana Williams had arguably the worst game of her career when she so badly wanted to shine in front of friends and family. Hull, Brink and Anna Wilson battled foul trouble and Hull and Wilson both took hard hits that left them a bit shaken for a time. For most teams it would be very difficult to overcome so many challenges to four of its starters, but not when the fifth starter is Haley Jones.

She scored 17 points and her three-point play to put Stanford up 54-50 should be remembered by Cardinal fans for a very long time because of its importance and very high level of difficulty.

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Jones was named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player in large part because her personality allowed her to remain calm when nerves were an issue for her teammates. Jones has a carefree attitude on the court and can often be seen laughing off a mistake. It turns out that approach is a good way to shoot 19-of-28 in the Final Four and score 41 total points.

In the end, Stanford had enough skilled players to overcome what Arizona was able to take away and the resilience of the team couldn't be shaken.