On Friday, #2 Stanford women’s basketball defeated Cal at home by a final score of 90-69. Haley Jones (21 points, 10 rebounds, & 4 assists) and Hannah Jump (17 points) led the way for the Cardinal while Jayda Curry (20 points & 3 assists) and Leilani McIntosh (17 points, 4 rebounds, & 3 assists) were the top performers for the Golden Bears. Stanford improves to 13-1 overall and 1-0 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 9-3 overall and 0-1 in the Pac-12.
“Well first of all Happy Holidays everyone and this makes it happier for us when we play well and everyone got a chance to get in the game heading into the four-day break that we have,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said in her opening remarks. “Our team, I thought we played really well in spurts and one of the spurts we played really really well in was when Fran and Ashten were in there together and just moving the ball, getting good shots. This is a, I think this is really challenging for really a lot of different people on our team because trying to figure out our rotation. We don’t have it figured out yet.
“I just wanna give a shout out to both Fran and Ashten. First of all yesterday they, because they can do it, they did Cal stuff. We only had really one day to prepare. And they’re smart, they’re totally invested in their team, and they did a great job and then today, knowing what we did and I thought they came in and did really really well. We need both of them to go where we need to go. We need their leadership, their unselfishness, and just keeping healthy.
“A game like this is really great for us to get some experience for some of our young players. I thought Lauren got some really valuable minutes. Indya, Elena, Agnes, and the, kind of the team-first mentality is by these two people next to me.”
Stanford got off to a strong start, leading 9-3 with 7:45 to go in the 1st quarter. Haley Jones had 4 points, getting in a nice flow. With 3:50 to go in the quarter it was a 16-10 lead for Stanford as Cal was hanging around. Stanford would then go on a 6-0 run to lead 22-10 with 2:04 to go in the quarter. Four of those points came from Francesca Belibi while Talana Lepolo had a nice jumper in the paint.
At the end of the 1st quarter, it was a 28-15 lead for Stanford as Belibi was up to 6 points. She was making a real impact on Stanford’s ability to gain further separation. After playing Stanford tough for much of the quarter, Cal now found themselves down by double digits.
“Yeah, obviously it was a rough day on The Farm for us,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said. “Stanford just really came out, punched us in the mouth to start. We had issues guarding them in transition and had issues finding the right shots on offense. But, fortunately we get to run it back on January 8th and take some time to go home, be with our families, and then come back and get ready for the rest of Pac-12 play.”
Stanford continued to expand their lead in the 2nd quarter. With 3:40 to go in the quarter, it was a 41-20 lead for Stanford as Lauren Betts had 6 points in a span of 71 seconds. She was a real spark for the Cardinal.
“I thought she did really well,” VanDerveer said of Betts. “Some of the games that we’ve played and Ashten and Fran I think would agree with this, they’re not post players that are easy to guard. Like Creighton, that’s very challenging to guard their, basically their 3s or 4s facing up. And I think this was more a traditional post game and I thought Lauren did really well. And again, it’s because someone like Ashten can space the floor, you were out with her a little bit, right? Did you play with Lauren? A little bit. But Ashten can space the floor or Fran’s helping Lauren every day in practice. Talking to her, mentoring her, getting her ready for what’s coming. So, it’s, she is a very special player and she’s very hard to guard. So, it’s just a matter of her understanding what we do and at her developing. But she is instant offense.”
At halftime, Stanford led 47-29. Jones was up to 14 points and 5 rebounds, doing a great job of pacing the Cardinal. As for Cal, McIntosh was their top scorer with 10 points. Curry had been held to just two points. Stanford, Lepolo in particular, was doing a great job of slowing her down.
“I thought she did very well,” VanDerveer said of Lepolo’s defense on Curry. “I thought she did very well. Talana is, honestly, I don’t know what our seniors think, but I think she’s amazing. We rarely ask our point guard to also have the toughest defensive assignment. Honestly, we never did that with Kiana. We rarely have done that and I think she’s really special.”
Stanford would lead 63-40 with 4:54 to go in the 3rd quarter. Jones had a nice hoop plus the harm. She was balling out with 19 points and 6 rebounds.
With 2:48 to go in the 3rd, Stanford led 63-44. Kiki Iriafen (9 points & 6 rebounds) and Hannah Jump (8 points) were both close to joining Haley Jones in double figures. Stanford continued to cruise.
At the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford led 68-48. Jump was now in double figures with 11 points after nailing a 3-pointer. McIntosh was leading the Bears with 15 points on 6-10 shooting from the field, 2-2 shooting from 3-point range, and 1-1 shooting from the foul line.
With 4:45 to go in the game, Stanford led 82-55. Jones (21 points, 10 rebounds, & 4 assists) and Jump (17 points) were leading the Cardinal. McIntosh (17 points) was leading the Bears. After a rough first half, Curry was finally coming alive as well for the Bears as she was up to 11 points.
“I mean, we have games where we struggle in the first half, struggle in quarters, but just keeping the same mentality that the shots will eventually fall,” Curry said of the key to her strong second half. “I mean, I had teammates who were sitting there, telling me keep shooting, keep shooting. So, it’s never a thing of like okay, I’m going to stop shooting because I can’t hit a shot. Everybody keeps encouraging me they’re gonna fall, they’re gonna, keep shooting.”
In the end, Stanford walked out with a 90-69 victory. After building such a strong lead in the 1st quarter, Stanford pretty much was an auto pilot the rest of the way. Haley Jones had one of her most well-rounded performances of the season, Hannah Jump got going from 3-point range, and everyone else chipped in enough. To open up conference play with a win over Cal feels good. Especially with the Christmas break now here.
“I personally don’t like it,” VanDerveer said of playing Pac-12 games before Christmas. “I like to play all of our non-conference and then you have a break. And we have played, actually non-conference after Christmas. We used to play Connecticut after Christmas a lot. But, with the schedule this way, I think that what they’re trying to do is divide up the weekends so you’re not playing Friday-Sunday. And, I think this was a great game to have during the Christmas break, so maybe we’ll continue to do it. We got a great crowd, even though our students weren’t here. It was really a fun environment and so I think we took advantage of the opportunity to be playing and now our team is, earned and deserves a rest.”
As for Cal, it’s never fun to lose, but there were a lot of positives they can take from this game. McIntosh was fantastic, Curry had a strong performance and couldn’t be slowed down forever, and after getting down by a lot in the 1st quarter, Cal battled hard the rest of the way and didn’t fold. They feel like if they control what they can control, they can make this a much more competitive game in January when they rematch in Berkeley.
“It’s a positive thing that we can say we were horrendous offensively and we scored 69 points,” Smith said. “We can be a lot better. There are some things to take away from this that are encouraging and then at the same time this is the number two team in the country. It’s not just Stanford. This is a really good Stanford team and we have work to do to be at this level and I’m confident that we’ll get there.
“This is a point right here where I’m glad Stanford is our travel partner. I’m glad we played Stanford first. I think it’s like hey, this is the standard. This is the standard. And we have four days to think about it and adjust and then come back and be ready to play at that level and with the Arizonas being who we play next, I think it lines up well for us just to know we gotta compete. We got two top-20 teams in a row and that’s Pac-12 play, right? There aren’t many nights in which you have a weekend where you’re not playing someone who’s ranked. And so we’re excited about it. Before Christmas, after Christmas, we want to get wins in the Pac-12 and this one didn’t happen for us, so we’re gonna take our shot in the next time.
“And again, having not watched film, this is just all on feel, we gotta figure out a way to slow down Haley, we gotta figure out a way to have better transition defense, and we have to figure out a way to get better shots. And I say that with 69 points, right? But I do think there were a lot of times where we were forcing shots up against the trees and we gotta find better looks.
“We have expectations and the things that make me use a word like that [horrendous], because this is a really good team. Stanford. We can’t let Hannah Jump have wide open threes. We can’t forget to switch on a guard-to-guard screen with Hannah Jump and give her a three. Like, we had goals related to the scout, right? No back doors. They got a back door on us, okay? No threes for Hannah Jump off of certain actions. She got those things, right? Keeping their offensive rebounds under 10. They got 15, right?
"So if we had done all of those things and lost the game, then I would say yeah. Tara and Stanford and that’s great. But horrendous because we didn’t do the things we’re capable of doing. If we do everything we’re capable of doing and this team is just better than us, then that’s when there’s, then you just say okay and we move on.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Arizona State on New Year’s Eve. That will tipoff at 6:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Arizona and Varsity Network radio.
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