On Sunday, #4 Stanford women’s basketball defeated #7 UCLA by a final score of 80-60. Stanford senior forward Cameron Brink led the way for the Cardinal with 19 points, 19 rebounds, and seven blocks while junior forward Kiki Iriafen had 18 points and seven rebounds. UCLA guards Londynn Jones and Charisma Osborne each had 13 points for the Bruins. Stanford improves to 20-3 overall and 9-2 in the Pac-12 while UCLA falls to 17-4 overall and 6-4 in the Pac-12. As a result of their respective weekends, Stanford has fallen to #6 while UCLA has fallen to #9 in the latest AP Top 25 Polls.
BOX SCORE: UCLA at Stanford-Sunday, February 4th
VIDEO: Stanford WBB Postgame Press Conference | UCLA
“Well, a lot better from the last time I was here,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said after the game, referencing their Friday loss to USC. “I really think Cam and Kiki, they just put the team on their back and really ran offense and what great numbers, too. I mean Cam eight-for-ten, nineteen points, twenty rebounds, I guess it says nineteen [rebounds] on this one, on the other one it said twenty. Kiki: eight-for-sixteen, eighteen points, one assist, no turnovers; this is the foundation of our team and I thought Talana played really well defensively.
“Charisma Osborne is a tremendous player. UCLA has an excellent team and this is a great win for us. Different people came in for us. Hannah played a solid game, I thought Nunu came in and contributed, Jzaniya making big shots, Elena three-for-three, I think one of our highest field goal percentages for a while. So, running offense, we get good shots, and that was good. We played defense, they’re an excellent rebounding team, we outrebounded them, so we’re very excited.”
Stanford got off to a strong start leading 9-2 with 7:35 to go in the 1st quarter. Hannah Jump was up to five points for the Cardinal. Stanford was shooting 4-4 from the field, doing a good job of getting good looks.
Stanford would lead 21-12 at the end of the 1st quarter. Kiki Iriafen was up to eight points for the Cardinal while Osborne had 10 points for the Bruins. Stanford was shooting 9-13 from the field while UCLA was shooting 5-20. Without Lauren Betts, the Bruins were having a tough time getting going inside.
Stanford continued to be on cruise control as they led 27-12 with 7:46 to go in the 2nd quarter. UCLA called for time. Iriafen was up to 12 points for the Cardinal on 5-7 shooting from the field while Brink had six points, five rebounds, and two blocks.
At halftime, Stanford led 45-27. Iriafen was up to 14 points and four rebounds while Nunu Agara was up to six points after making a bucket inside to beat the buzzer. The Cardinal were cooking with gas. As for UCLA, Osborne was leading them with 13 points and three rebounds. She was doing her part but needing to get a little help from her friends.
Stanford would lead 53-29 with 4:54 to go in the 3rd quarter after a bucket inside by Brink. All things continued to go the Cardinal’s way as UCLA was just not bringing the fight.
“Yeah, I mean, we practiced, we were like we’re gonna run our offense, we’re not gonna go haywire, and it worked,” Brink said. “So, I think it’s simple. We just listened to Tara. She knows what she’s doing, I guess.”
At the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford led 64-41. Brink was up to 15 points, 13 rebounds, and four blocks while Iriafen was up to 14 points and six rebounds. Jump was also in double figures with 10 points. UCLA was starting to fall apart as they were clearly missing the presence of Betts along with a couple other players that were overseas playing in Olympic qualifiers. They were only dressing eight players, making it tough to always have fresh legs on the floor.
In the 4th quarter, UCLA finally outscored Stanford in a quarter 19-16, but that was largely due to it being garbage time the entire quarter. Stanford ended up walking out with an 80-60 victory. They dominated UCLA from the opening tip. A UCLA team that had smoked Cal by the same margin just two nights before with basically the same available roster. A big reason for the difference in UCLA’s performance was Stanford’s ability to hold Osborne to 13 points. She lit Cal up like Sather Tower on Friday with 32 points. Stanford made sure that didn’t happen to them. Especially since they were coming off a game in which JuJu Watkins dropped 51 points on them.
“Talana. Talana works extremely hard, she takes pride in her defense,” VanDerveer said of the key to slowing Osborne down. “You know other people I think were very active in helping trap and switch when we needed to. I mean Cam, I didn’t see how many blocks, seven blocks, I mean they bring stuff in there and she knocked it away. So, but Talana worked extremely hard defensively. So did Hannah Jump. Because both, especially Londynn Jones and Charisma are excellent players.”
For Stanford, this is a huge win. After dropping a frustrating game against USC on Friday, they needed to get back in the win column and so to do in dominating fashion is big. Brink and Iriafen took the team on their back and delivered the goods. They showed why they are the best low-post duo in the nation and did so in front of a sellout crowd of 7,207.
“Well, you know, I think for us most important thing honestly is that our team, after a loss, our team didn’t throw anybody under the bus,” VanDerveer said. “No one liked it. We were all very disappointed. I just, I mean I personally took it really hard just because I just felt like I hadn’t done a good enough job and so I really talked to Cam and Kiki about helping us run our offense and the first couple plays you could just see they were totally locked in, doing the right thing, we scored, we scored, we scored. And then they took a time out.
“And basketball is going to be a game of runs, but I just think it shows how first of all how coachable these players are and how they are about the big picture and that they wanna do things that will help our team be successful and they were being great leaders. So, I talked to them individually today. Yesterday a little bit we went through, when we watched video, it was not pretty. But you know, sometimes you just have to just have to go with that loss and make it better. We played a lot better today.”
“Yeah, I think just instilling that confidence in us,” Brink added of what VanDerveer’s message was. “Because I mean Kiki, you’re an all-American this year whether you like it or not and I’ve, like we’re both all-Americans and you know, we should be confident in what we can do. So, she’s just instilled that confidence in us and just reminded us that we can run offense better and facilitate more for our teammates as well.”
As for UCLA, this was a frustrating game for them. Even though they were shorthanded, they still could have put up a better fight. UCLA head coach Cori Close didn’t mince words when talking about her disappointment in her team.
“Bottom line is we got out-toughed, we got out-executed, we got out-togethered, and credit to Stanford, they made that happen,” Close said after the game. “We didn’t respond. We didn’t execute the scouting report. We didn’t do the things that we needed to do and we got some hard choices that need to be made coming up. Obviously Stanford is a really good team and we have a lot of respect for them, but I know what my team has in them and we did not play to character today. We gotta take responsibility for that and go back to the drawing board.”
Up next for Stanford is a road game at Washington on Friday, February 9th. That game will tipoff at 7:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Bay Area.
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