Recap: Cameron Brink and Jana Van Gytenbeek lift Stanford WBB past Arizona

On Sunday, #2 Stanford women’s basketball defeated #8 Arizona 75-69 at Maples Pavilion. A game when they were giving out Tara VanDerveer bobbleheads to the first 3,000 fans. Stanford sophomore forward Cameron Brink (25 points, 15 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 2 steals) and sophomore guard Jana Van Gytenbeek (career-high 18 points) led the way for the Cardinal while senior forward Cate Reese (17 points & 7 rebounds) and senior guard Shaina Pellington (16 points & 5 rebounds) were the top performers for the Wildcats. Stanford improves to 16-3 overall and 7-0 in the Pac-12 while Arizona falls to 15-3 overall and 5-3 in the Pac-12.

“Well, this is a great win for our team,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said after the game. “Arizona’s a really tough team. They’re very physical, they’re very talented, I think Adia does a great job with her team. But today I thought we had different people step up. Cam was awesome. Going 10 for 12, 15 rebounds, 25 points. She just had an awesome game and didn’t get in foul trouble. I thought changed some shots in there. Played really smart and then played really hard.

“And then, I shouldn’t say little, but our young Dutch woman came off the bench for us and gave us major major minutes. I’m really excited about how Jana played. She had been playing really well in practice and she’s been working really hard. It’s hard to get minutes in the game and then she was out for a little bit with an injury. But she’s back and we’re really glad she is. So, what a fantastic game Jana going 6 for 8 from three. 18 points. Matched her points all season in one game and there’s a lot more coming. So, this game really helps my confidence in her. I liked her defense. I liked how hard she was playing and she’s just going to build on it.”

Early on the game was tight as Stanford led 12-9 with 4:22 to go in the 1st quarter. Guard Lexie Hull and Cameron Brink each had 4 points for Stanford. Forward Sam Thomas was up to 5 points for Arizona.

At the end of the 1st quarter, Stanford led 17-16. Brink was up to 6 points and 5 rebounds, establishing herself early. As for Arizona, guard Bendu Yeaney was up to 5 points. Neither team was letting the other gain separation.

Early on in the 2nd quarter, Van Gytenbeek started to catch fire for Stanford as she was up to 9 points on 3-4 shooting from beyond the arc. Stanford now led 29-24 with 5:58 to go until halftime.

At halftime, Stanford led 41-33. Stanford guard Lacie Hull found forward Francesca Belibi cutting to the basket for a layup right before the buzzer sounded. That capped off a 7-0 Cardinal run. Van Gytenbeek (12 points) and Brink (10 points & 11 rebounds) led Stanford. Pellington’s 8 points was pacing Arizona.

To start the 3rd quarter, things continued to remain close as Stanford led 47-44 with 4:55 to go in the quarter. Brink (14 points & 11 rebounds) continued to lead the way for Stanford while Reese was heating up for Arizona with 15 points and 6 rebounds. Stanford had a 21-17 rebounding edge. Doing a great job on the boards.

At the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford led 55-46 after getting a huge defensive stop on the final possession. Fans were thumping their chairs in unison to give the defense support and it appeared to rattle Arizona enough that they missed the jumper that would have cut it to 7 points. This game continued to be the Brink and Van Gytenbeek show. Brink was up to 19 points, 14 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 2 steals. Van Gytenbeek was up to 15 points. Those two were really making the difference when Haley Jones and Lexie Hull were having off nights.

With 4:48 to go in the game, Stanford led 65-57. Van Gytenbeek was up to 18 points on 6-8 shooting from 3-point range. She truly had the green light in this one. No fear. Just letting it fly. Stanford was in a good spot. They just needed to finish strong.

“I was feeling good about my shot, my confidence is up since the last game,” Van Gytenbeek said. “And I’ve said this before, but I know Tara has a lot of faith in my 3-point shot as well as my teammates. And so, if they get me going and I’m open, I’m going to shoot it. Yeah, but they do a great job of getting it to me.”

Arizona would get within 4 points, but thanks to a clutch three from Lacie Hull and a couple of clutch buckets inside from Haley Jones and Cameron Brink, Stanford led 72-63 with 1:46 to go. VanDerveer brought Brink back in with 3 minutes and change to go and that really helped to shift the tide back in Stanford’s favor.

“I think we did pretty well I don’t know how many turnovers we had,” Brink said. “But yeah, I mean, our guards did a great job. Our guards have improved so much since the beginning of the year. They do a great job of getting it inside. So yeah, I wouldn’t wanna play with anybody else.”

With 32.6 to go, Stanford led 72-67 as Arizona had the ball. Thomas got a layup for Arizona followed by an offensive foul call on Jones, giving the ball back to Arizona. The Wildcats had a bit of life, but time was not on their side.

Cate Reese would pick up an offensive foul, giving Stanford the ball back. Cameron Brink would go to the foul line with 25.0 to go and make 1 of 2 foul shots, making it a 73-67 game. Haley Jones would get a clutch rebound which led to guard Anna Wilson going to the foul line. Wilson would go 1 of 2 as well, making it a 74-67 lead for Stanford with 20.5 to go. At this point, Stanford looked like they were going to hang on for sure.

In the end, Stanford walked out with a 75-69 victory. It was a little closer at the end than they would have liked, but they still have to feel good about how this one went overall. With Haley Jones and Lexie Hull not having their best performances and junior guard Hannah Jump still being out due to COVID protocols, Cameron Brink and Jana Van Gytenbeek came through in a big way.

“I really felt that we’ve been playing Hannah Jump too much,” VanDerveer said. “We’ve been playing Lexie and Lacie too much and Anna. So that adds, we had some real good minutes from different people. Agnes gave us some good minutes and Jordan in the Cal game. So it might be different people. But Jana really made a statement and how hard she played offensively, defensively, but knocking down her shot stretches the defense. It was really exciting for her.

“We had the one-two punch. The inside and the outside. I love it. I love it. On a day when some other people really kinda struggled based on how they’ve been playing all season. But we’ve got a long road ahead and it’s really exciting how Cam is stepping up and Jana, I’m saying, what a great weekend. Just a great weekend. So keep it going, girl!”

While this game was a rematch of last year’s national title game, with Kiana Williams gone from Stanford and Aari McDonald gone from Arizona, this one had a different flavor to it. Both teams have had to learn how to still play at a high level with both players gone and in many ways, it’s forced them to become better all-around teams.

“[Not having them changed things] a lot,” Arizona head coach Adia Barnes said of not having Williams and McDonald in this game. “Aari was All-American. So she was one of the best guards in the country and Kiana did a really good job of running this team. She was a really good point guard. I think it changed us. We’re different. But we’re still a good team. We just look a little bit different. I think if you look at our team, we’re better statistically. We’re better defensively statistically. We’re better offensively both just little things. I think the difference was Aari’s a real competitor and she was able to 40 minutes press the ball full court with a tremendous amount of pressure and take chances because she was so fast to get steals. Now we have Shaina doing that. It just looks a little different because of how fast, but we’re still a good team.

“And I think in a lot of ways we’re a better overall team with more balance. But we have to get tougher at some points in the game. Really bear down and get some stops when we need to. And we’re not there yet. But like I’m saying we weren’t there at this point last year. So this is to me, we’re almost in February, but we had a month hiatus. So to me, this is like the end of December how we typically are. We were way better from December to March last year. So we have to get better.”

“They’re a very athletic team,” VanDerveer said about this year’s Arizona team. “Pellington gives them a different dimension. But same kinda thing with Aari, though. She’s just going left and Aari went left and Pellington went left. Pellington’s a little bigger and maybe she doesn’t shoot the three as well. But, they run their same stuff with Pellington. They still have Sam Thomas, who’s a great player. Reese had a big game. So, basically Pellington and Reese were the ones you had to deal with. And then Yeaney hit a couple shots.

“They’re a top ten team and it's great for us to play against that. That’s the kind of games we’ve been playing with Tennessee, South Carolina. They’re a great team. We could be playing them again in the Pac-12 tournament. We stay healthy, they stay healthy, we’re both going to the NCAA tournament. We could be playing them again."

For Stanford, this win shows how much they’ve grown from earlier in the year when they lost to Texas in a similar type of atmosphere. To win this game in the way that they did really shows they’ve come a long way from November and that they’re starting to figure some things out.

“I think it just showed how much we’ve improved,” VanDerveer said. “An under-sung person that’s not sitting up here is Lacie. Lacie was aggressive, Lacie was coming down attacking the basket. Anna didn’t come out of the game. Our guards have really improved a lot and that’s what I think that fans that were, if they came to the game in November, they would see this today. How much improvement. Jana, Lacie, Anna. Who had never really played point guard because Kiana was our point guard all the time. Have really stepped up.

“Obviously you got a franchise player like Cam inside, they got the ball to her, and I thought today. I was really impressed with how Haley stayed with things. It wasn’t going her way, she was struggling from the field, she was struggling with the ball a little bit, but when we needed a basket, she delivered. That’s really exciting to see young players like that just stay with things. Not tank, not get upset. Our team showed, I thought great resilience.”

Up next for Stanford is a road game at UCLA on Thursday. That game will tip-off at 7:00 PM PT on ESPN2 and Varsity Network radio.

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