On Saturday at noon, Stanford women’s basketball will welcome the Clarke Pride out of Dubuque, Iowa to Maples Pavilion for an exhibition game. Clarke is an NAIA school.

For Stanford, this is a tune up to the regular season, which begins on Thursday (Veteran’s Day) when Morgan State comes to town. For Clarke, this is a chance to face off against the defending NCAA national champions and get a taste of what’s it like to play against the very best of the best.

Given that this is an exhibition game, there’s not really any “keys to the game” to write, but there are some things to look for. The first thing to look for is what starting lineup Tara VanDerveer decides to roll with. This may end up not meaning a whole lot since she is known to use a variety of starting lineups, but it’ll still give us a taste of where she’s leaning. Haley Jones, Lexie Hull, and Cameron Brink likely can be counted on to start, but the other two spots appear to be up for grabs and to change by the night. So, how VanDerveer rounds out that starting five is something to look for.

The second thing to look for is the freshmen: Elena Bosgana, Brooke Demetre, Jzaniya Harriel, and Kiki Iriafen. It’s hard to say how many minutes they’ll get in the regular season, but this will be a game where they should get at least a bit of a run. It’ll be interesting to see what types of contributions they all make and how they look in their first game at Maples, even if it is an exhibition. As an extension of that, it’ll also be interesting to see what grad transfer Jordan Hamilton looks like and how well she gels with her new teammates. She’ll be tasked with playing the same veteran point guard role that Kiana Williams had last year.

Finally, just in general, it’s our first look at the team this season even if it is in exhibition format. They’re returning nearly everyone from last year, so in that sense, there isn’t really a whole lot of new information to glean from this game. But still, there could be little details that stand out like foul shooting, players adding something to their game, etc. With every season, there’s something unique to every team. Saturday’s exhibition will give us our first look at Stanford and how they’ve developed over the course of the offseason.