Tag: Stanford women’s Basketball

One final legendary Pac-12 moment: Tara VanDerveer becomes all-time basketball wins leader

Tara VanDerveer of Stanford passed Coach K with 1,203 wins, the most Division I wins for any basketball coach, ever.

The Pac-12 is a dying conference. In the next college sports cycle, several current Pac-12 schools will be in the Big Ten Conference. Others will go to the Big 12. Oregon State and Washington State, technically Pac-12 schools, will play Mountain West opponents in football and West Coast Conference opponents in basketball. There isn’t much time left for Pac-12 schools, teams, coaches, and athletes to achieve Pac-12 milestones. One Stanford legend notched a big feat before Stanford leaves for the ACC in several months. Tara VanDerveer now stands alone.

VanDerveer scored her 1,203rd career Division I victory on Sunday afternoon when Stanford beat Oregon State, 65-56. VanDerveer passed Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski — Coach K — for the top spot on the all-time Division I basketball wins list.

VanDerveer has won three national championships at Stanford and reached 14 Final Fours. At the age of 70, she now has an achievement reflective of the marriage of her longevity and excellence.

Notable about this win: Stanford won without injured star Cameron Brink, who got hurt Friday against Oregon. VanDerveer had to make adjustments for this game and get an altered lineup ready to play against a good Oregon State team which is likely to make the NCAA Tournament.

In her record-breaking win, VanDerveer reminded everyone how great she is, a fitting tribute to a coach who has dotted her Is, crossed her Ts, minded her Ps and Qs, and who has now eclipsed Coach K.

Thankfully, the Pac-12 — not the ACC — was able to fully claim this special college basketball milestone at Stanford.

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Pac-12 women’s basketball report: Stanford hammers cold-shooting Cal by 27 in league opener

Pac-12 women’s basketball is off and running, with Stanford playing lockdown defense.

With the USC Trojans being unbeaten and ranked in the top five of the country heading into Pac-12 play, we’re going to devote more time and space to Pac-12 women’s basketball this season, especially with USC men’s hoops struggling as profoundly as it is.

It will be worth checking in on the rest of the Pac-12 to constantly measure other women’s basketball teams against each other, including USC.

As we noted on Friday afternoon, Pac-12 teams went 117-20 in nonconference games, a winning percentage higher than 85. Now that Pac-12 teams will play each other, we will constantly need to see which teams’ glossy nonconference records were indicators of elite strength, and which teams were merely good enough to win out of conference but not nearly good enough to hang with the best of the Pac-12.

We got a small first indicator of these relative levels of quality on Friday afternoon’s first Pac-12 game of the weekend. Stanford went to Berkeley and crushed Cal, 78-51. Stanford’s defense was in full lockdown mode, holding Cal to 4-of-31 3-point shooting. The Bears made just 18 of 68 field goals, 26.5 percent. Cal was 10-2 in nonconference play. The Golden Bears might be one of the Pac-12 teams which will sink to the lower half of the conference in what should be an arena of cutthroat competition.

Stanford — not picked to win the Pac-12 this year, a rarity in the Tara VanDerveer era — has a lot to prove. Crushing Cal by 27 doesn’t mean the Cardinal are ready to win the Pac-12, but it does suggest they should be very much in the hunt and can’t be written off.

We’ll have much more women’s basketball coverage this weekend and on into 2024 here at Trojans Wire. We will follow USC, but also USC’s competition in a loaded Pac-12. Stay with us for a wild ride!

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Stanford’s Lauren Betts, No. 1 recruit in Class of 2022, enters transfer portal

Betts is leaving Stanford after one season with the Cardinal. It’s a seismic development in women’s college hoops.

The women’s college basketball transfer portal has provided some explosive developments over the past 48 hours. A number of high-profile players who were expected to be centerpiece components of 2024 rosters have entered the portal, greatly changing the balance of power in the sport for the coming season.

We can already say that the power structure has changed as a result of these moves if only because the teams on the wrong side of these moves will be greatly hurt unless they can somehow come up with equal replacements (maybe swapping players in essence, though of course trades don’t generally exist in college sports).

The balance of power will continue to change when these various high-level transfers announce their destinations.

Arguably the biggest transfer announcement on Friday came from Stanford center Lauren Betts. The former No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2022 spent one season with Tara VanDerveer in Palo Alto and wanted a change of scenery.

This obviously hurts Stanford a great deal and thereby makes the Pac-12 a lot more wide open. USC’s place in the Pac-12 will be shaped by future portal developments. We will discuss some of the possibilities attached to Betts and other elite transfers in future articles, so stay tuned.

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Stanford clinches share of Pac-12 title with double-OT win in Colorado

Stanford overcame Colorado and a lot of hardships to win a big late-season game. This is where #USC wants to be in the future.

The USC Trojans are on a journey toward greatness. Lindsay Gottlieb and assistant coach Beth Burns have the Women of Troy on the right track. USC is ahead of schedule, reaching the NCAA Tournament in Year 2 of Gottlieb’s tenure. Top national recruit Juju Watkins will enter the program next season. Some transfer additions should make the roster even better. USC is on its way up.

The Trojans realize, however, that attaining elite status requires a combination of elite quality and elite toughness.

The Trojans have the elite toughness. Stanford shows what elite quality looks like. This is what USC wants to become. This is where USC wants to go.

Stanford overcame No. 21 Colorado on Thursday afternoon to clinch a share of the Pac-12 regular-season championship.

Buffaloes Wire noted how much of a fight Colorado gave to Stanford:

“After taking a 19-5 lead midway through the second quarter, CU had an opportunity to put away Stanford, which began the game 1-for-21 from the field. But the Cardinal corrected their offensive woes and surpassed the Buffs early in the third quarter.

“While the final score was disappointing, the Buffs should hold their heads high knowing that they took the No. 3 team in the country to double overtime. Especially on defense, Colorado proved once again that it can play with the best in the country.

“The Buffs will look to build some momentum heading into the Pac-12 Tournament.”

Stanford had to deal with the nightmarish start and a tough Colorado team. The Cardinal also had to deal with a late arrival in Boulder due to nasty weather conditions. The Cardinal didn’t have a pregame shootaround.

They were also playing this game early Thursday afternoon (2 p.m. Pacific time) after playing a rare Monday night game against UCLA.

A normal Pac-12 game schedule usually involves a Sunday afternoon game, then a Friday night game for the next homestand or road trip. Stanford had a Monday-Thursday schedule, with the Thursday game being an early tip. The UCLA game was tough, intense, close, and draining. It was easy to imagine a scenario in which the Cardinal had nothing in the tank for Colorado.

Moreover, Stanford star Cameron Brink scored only eight points, snapping a 21-game streak with 10 or more points. She fouled out in the first overtime period.

Everything went against Stanford.

Yet, the Cardinal still won.

That’s championship mettle. That’s elite toughness and quality depth coming to the surface, with backup big Lauren Betts giving Stanford huge minutes off the bench and Fran Belibi providing some worker-bee minutes at both ends of the floor. Haley Jones played all 50 minutes and gave Tara VanDerveer 23 points, 11 rebounds, and 7 assists.

USC played Stanford tough in two meetings this season. Viewed solely through that prism, the Trojans are close to the Cardinal.

However, where USC clearly falls short of the Stanford standard is in the full journey through a season. USC did not challenge itself in nonconference games, whereas Stanford takes on tough teams, including No. 1 South Carolina and Tennessee this season.

USC will finish in the middle of the Pac-12. Stanford will finish tied for first, showing the consistency USC is close to attaining, but hasn’t found just yet.

Lindsay Gottlieb can point to Stanford’s win over Colorado and tell her USC players, “That’s the team we want to become.”

It will be fascinating to see how quickly USC can rise to the Stanford standard.

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Stanford beats UCLA, setting up the biggest games of the Pac-12 season

Stanford leads Utah by one game and Colorado by two. The Cardinal go to Boulder on Thursday, Salt Lake City on Saturday.

This was a great week for Stanford women’s basketball. The Cardinal beat USC on Friday and then survived UCLA in another hard-fought game on Monday night.

Stanford’s 71-66 win over UCLA brought the Cardinal one step closer to the Pac-12 championship. Stanford, 14-2 in the Pac-12, established a one-game lead over 13-3 Utah and a two-game lead over 12-4 Colorado.

Stanford’s 2-0 week was combined with Utah and Colorado both losing in Tucson to the Arizona Wildcats. The Cardinal entered the week tied with Utah and just one game ahead of Colorado, so they gained ground heading into the final weekend of the Pac-12 regular season.

Stanford visits Colorado on Thursday and then goes to Utah on Saturday.

Colorado is almost certainly out of the Pac-12 title race. If Utah beats 10th-place Cal on Thursday, Colorado will be eliminated no matter what else happens. This is because Utah plays Stanford on Saturday. One of the two teams will win. That team will have no more than three conference losses. Colorado has four, so even if the Buffs beat Stanford on Thursday, a Utah win over Cal puts the Utes and Stanford at 14-3 with CU at 13-4.

Stanford’s win over UCLA also means that even if Stanford does lose to Colorado on Thursday, the Cardinal can win the outright Pac-12 title with a win over Utah on Saturday. Stanford can clinch a share of the Pac-12 title with a win over Colorado. That game will be on Thursday afternoon, a few hours before USC plays the CU men’s team in Boulder.

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Pac-12 women’s basketball report: Arizona helped Stanford in a big way

Arizona beat Utah on Friday, then Colorado on Sunday. Colorado probably lost its chance to share the Pac-12 title.

Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer won her third national championship by beating Adia Barnes and the Arizona Wildcats in the 2021 national title game in San Antonio. VanDerveer might want to send Barnes a gift one week from now if Stanford is able to win the Pac-12 championship. Arizona just made Stanford’s path to the title a lot more manageable.

Arizona, which beat Utah on Friday, turned around and hammered Colorado on Sunday. Buffaloes Wire has more on the story:

“The No. 21 Colorado Buffaloes just can’t seem to figure out how to beat ranked teams on the road,” Tony Cosolo wrote. “Sunday’s test came in the form of the No. 18 Arizona Wildcats and CU was less than stellar, losing 61-42. With that loss, CU dropped to 21-6 on the season and a concerning 0-4 when playing ranked teams on the road.

“Shooting woes and turnovers were the main pain points for the Buffaloes, as Colorado shot only 28% from the field and turned the ball over 20 times en route to its lowest scoring output of the season. The Buffaloes jumped out to a 9-5 lead in the first quarter, but Arizona went on a 12-1 run to close out the quarter and never looked back.”

Stanford heads into a Monday night home game versus UCLA with a chance to maintain the outright lead in the Pac-12 heading into the final week of the regular season.

Before this past weekend of games, Stanford was tied with Utah and just one game ahead of Colorado. Now the Cardinal lead Utah by one game in the loss column and Colorado by two. If Stanford beats UCLA, the Trees will have a one-game lead over the Utes, two over the Buffaloes.

With Stanford visiting Colorado and Utah on the final weekend of the season, the Cardinal (in the event of a win over UCLA) would just need to split to guarantee a share of the Pac-12 title. If they beat Utah, they will win the league outright no matter what else happens.

Colorado isn’t officially eliminated from the Pac-12 title chase, but the chances are slim to none for the Buffs. If Stanford beats UCLA on Monday night, Colorado would need Utah to lose at home to California to have any chance of sharing the Pac-12 title. Utah beating Cal means that even if Colorado defeats Stanford, the Utes and Cardinal would enter their big showdown ahead of Colorado. Since one of Utah or Stanford would win that game, CU couldn’t catch the winner. It would catch the loser, but not both. CU needed to beat Arizona to stay in the title hunt, but it didn’t.

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USC women’s basketball goes for improbable sweep of Stanford

#USC WBB faces Stanford once again. No one expects the Trojans to win, which gives them a chance to play with house money.

The USC Trojans women’s basketball team is back in the AP top 25 for the first time since 2016 and Lindsay Gottlieb’s team appears headed to the NCAA Tournament.

The Trojans shocked the world by defeating Stanford at the Galen Center last month, and now USC gets another opportunity to score an upset against the same Cardinal team.

However, this time the game is in Palo Alto on Friday night. The 25th-ranked Trojans and third-ranked Stanford Cardinal face off.

Coming into this game, Stanford has won two in a row since losing to Washington on the road. One of those wins was against fellow top-25 Pac-12 school Arizona, in an 84-60 blowout. The Cardinal then blew out Arizona State by 32, so the Cardinals are playing well entering this game,

Since the USC game, Stanford has just one loss.

USC has won two in a row since a tight loss to Arizona, and the Trojans have won four of their last six games entering this one as they try to make a run at a top-four seed in the Pac-12 Tournament, which would bring a first-round bye.

In USC’s shocking win against Stanford, the Cardinal scored just 46 points; that happens to be the only game this year when Stanford failed to score 60 or more points.

If Lindsay Gottlieb’s team wants to upset Stanford again, the defense needs to do its job, and Palo Alto is not an easy place to play — Stanford’s only home loss this season came to No. 1 South Carolina.

No one expects USC to win here, but playing with house money gives Gottlieb and USC a chance to tinker with some lineup combinations and learn more about her bench. With Sunday’s game in Berkeley against Cal being very important for NCAA Tournament seeding purposes, this game against Stanford could give USC a chance to reduce starter minutes, increase bench minutes, and provide a change of pace before the Pac-12 and NCAA Tournaments.

Let’s see if USC can shock the world once again.

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Pac-12 basketball report: Stanford beats Colorado to regain sole possession of first place

When Stanford lost to USC, the Cardinal no longer had first place all to themselves in the Pac-12. Now they do again, after sweeping Utah and Colorado.

USC might have helped Stanford become better as a team. The Cardinal, after losing to Lindsay Gottlieb’s Trojans one week ago, were freshly humbled. The 55-46 loss to USC came out of nowhere, but it certainly transformed the Trojans’ season. USC is now an NCAA Tournament contender with better-than-even odds of making the field.

That game might have transformed Stanford’s season as well.

The Cardinal were very alert, attentive and forceful in two double-digit wins over nationally-ranked opponents this past weekend in Palo Alto. Stanford handled No. 8 Utah by 12 on Friday in Maples Pavilion. The Trees then stopped No. 24 Colorado by 13 on Sunday afternoon.

What made the effort all the more impressive for Stanford was that guard Talana Lepolo was out with an injury. The Cardinal persisted and played stellar defense in both games.

Stanford is now 7-1, all alone atop the Pac-12. The Cardinal lost sole possession of first place when they fell to USC. The Trees got back on track and moved ahead of the two mountain schools and UCLA, which are all 6-2 in the conference.

UCLA won at Washington State on Sunday. Utah won at Cal. Arizona won at Arizona State.

USC is tied for fifth in the conference with Arizona at 5-3.

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Pac-12 basketball roundup: Stanford beats Utah in top-10 clash, UCLA rallies to beat Washington

These are great results for USC, which beat Stanford and wants the value of that win to remain high. USC lost 2X to UCLA. The Bruins winning is good in this case.

The other Pac-12 women’s basketball results from Friday night gave the USC Trojans good news.

First, since USC beat Stanford, the Trojans obviously want that win over the Cardinal to gain maximum value. This means that if Stanford is a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament as opposed to a No. 2 or 3 seed, USC will benefit more from that huge upset.

Friday night, No. 4 Stanford beat No. 8 Utah to take a big step toward staying on the one line as a projected top seed for March Madness. The Cardinal won an all-top-10 matchup to remain in first place in the conference. Stanford hosts Colorado on Sunday. The Buffaloes are 6-1 in the league. The winner will be first in the Pac-12 with one week left in January.

Notable: Stanford freshman point guard Talana Lepolo injured her ankle early in the game. She wore a protective boot after the injury, which caused her to miss most of the contest against Utah. This would seem to mean she will miss the Colorado game, so Stanford will be tested without a primary ball-handler.

In other Pac-12 results, UCLA trailed by nine at halftime but rallied to beat Washington in Seattle, 51-47. The Bruins beat USC twice, so as much as USC fans might not like to see UCLA win, in this case, the Bruins’ victory is unambiguously a good thing for the Trojans. USC does want those two UCLA losses to look better, not worse, as the season goes along.

A reminder: USC’s four losses are all to ranked teams: UCLA twice, Oregon once, Texas once.

Speaking of Oregon, one bad thing did happen to USC on Friday, though the Stanford and UCLA wins will minimize its negative effects: Oregon, one of USC’s few losses, did stumble. The Ducks lost at Oregon State and likely won’t be in the top 25 next week. Still, on balance, Pac-12 results from Friday, Jan. 20 were very good for USC women’s basketball.

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USC women’s basketball moves into projected NCAA Tournament field after huge win over Stanford

ESPN women’s bracketologist Charlie Creme moved #USC into his projected NCAA Tournament field. Catch up with all the news and notes after USC beat Stanford.

This is how you know something big has happened, and that the game has changed for USC women’s basketball.

The Trojans are now a projected NCAA Tournament team after taking down No. 2 Stanford and dealing the Cardinal their second loss of the season. Stanford’s only other loss was to No. 1 South Carolina, the defending national champion.

All jokes aside about Stanford being unable to beat USC — either the one in Columbia, South Carolina, or the one in Los Angeles — the Trojans did vault past a lot of bubble teams and moved into the field with a win over a projected No. 1 seed. Stanford is still a No. 1 seed and would need to lose at least one more game, probably two, to risk losing that seeding position.

Beating a No. 1 seed is as good a bubble win as it gets. USC’s projection as an NCAA Tournament team, which you will see below from an ESPN bracketologist, is not an overreaction to the win over Stanford.

The other really good sign for USC’s NCAA tourney prospects: The Pac-12 is so deep in women’s basketball that USC will have other chances to notch high-value wins and keep moving up the board. As long as the Trojans win the games they are supposed to win, merely picking off two or three more high-end wins should be enough to get them into the field.

Here’s the ESPN projection below, accompanied by a lot of other news items, statistics, notes, and team reactions: