The Stanford women’s basketball team looks to continue its torrid play this weekend when it heads north to take on Washington and Washington State in two Pac-10 matchups.
The No. 4 Cardinal (12-2, 3-0 Pac-10) has been unstoppable lately, but the trip to Washington is the first time the Card has been out of the Bay Area since Dec. 19. Conference road trips are never easy, but the Huskies and the Cougars have both had their struggles in the first half of the season.
The Huskies (6-7, 1-3) have had an up-and-down season so far, as they beat a tough Utah team in Salt Lake City early in December, but faltered with three straight losses to Georgia Tech, UCLA and USC before regaining their form last week.
Washington is coming off a split with the Oregon schools, including an improbable rally to beat Oregon State. The Beavers built a 13-point lead with less than six minutes left in the game, and looked like they would cruise to a victory until the Huskies reeled off a 16-0 run to steal the game, 55-52.
Despite 21 points from junior guard Kristi Kingma, Washington was unable to complete the weekend sweep and fell to Oregon, 68-64. Kingma has been a force for the Huskies this year, averaging 17.0 points per game. However, she will pose problems for the Cardinal on both ends of the floor, as her defense remains among the strongest in the conference.
Washington State (3-13, 1-3) also appears to be rounding the curve after dropping seven straight in December. After starting the Pac-10 season with losses to USC and UCLA, the Cougars had an offensive explosion of 10 three-pointers in a 77-72 loss to Oregon, and then battled hard down the stretch to pull out a 58-50 victory over Oregon State. The win over the Beavers was the first victory for the Cougars since Dec. 5.
The Cougars have a trio of scorers who average over 10 points per game in redshirt freshman Ireti Amojo, freshman Sage Romberg and junior Jazmine Perkins. Perkins, a Berkeley native, scored a season-high 24 points in the loss to Oregon, and Romberg notched 21 against Oregon State.
On the other side of the ball, a strong road trip may be just what the doctor ordered for the Cardinal, as the team has struggled this season when it has strayed too far from the Bay.
The Cardinal scraped out two single-digit victories on a trip to Utah and Gonzaga earlier this year, then had its only two losses of the season in back-to-back defeats at DePaul and at Tennessee. After the overtime loss in Knoxville, Stanford has only played two road games—at San Francisco and Cal.
The Cardinal has never lost to Washington State, taking a 50-0 mark into this weekend, and the Huskies haven’t beaten the Card in their last nine tries. Stanford has won its last three games by a combined 113 points, including an 82-35 thumping of Arizona State.
According to Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer, this stretch of play shows how the Card is thriving.
“I really feel like nothing succeeds like success for our team,” VanDerveer said. “We’re playing very confidently.”
The Cardinal’s surge of late can be attributed to several factors, and the stellar play of junior forward Nneka Ogwumike has been critical to the team’s success.
Ogwumike has had three double-doubles this season against ranked teams, and if the tall Texan pulls off a repeat performance of last week, the Cardinal has little reason to be concerned when it heads up to Seattle and Pullman. She had a nearly perfect weekend, going 19-for-28 from the floor, grabbing 16 rebounds and pouring in 40 points in two games.
The defending Pac-10 player of the year is averaging 17.2 points and 8.4 rebounds per game, and was recently named to the midseason Wooden Award watch list, along with teammate Kayla Pedersen. Pedersen, a senior forward, also averages more than eight rebounds a game, in addition to 11.5 points.
The Wooden Award, given yearly to the nation’s best player, selects 20 student athletes to the midseason watch list. Stanford and North Carolina were the only two schools to have multiple players selected to the list.
Stanford takes on Washington tomorrow at 7 p.m. in Seattle, and will tip off against Washington State on Sunday at 1 p.m. in Pullman.