The Pac-12 Conference comes full circle at Maples Pavilion tonight, with the USC women’s basketball team visiting the Farm for a rematch of the opening game, which took place in Los Angeles at the end of December.
Since that 61-53 victory for Stanford at the Galen Center, the two teams have had very different seasons. In tonight’s contest the No. 4 Cardinal (20-1, 11-0 Pac-12) will be looking for its 17th straight win and the opportunity to tighten its grip on the top spot in the conference, while the Trojans (12-10, 6-5) are coming off a narrow home loss to Washington and are currently in a three-way tie for fourth place.
Stanford leads the all-time series against USC 48-19, and has won the last nine meetings, stretching back to the 2007-08 season when the Trojans edged the Cardinal with a 73-72 in Los Angeles.
In the Cardinal’s last time out, Stanford destroyed Arizona 91-51 in Tucson. For the third time this season, junior forward Joslyn Tinkle outscored the Ogwumike sisters, setting a new career high of 22 points and tying her career best with 11 rebounds. It is hard, though, to ignore what senior forward Nnemkadi Ogwumike and sophomore forward Chiney Ogwumike bring to the Card. They may not have made the headlines in the Arizona game, but still hit double figures in points, with Chiney Ogwumike grabbing her fifth straight double-double.
USC also has its own sister act to count on in senior guard Briana Gilbreath and redshirt junior guard Stefanie Gilbreath, but the comparison to the Ogwumikes is perhaps unfair. Briana Gilbreath leads the Trojans in points with 12.2 per game, but her sister is only playing in her first full season after sitting out three full years due to two ACL tears and playing only limited time last season as a result of additional injuries. Unfortunately, Stefanie Gilbreath is not the only Trojan to have struggled with serious knee injuries, and graduate student guard Jacki Gemelos, a northern California native in her sixth year (and the nation’s top recruit in 2006), will again be absent from the lineup after suffering her fourth ACL tear last December.
The Ogwumike sisters each have three Pac-12 Player of the Week awards this season and are first and third in both shooting and rebounding in the Pac-12, with Nneka ahead in points per game, 20.3 to 16.8, and Chiney leading in rebounds per game, 12.4 to 12.1.
The Trojans, however, may have greater depth in shooting. While the Ogwumikes are the only Stanford players shooting in the top 30 of the Pac-12, USC has more balanced scoring with four players in the top 30: senior guard Ashley Corral, sophomore forward Cassie Harberts, Briana Gilbreath and junior forward Christina Marinacci. With 13.0, 12.1, 11.3 and 10.1 points per game, respectively, their combined contribution outweighs that from Stanford’s sisters.
On three-point shooting, too, USC could look for an advantage. It currently leads the Pac-12 in shooting percentage from outside the arc at 35 percent, nine places ahead of Stanford’s 26.4. USC hits 6.36 shots from downtown per game compared to Stanford’s 4.73, and Corral leads the conference with 2.91 threes per contest. She now tops USC’s all-time list with 282 three-pointers.
Interestingly, the situation in three-point defense is the complete opposite: The Cardinal is first, allowing only 24.1 percent, and the Trojans are 10th with 32.1. Should USC manage to nullify the presence of Stanford’s forwards and succeed in keeping it outside, or should the Card achieve the same with the Trojans, these two statistics will be directly tested.
Across the Bay, in the other game tonight between southern and northern California teams, third-place UCLA (12-10, 7-4) will face second-place Cal (17-6, 8-3). While fans of Stanford women’s basketball may be focused on the action on campus, the result of this other contest could be significant. Should the Card win and Cal lose, Stanford would have a four-game lead with just six to play.
The contest between Stanford and USC starts at Maples at 6 p.m. tonight.