Young Cardinal can’t hang with Brown, Bears in Waco
NO. 9 BAYLOR 81, NO. 16 STANFORD 57
WACO, Texas — A month into the season, the No. 16 Stanford women’s basketball team is barely above .500. That’s almost unheard of in the Tara VanDerveer era.
Although the Cardinal had no answer for Baylor’s Kalani Brown, who accounted for a game-opening 9-0 run and finished with 28 points in the No. 9 Bears’ 81-57 win, VanDerveer isn’t worried, given the youth of her roster.
“The first quarter was disappointing,” VanDerveer said of the 25-8 deficit to start the game. “We have an extremely young team that is just learning how to play. This early season has really been baptism by fire, and we were beaten clearly by a better team.”
Stanford (5-4), which has beaten all five of its unranked opponents, has lost all four of its games to top-10 teams.
Against Baylor (7-1), which was cheered on by a season-best crowd of more than 8,000 fans, the Cardinal struggled to find anything inside and made only 20 of 68 shots (29 percent), including just 10 of 38 three-point attempts (26 percent). Stanford didn’t lead, and after the first quarter the closest it got to the lead was eight points with 8:14 to go in the third.
Brown was 12-for-16 from the floor and beat the Cardinal with postups, drives to the basket and shots from the top of the key. Baylor also outrebounded Stanford 55-39 and held a 54-18 points advantage in the paint.
Lauren Cox (15 points, 15 rebounds) and Kristy Wallace (15 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists) recorded double-doubles for Baylor.
“Kristy Wallace, no turnovers, almost played 40 minutes in the game, almost had a tripledouble,” Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said. “She didn’t try to do too much, she made the right passes, she made hustle plays. She may have had her finest game in her career at Baylor.”
Center Shannon Coffee led Stanford with 14 points off the bench, but four of her five made field goals were three-pointers. Kiana Williams scored Stanford’s first 10 points and finished with 13, well above her season average of 4.9 points per game.
Stanford forwards Kaylee Johnson and Alanna Smith both had three fouls before halftime. Smith managed to work around that and finished with 11 points, but Johnson fouled out with 7:32 to go in the third quarter.
Stanford has 12 days off before playing Dec. 16 at home against UNLV, but December figures to be a rough month as the Cardinal will host No. 12 Tennessee (Dec. 21) and No. 7 UCLA (Dec. 29).
The Bears will return the favor with a road game at Maples Pavilion next year. When asked about that, VanDeveer said she wasn’t thinking that far ahead, but added, “Brown doesn’t graduate, does she?” and joked that maybe Baylor’s junior center should jump to the WNBA early.