Stanford rallies to beat Louisville
SAN ANTONIO – After one of Stanford’s worst halves of the season, coach Tara VanDerveer challenged her team to just compete.
The Cardinal responded. Lexie Hull had 21 points, Ashten Prechtel scored each of her 16 in the second half and Stanford reached the Final Four by rallying for a 78-63 victory over Louisville on Tuesday night. (1) Stanford 78 (2) Louisville 63 STAN: 29-2 LOU: 26-4
“To play a second half and beat them by 27 really says a lot about how hard people were playing,” VanDerveer said. “How much they wanted to do it for each other. They were willing to listen to me, My dad would always say it’s not the start of the race, but the finish.”
Next up for the top-seeded Cardinal is South Carolina on Friday night in a rematch of the 2017 national semifinals. Stanford dropped that one 62-53, ending its previous appearance in the Final Four. UConn and Arizona meet in the other national
throws to tie it at 103-all with 3:31 remaining, but the Hawks could never get the lead. Deandre Ayton’s putback after a Booker miss pushed the Suns ahead 111-108.
Crowder splashed home a 3-pointer – while getting fouled – and finished off the four-point play with a free throw to give Phoenix an insurmountable 115-108 advantage with 23 seconds left.
“We closed the game out,” Suns guard Chris Paul said “But we shouldn’t have been in that situation.”
Ayton finished with 13 points and 14 rebounds, while Paul had 12 points and eight assists. Crowder had his stellar shooting
night after making just 2 of 18 3-pointers over his previous two games.
Bogdan Bogdanovic led Atlanta with 22 points and Young had 19 points and 13 assists.
The Hawks trailed by 12 points at halftime, but cut the Suns’ advantage to 8985 by the end of the third quarter. Atlanta made 12 of 18 shots (67%) from the field in the third.
“We got a rhythm, got some stops and got back into the game,” Hawks coach Nate McMillan said. “We just weren’t able to finish it.”
Phoenix got some good production from the bench, especially Saric, who made 7 of 8 shots from the field, including all three of his 3-pointers. He added five rebounds and two assists in just 18 minutes.
Atlanta cut the lead to
two early in the fourth, but Saric responded with a 3-pointer and a layup to push Phoenix’s advantage back to 94-87. Saric added a perfect baseline bounce pass to a cutting Torrey Craig, who dunked to put the Suns ahead 98-90 a few minutes later.
The Suns pushed to a 64-52 halftime lead, getting a nice boost from the bench during their time on the floor. Saric led Phoenix with 13 points, while Crowder had 12 and Booker added 10.
Clint Capela and Young both had 10 points for the Hawks before the break. Capela finished with 14 points and 16 rebounds.
UP NEXT
Hawks: At San Antonio on Thursday.
Suns: Host the Bulls on Wednesday.
STANFORD
semifinal.
Stanford (29-2) trailed by 12 midway through the third quarter before scoring 13 consecutive points to take its first lead since early in the game. Prechtel was a big part of that success after she didn’t play in the first half.
“Ashten was a two-way player, her 3 was the shot that just said alright we’re back,” VanDerveer said. “We can win this game. Really exciting to see her play well. She’s been doing great things for us all year. She really picked a great time to shine.”
The teams traded baskets the rest of the period, and No 2 seed Louisville (26-4) was up 50-48 heading into the final quarter.
The Cardinal scored the first 10 points of the fourth to go up 58-50. The run was started by a Prechtel 3-pointer.
“For sure, it was tough not to play in the first half. I was nervous,” Prechtel said. “We didn’t want to go home. Coming out of halftime, there was urgency.”
Louisville coach Jeff Walz said the move to put Prechtel in was the key to Stanford’s win.
“What a great substitution that was. She changed the entire game,” Walz said. “Her 15 minutes, she’s plus-27 on the plusand-minus side. She won the game for them . ... She was remarkable there in the second half.”
Kiana Williams capped the burst with a 3-pointer. The San Antonio native had a rough start to the game, missing 11 of her first 12 shots. She finally got going offensively, hitting four shots in a row to help Stanford build its lead.
“I just had to change my mentality. I was forcing things, I wanted it too bad,” Williams said. “I didn’t let the game come to me. Tara got on me, my coaches got on me, and my teammates picked me up. I just had to change my mentality coming back in the second half.”
Stanford was up 68-60 with just over 3 minutes left when Williams hit a step-back 3 that sealed the victory. She finished with 14 points.
The win moves the Cardinal one step closer to VanDerveer’s first national championship since 1992 and No. 3 overall.