After a string of respectable, though less-than-overwhelming wins, the nation’s No. 2 team seems to have found its swagger. The Cardinal offense came to life against Oregon on Saturday, beating a talented Ducks team 100-80 with five players posting double-digit point totals.
Sophomore forward Nnemkadi Ogwumike had a career game, scoring 30 points and pulling down a school-record 23 rebounds. The Cypress, Tex. native is currently the conference’s top scorer with 19.5 points per game and an incredible 64.2 shooting percentage and is also the Pacific-10 Conference’s second-best rebounder with 10.7 per game.
“She’s so fluid,” said Oregon coach Paul Westhead. “We would locate her, but it didn’t last long. Her ability as a rebounder is devastating. She gets everything.”
The Ducks (12-7, 3-4 Pac-10) boast the nation’s top-scoring offense, averaging 85.9 points per contest and wouldn’t go down without a fight. Just three minutes into the game, Oregon had jumped ahead of Stanford (17-1, 7-1 Pac-10) by a score of 11-7. Ogwumike soon took initiative, however, accounting for 11 points on a 22-7 Stanford run that put the Cardinal back on top, 29-18, midway through the half. The Ducks soon responded, led by their eventual point-leader Nia Jackson. Oregon’s redshirt sophomore guard pulled her team within one, thanks to a pair of free throws, making it 39-38. After another Stanford outburst, she scored the final points of a 9-0 run that tied the game at 49 with just over a minute left in the half. Jackson finished the game with a career-high 26 points, including 18 in the first half.
Before heading to the locker-room, freshman Joslyn Tinkle helped put the Cardinal back on top with a three-pointer that made it 54-50 and continued Stanford’s season-long streak of leading its opponents at halftime.
Stanford Head Coach Tara VanDerveer, however, was displeased with some aspects of her team’s performance in the first half, including its 11 turnovers.
“I don’t think we handled the ball as well as we needed to in the first half, obviously,” VanDerveer said. “But our guards are stepping up and that’s what we need them to do to: open things up for Jayne and Nneka and people inside.”
Ogwumike again set the tone for the second half, scoring the first four points of the frame to double the Cardinal’s lead. The Ducks would come as close as 80-75 on a Jackson layup with 8 minutes, 36 seconds to play, but Stanford finished the game on a 20-5 run to put Oregon away.
“The game felt close the whole time and I like that feeling,” Ogwumike said. “It’s getting us ready for the future and I think this is a very good team to play. I’m so glad that they’re in our conference.”
The 100-80 score marked the first time the Cardinal reached a triple-digit point total since nearly two months ago on Nov. 29, when they beat Gonzaga 105-74. While Ogwumike accounted for 30 of those points, she wasn’t alone in helping the Cardinal put up their biggest offensive performance of the conference season. Four other players had double-digit point totals, including senior center Jayne Appel (17) and guards junior Jeanette Pohlen (15), redshirt senior Rosalyn Gold-Onwude (11) and redshirt junior JJ Hones (10).
Appel’s performance in particular is worth noting, as the reigning Pac-10 Player of the Year — while certainly making significant contributions for the Cardinal offense — hasn’t quite lived up to her stellar standards of late. Her end-game total of 17 points was her highest since Dec. 30, when she put up 20 points against Fresno State.
Stanford shot 50 percent on the game, its most accurate performance of the conference season. That mark came despite a season-high 35 three-point attempts, only 13 of which were successful.
With its two wins in Oregon, the Cardinal remains all alone at the top of the Pac-10 standings. The only loss by the second-place team, USC, came at the hands of Stanford.
The Cardinal will head home for their next contest, facing Arizona State at Maples Pavilion this Thursday at 7 p.m.