Recap: Stanford Women’s Basketball defeats Oregon at the Chase Center
On Sunday, Stanford women’s basketball defeated Oregon at the Chase Center in San Francisco by a final score of 64-53. It was part of the Invisalign Bay Area Women’s Classic, which also featured No. 19 USC vs. Cal. USC won that game 61-57. Stanford junior forward Courtney Ogden led the way for the Cardinal with 20 points, four rebounds, and four assists while freshman forward Lara Somfai had 14 points and 11 rebounds. Oregon sophomore forward Ehis Etute (14 points & 6 rebounds) and sophomore guard Katie Fiso (14 points) were the top performers for the Ducks. Stanford improves to 11-2 overall (1-0 in the ACC) while Oregon falls to 12-2 overall (0-1 in the Big Ten).
BOX SCORE: Stanford vs. Oregon-Sunday, December 21st
“All right, first I’d just like to say thank you to Invisalign, Chase Center, and the Warriors for hosting such a fantastic event,” Stanford head coach Kate Paye said after the game. “It’s really fun to be up here and it’s always first class. Our team loves this experience playing in the Chase Center. Obviously, this is our second year. It’s really fun to have kind of the old Pac-12 kind of reunion, both with, you know, Oregon and USC, Cal, and even old Pac-12 officials out there. So it was a little bit like a reunion out there.
“Oregon is a very good team, obviously. Kelly does a great job. I think, coached against him for a very long time. I am extremely proud of our team. It was not pretty out there, but winners find a way to win. And you know, I guess we’re kind of the fourth quarter kids. That’s really been a strength of our team and I’m really proud of our team.
“You know, Courtney is really kind of balling out. They call it cooking with Courtney. She was cooking again tonight with 20 points. Really showcasing her skills. She’s totally comfortable and confident out there in her junior year. Lara, next to me, double-double machine. You know, she picked up two early fouls, but that just left her fresh for the second half. You know, she knocked down two huge threes. Lara is an absolute competitor, but we have more contributions. Shay Ijiwoye again, bringing energy off the bench. Chloe with five assists, her steady leadership out there. You know, Hailee Swain, you know, attacking the basket in transition. I thought Alex gave us some critical minutes. I don’t think Nunu was at her best, but she still pulled down 11 rebounds.
“What I love about our team is they’re all about our team. And you know, we tried a lot of different combinations of people out there tonight and kind of finally got something going there in the 4th quarter. So, you know, I’m really proud of our team and I know they’re all really excited to get a little break before the holidays.”
Stanford got off to an early 8-4 lead with 5:34 to go in the 1st quarter. Courtney Ogden, Hailee Swain, Nunu Agara (who missed Friday vs. Washington), and Lara Somfai each had two points for the Cardinal. At the end of the 1st quarter, Stanford led 19-12 as Ogden was up to 7 points. She was in a nice groove.
Stanford led Oregon 27-21 with 3:31 remaining in the 2nd quarter. Ogden was up to 13 points for the Cardinal on 5-10 shooting from the field and 3-3 shooting from the foul line. She continued to lead the way, doing a great job of setting the tone for the entire team.
At halftime, Stanford was ahead 31-25. Ogden’s 13 points continued to pace the Cardinal while Swain had six points on 3-5 shooting from the field. Etute led the Ducks with nine points on 4-5 shooting from the field. It was a tight game, but the Cardinal maintained the lead.
With 6:48 left in the 3rd quarter, Stanford was up 33-32. The Ducks went on a 7-0 run over the last 1:41. Stanford did not score in the last 2:13, prompting them to call a timeout.
Oregon took the lead, 37-34, with 4:14 to go in the 3rd quarter. The Ducks were on a 12-1 run over the last 4:15. Stanford needed to reverse the momentum, as they were just 1-9 from the field so far in the quarter.
Stanford responded and led 42-37 with 2:42 left in the 3rd quarter. The Cardinal woke up, especially Ogden, who had 18 points, scoring five in the last 90 seconds.
“I think yes, there’s obviously confidence,” Ogden said of her game. “I think my teammates are very confident in my abilities. Like you said, my coaches are very confident in my abilities, put the ball in my hands and great positions for me to be successful, and I mean, between my teammates, they give me the ball and this is why I can be successful and I hope I do the same for them. But really just coming into myself junior year, definitely playing confident out there.”
At the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford led Oregon 44-41. Ogden led the Cardinal with 18 points on 7-15 shooting from the field, 1-2 shooting from three-point range, and 3-3 shooting from the line. Agara was inching toward a double-double with five points and 10 rebounds. Ehis Etute (11 points), Mia Jacobs (10 points), and Katie Fiso (10 points) were all in double figures for the Ducks.
Stanford was ahead 51-46 with 4:54 to go as they were outscoring Oregon 7-5 in the 4th quarter. Oregon had not scored in the last 2:03. Somfai was knocking on the door of a double-double for Stanford with 11 points and nine rebounds.
With 1:00 to go, Stanford led 59-50. Swain (10 points) scored a pair of layups, and Ogden (20 points) added another layup to her total. At this point, it was clear Stanford would pull through.
“Yeah, they were tougher,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves said about Stanford. “We got a couple of rebounds that they took from us. The turnovers. You know, I don’t know how many times we turned it over, kind of needlessly, they were unforced turnovers. We were just kind of, you know, in the wrong position or we rushed it or we forgot what we were trying to do and I think those were the two things quite frankly.
“I thought defensively we played pretty well tonight. You know, they struggled against the zone. They tried to figure it out a little bit and started to in the second half. We went back to; we did a pretty nice job mixing up the defenses and keeping them off balance. You know, but that’s a good team. There’s no question. It’s hard to keep them down for 40 minutes, but I thought in the fourth quarter those were the two areas. The turnovers and then just their physicality around the rim, you know? And they got second opportunities and they made the most of them.”
In the end, Stanford won 64-53. Ogden (20 points & 4 rebounds) and Somfai (14 points & 11 rebounds) really came through for the Cardinal. They combined for 3-5 shooting from 3-point range on a night when the rest of their teammates shot 1-7. Their ability to hit clutch threes in particular really made an impact.
“I told Laura after getting the hours, after I passed the ball to her, and she hit her last three, I was at half court cheering for her,” Ogden said of their threes. “So I was just so excited that one, we were able to get those open shots off of pitching out and sharing the ball while we were able to knock those down in crunch time.”
For Stanford, this is a really nice win. Oregon is a quality opponent and a well-coached team. This is the kind of win that shows Stanford has grown a lot from the beginning of the season until now. They’re starting to click and the scary thing is they don’t seem to have reached their ceiling yet.
“We’re very excited,” Paye said. “I mean, I feel like, you know, we’ve been kind of, you know, playing a lot of young players, a lot of new combinations, but we’ve learned a lot every single game. And we knew that kind of this stretch of games, you know, Cal, UW, Oregon, was gonna be very challenging. Kind of our team finished their final exams last week; these were kind of our basketball final exams. We really see where we’re at. You know, I’m very proud of our team. But what I’m really excited about is I think we have a really high ceiling. I know we can improve on so much. I thought we were kind of sloppy out there sometimes. I think our, you know, we’ll learn from it, though and I just think we’re going to get better and better.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Cornell to close out non-conference play. That will be on Sunday, December 28th at 1:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
“Well, first, let me say we do play Cornell on December 28th and we’ll be totally focused on that,” Paye said when asked about ACC play. “Our team has learned that lesson the hard way. We don’t overlook anybody. So we’ll be focused on Cornell first.”
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