Recap: Stanford Women’s Basketball falls to No. 19 Tennessee
On Wednesday, Stanford women’s basketball fell to No. 19 Tennessee at home by a final score of 65-62 in a game that was part of the ACC/SEC Challenge. Tennessee guard Talaysia Cooper led the way for the Lady Vols with 19 points and six assists while guard Mia Pauldo had 14 points and three rebounds. Stanford guard Hailee Swain and forward Nunu Agara each had 14 points for the Cardinal. Tennessee improves to 6-2 overall while Stanford falls to 8-2.
VIDEO: Stanford Women’s Basketball Postgame Press Conference-Tennessee
BOX SCORE: Tennessee at Stanford-Wednesday, December 3rd
“I want to congratulate Tennessee,” Stanford head coach Kate Paye said after the game. “I think, that was my first time meeting Kim Caldwell. We got a chance to speak before the game. It was great to have Tennessee back in the gym. This is a storied rivalry and really relationship and I got a chance to talk to her about that. Obviously started by Pat and Tara way back when. So it was a great early season experience for our team.
“Tennessee is extremely physical, they are athletic. You know, they trap. They really kinda, you know, challenging to make a lot of reads out there. So, credit to them. You know, I’m very proud of our team. I thought people really battled. I was really excited about the crowd that we had tonight. They really helped their team. We had a great third quarter. But you know, we, the biggest thing is, you know, it’s December and we can learn from this.
“Obviously, to have 30 turnovers, that’s extremely disappointing, but to have 30 turnovers and to have the opportunity to be right there to win the game, I mean, I think to us, that shows our team how much we can improve. You know, obviously they forced us into some of them, but a lot of them were self-inflicted.
“So, you know, I am more excited than ever about our team because I know how good we can be. And we have a lot of young players playing out there. Chloe and Nunu, you know, kind of some of the hard lessons that we learned last season, it’s really exciting to see them step up and take a leadership role on the floor and you know, we’re just gonna have to learn and improve.”
Stanford led Tennessee 16–14 at the end of the 1st quarter. Courtney Ogden led Stanford with 6 points on 3-3 shooting from the field. Cooper led Tennessee with six points. Stanford was shooting 8-18 from the field while Tennessee was shooting 5-16.
Stanford was ahead 21–20 with 3:26 to go in the 2nd quarter. Stanford scored 0 points in the last 2:10 and needed to wake up offensively. As a result of their inability to really flip things offensively, Tennessee led Stanford 28–24 at halftime. Janiah Barker led the Lady Vols with eight points while Swain led the Cardinal with 7 points. Tennessee ended the half on an 8-0 run.
Tennessee was up 33–26 with 7:55 left in the 3rd quarter. Stanford gave up a turnover for an easy layup and almost turned it over again. Paye called for time, hoping to get her team back on track.
A bit later on, Tennessee led 38–35 with 4:32 to go in the 3rd quarter. Chloe Clardy hit a huge 3-pointer for Stanford to get them within three points. Neither team was shooting well on the night as Tennessee was shooting 32.6% from the field and 22.2% from 3-point range while Stanford was shooting 41.7% from the field and 25.0% from 3-point range.
“Well, I think our defense is kind of something I think we’ve been trying to hang our hat on early this season,” Paye said. “Has probably been ahead of our offense. When we guarded them really well and we’re following our scouting report and our game plan, I thought it was very effective. You know, as the game goes on, there is slippage and you know, obviously 55 [Cooper] was a handful. She got herself going driving right to the basket. You know, we just need to make a few more plays.”
Soon, Clardy hit another 3-pointer after Agara made a steal. Stanford was on a 12-1 run over 2:21 and an 8-0 run over 1:05. They now were in front 40-38 with 3:49 to go in the 3rd quarter.
“I think as a team, we’ve been down multiple times this year and maybe that’s something that, in the past, we haven’t always been able to come back from,” Clardy said of their run. “And so I think just sticking together, having those tight huddles, being with each other, and just continuing to play as a team and knowing, like, we can still do it and believe in ourselves.”
Stanford led Tennessee 47–44 at the end of the 3rd quarter. Clardy (12 points & 5 rebounds) and Swain (11 points) led the Cardinal while Cooper led Tennessee with 13 points. Stanford had 22 turnovers while Tennessee had 14. Stanford was a bit lucky to be in front and needed to finish strong.
“I think it was just kind of acclimating ourselves to their style of play,” Paye said of having a better 3rd quarter. “I mean obviously you try to simulate in practice, but, I mean, this is very unusual. You know, I don’t know that you’re gonna, you know, you’ll face teams that pressure or press, but you know, it’s like running plays, it’s making plays, you know, they kind of you can’t really run anything out there. It’s just as Nunu said, it’s kind of, you know, run in and jump, random traps. And I think our team kind of, through the first half kind of got a feel for it and did a much, much better job in the second half. But again, really just our turnovers really, really hurt us. And they got it going on the o-boards as well with 19 o-boards. We did end up out-rebounding them overall, but you know, it’s really our turnovers and you know, second chance points.”
With 4:53 to go, Tennessee led 53–52. Agara scored a huge bucket inside off the put-back for Stanford. It had been a sloppy game for the Cardinal, yet they were still right in it.
Tennessee then led 62–57 with 2:41 to go. Cooper was up to 17 points for the Lady Vols, who had made 6 of their last 7 FG. Shortly thereafter, Tennessee led 62–60 with 58.8 to go. Agara hit a huge 3-pointer for the Cardinal after a lane violation by the Lady Vols.
Lara Somfai would soon go to the foul line for Stanford and missed both foul shots. Agara made the putback. The score was tied 62–62. Tennessee answered, making it 64–62. Stanford had the ball with 6.7 to go. After Tennessee went 1-2 at the foul line, they led 65–62 with 0.5 to go. Stanford had the ball and a chance to force overtime. Unfortunately for the Cardinal, Clardy was unable to get the straightaway 3-pointer to fall. Tennessee survived 65–62.
To touch quickly on Tennessee, this is a nice win for them. Stanford is never easy to beat at home and with all the talent they have on their roster, any win against the Cardinal, especially at Maples Pavilion, is a good win. Tennessee did a nice job of making plays when they really needed to and answering every time Stanford thought they were going to pull ahead.
“I think we picked our defense up,” Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell said. “And I think, again, that’s fatigue a little bit. We’re not a very good third quarter team, something that we’ve known for quite a while now and we didn’t come out ready in the third quarter and fourth quarter by the end of it is we grinded them down, we started to put our head to the rim, and go all the way to the rim. We shared the ball a little bit better. I thought we did a better job and I do think our team is getting better. It’s not necessarily translating the way I want it to, but we did a good job of sharing the ball down the stretch and didn’t force anything and we made the extra pass and had two assists at the rim that were really pretty. She had one that was skip across to Zee Spearman in the corner that was really nice and that one went down and deserved to go down because it was the right play.”
As for Stanford, the main stat of the night is committing 30 turnovers. That is simply inexcusable. While they can look at it as a positive that they lost by only three points despite those turnovers, they still have to be frustrated that they turned the ball over that many times.
“Ball-handling, passing, decision-making, reads,” Paye said of how to cut back on the turnovers. “We’re gonna learn from this. You know, this is, it’s December, you know? This is a great thing for us. Obviously, nobody likes the outcome of it, but, again, we’re right there with an opportunity to kind of win this game and there are so many things that our team knows that we can do better individually and collectively and I love coaching this team. The sisterhood on our team is really special. So, I know our team is going to respond to this and use it to help us. You know, we have a saying, every disappointment is a blessing. We will put this into a blessing. We’ll look at the film. It will motivate our team.”
At the same time, there were also some encouraging moments as Clardy, Somfai, and Agara all hit big shots. They showed that when it’s crunch time, they can step up and make winning plays. It’s just a matter of not setting themselves back by preventable mistakes.
“I don’t know, I feel like this is definitely a learning experience for me,” Agara said. “Didn’t feel like I played the best at all, but definitely a learning experience. And I think, what I got from our team is that, yeah, like Chloe said, we’ll fight to the end and I wouldn’t want to be on any other team. I think that, yeah, we fight hard and we just gotta live with it and we’re sisters at the end of the day and so yeah, I’m proud of this team.”
One thing I did want to quickly add is it’s cool to see Stanford and Tennessee playing each other once more. They’ve formed a great rivalry over the years that was started by legendary head coaches Tara VanDerveer (Stanford) and Pat Summitt (Tennessee). Having these two programs facing off is good for the sport and to do it in front of a “Red Out” crowd made it all the more fun. Hopefully we’ll see even more of these matchups in the future.
“Oh gosh, I have so many,” Paye said of memories of the rivalry from over the years. “You know, just, I think it’s, as I said at the outset, you know, the rivalry and the relationship between Stanford and Tennessee, you know, Pat and Tara as part of women’s college basketball history. And, you know, those two really kind of set the standard and you know, I have, you know, just one memory right off the bat in my freshman year as a freshman walk-on. We were down and you know, we had to press to come back. I remember Val Whiting on the front of that press and I remember Maples just rocking and I’m pretty sure that was back when the floor was still bouncy and it was jumping, you know?
“So you know, we’ve had a lot of great contests…So again, I was very happy to get a chance to meet Kim and be able to build a relationship and we both said that we, you know, kind of out of kind of respect for Pat and Tara, you know, it’s really important for us to keep that strong relationship and you know, I think hopefully this game helps both teams.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Cal on Sunday, December 14th. Tipoff is set for 1:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
“I mean, obviously, we have finals coming up, so it’s gonna be busy with finals,” Clardy said looking ahead to the rest of the month. “But I think this is great film for us to take a look at and learn from moving on. Like you said, we have Cal, Washington, Oregon. We have a lot of teams coming. So I think we just need to take a look in the mirror, learn from this game, and see how we can move forward.”
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