KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – No. 10 Stanford was unable to hold on to an early 11-point lead and had its six-game winning streak snapped on Sunday afternoon, losing at Tennessee 59-51.
The Cardinal (8-2) took an early 15-4 lead by making seven of its first eight shots on mainly slashing drives to the hoop. Stanford forced seven first-quarter turnovers, but Tennessee (6-4) closed the period on a 7-2 spurt and the Cardinal led 17-11 after one.
The Lady Vols got back into the game with their defense and Stanford struggled to score after a fast start. After making all but one of its first eight, the Cardinal shot just 27.8 percent (15-of-54) the rest of the way. Stanford was 4-of-20 on 3-pointers and after scoring 15 points in the game's first five minutes it added 36 in the final 35.
"We got them down, and we didn't keep them down," Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said. "I thought the No. 1 thing for me looking at the game was we didn't pass the ball. We held the ball. We didn't move the ball. We only had six assists. ... We just need to play better team basketball."
Tennessee went on an 11-0 run in the second quarter to pull ahead 29-25 before Stanford rallied to make it 29-all at halftime.
Karlie Samuelson hit a 3-pointer coming out of the break to put Stanford up 32-29 before Tennessee answered with six straight. Samuelson's triple would be the Cardinal's only field goal for more than five minutes.
Nadia Fingall made a baseline jumper with 2:47 on the clock in the third to give Stanford its last lead, 38-37. Tennessee scored the final eight points of the period and led by as many as 12 midway through the fourth.
Stanford cut it to six with 3:48 left, but Diamond DeShields made a 3-pointer from the wing on the Lady Vols' next possession to stifle the run.
Erica McCall and Karlie Samuelson each scored 13 points for Stanford while Brittany McPhee added 11. McCall is three points away from becoming the program's 37th 1,000-point scorer.
Jordan Reynolds added 14 points, Mercedes Russell had 11 points and 13 rebounds, and Jaime Nared had 10 points for Tennessee.
It was Stanford's fifth road loss to an unranked opponent in the nonconference portion of its schedule since 1999-00. The Cardinal fell to 2-13 all-time against the Lady Vols in Knoxville.
Stanford heads east and will play at George Washington on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT.
