Stanford University Athletics

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THE GAME: No. 16 Stanford (5-3) makes its second trip to Waco when it plays at No. 9 Baylor (6-1) on Sunday, Dec. 3 at 11 a.m. PT/1 p.m. CT. Ron Thulin and LaChina Robinson have the call on FS1 and Tim Swartz will bring fans the radio broadcast on GoStanford.com.
 
THE RUNDOWN: Stanford returns 10 letterwinners, but just two starters to a team coming off its seventh Final Four in the past 10 seasons ... Marta Sniezek is the only player on the roster that has averaged over 20 minutes per game in her career ... Stanford is the only school in the nation that has played three AP top-10 opponents and will add a fourth when it plays at No. 9 Baylor on Sunday ... Eight of the Cardinal's last 14 games have been against ranked foes ... Stanford's 15 3-point makes at San Francisco on Wednesday are tied for third in program history ... Alanna Smith had the country's first 30-point, 15-rebound double-double against a top-10 team since 2013 on Nov. 25 against Ohio State ... Also against the Buckeyes, Anna Wilson became the 10th player in Stanford history to make seven 3-pointers in a game ... DiJonai Carrington pulled down 22 rebounds on Nov. 17 against UC Riverside, tied for the third-most in school history ... Of Brittany McPhee's 10 career 20-point games, four have come against ranked teams ... McPhee (USA), Smith (Australia) and Alyssa Jerome (Canada) represented their countries this summer at tournaments around the globe ... McPhee (Ann Meyers Drysdale Award/Wooden Award) and Smith (Lisa Leslie Award) are the Cardinal's representatives on major preseason watch lists.

VS. BAYLOR: Stanford is 2-3 all-time against Baylor and 0-1 at the Ferrell Center, dropping its only other trip to Waco 81-65 to the No. 19 Bears on Nov. 16, 2008. In the teams' last meeting, No. 4 Stanford upset No. 1 Baylor at the Rainbow Wahine Shootout in Hawaii on Nov. 16, 2012, 71-69, to snap the defending national champions' 42-game winning streak, the seventh longest in NCAA history. Brittney Griner scored 18 of her 22 points in the second half and Chiney Ogwumike led the Cardinal with 18. 

WHAT'S BACK, WHAT'S NOT »

• The Cardinal returns 10 letterwinners, but just two starters to a team coming off its seventh Final Four in the past 10 seasons.
• Stanford posted a 32-6 overall record last season and a 15-3 mark in Pac-12 play. The Cardinal won its 12th Pac-12 Tournament championship and celebrated Tara VanDerveer's 1,000th career victory during the program's 14th 30-win campaign.
• Gone are Erica McCall, Karlie Samuelson and Briana Roberson, seniors that accounted for 45 percent of Stanford's minutes, 46 percent of its scoring and 35 percent of its rebounds in 2016-17.
• The Cardinal's young squad has eight underclassmen and just one player on the roster that has averaged more than 20 minutes per game in her career (Marta Sniezek - 22.5).
• New faces include a pair of McDonald's All-Americans in forward Maya Dodson and point guard Kiana Williams. Both were also Jordan Brand Classic All-Americans and Williams, who is from San Antonio, was named MVP of the West Team after scoring a game-high 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting.

CATCHING YOU UP »

• Down four at halftime, Stanford scored 62 second-half points and made 15-of-31 3-pointers to beat San Francisco on the road Wednesday night, 86-66.
• Stanford came in second place at the Play4Kay Showcase in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving, beating Kent State (79-54) and Belmont (74-53) before falling in overtime to No. 9 Ohio State, 94-82.
• It was the Cardinal's second defeat to the Buckeyes in as many weeks. Stanford began its season with an 85-64 loss in Columbus on Nov. 10.
• Stanford was much improved in its second meeting with OSU and led by as many as 12 in the second half, but was unable to hang on against an experienced group that played five seniors and two redshirt juniors.
• Alanna Smith and Anna Wilson were named to the all-tournament team after some big performances in the title game. Smith, who also had a 23-point, 11-rebound double-double against Belmont on Nov. 24, went for 33 and 16 against Ohio State, while Wilson poured in a career-high 21 points on 7-of-8 shooting from 3-point range.
• DiJonai Carrington collected her second double-double of the season with 24 points and 10 rebounds in the Play4Kay opener against Kent State on Nov. 23.
• Stanford is one of 11 schools nationally with two players averaging better than 12 points and eight rebounds per game (Alanna Smith/DiJonai Carrington) along with Baylor, Indiana, New Mexico State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oregon State, Tennessee, UConn, UNLV, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. Of that group every team has two players with those numbers except Tennessee, which has three.
• Senior Brittany McPhee, Stanford's leading scorer (16.5 ppg), has missed the past four games with a right foot injury and is day-to-day.

BAPTISM BY FIRE »

• Stanford leads the nation with three games against top-10 teams already this season and the Cardinal will add a fourth when it plays at No. 9 Baylor on Sunday. No other school has more than two.
• As difficult an opening weekend as Tara VanDerveer has put together for her team in some time, Stanford played ranked teams in the first two games of its season for the first time since Nov. 1998 when it lost to No. 18 Arkansas (76-71) and No. 4 Duke (77-57) at the Nike Four in the Fall in San Jose, Calif.
• Dating back to last season, eight of Stanford's past 14 games have been against ranked opponents, including six in the top 10 and four in the top five.
• Before playing UC Riverside on Nov. 17, Stanford had played six ranked teams in a row, tying a program record last done in 1998-99 when it played six top 25 opponents to begin the season.

SETTING THE STAGE »

• Stanford is 115-24 (.827) in true road games since 2007-08, tied for second in the country in such wins  and percentage with Green Bay and behind UConn (118-6; .952).
• The last time Stanford played Baylor, Brittney Griner scored 18 of her 22 points in the second half to help the No. 1 Lady Bears rally from a 14-point deficit on Nov. 16, 2012 in Hawaii, but she missed a short turnaround at the buzzer and No. 4 Stanford won 71-69.
• Chiney Ogwumike was one of four Stanford players to score in double digits (18). Taylor Greenfield had 16 points, Toni Kokenis had 15 and Joslyn Tinkle had 11.
• Stanford, which snapped Baylor's 42-game winning streak with the result, has ended three of the seven longest winning streaks in NCAA women's basketball history. It also snapped Connecticut's 90-game streak in 2010 and the Huskies' 47-gamer in 2014.
• The game came just over seven months after Baylor knocked Stanford out of the NCAA Tournament with a 59-47 win at the Final Four in Denver, Colo. on April 1, 2012. Nneka Ogwumike had 22 points in defeat and the Bears' win ended the Cardinal's school-record streak of 32 consecutive wins.
• In Stanford's last trip to Waco, Rachel Allison scored 20 of her 25 points in the first half and Jhasmin Player added 14 to help No. 19 Baylor beat No. 2 Stanford 81-65 on Nov. 16, 2008.
• Jeanette Pohlen scored 14 for the Cardinal and center Jayne Appel was held to seven points on 3-of-11 shooting. She played only 10 minutes in the first half because of foul trouble and picked up her third 26 seconds after halftime.
• Stanford is 22-6 in its last 28 games against Big XII teams over the past 15 seasons and 5-3 against Big XII teams on the road during that time.

AGAINST RANKED »

• The Cardinal was 8-4 against ranked teams last season, 6-2 in road and neutral-site games and 4-2 against the top 10. Stanford has won six of its last 11 against top-10 opponents.
• Stanford has won multiple games against top 25 opponents for each of the last 15 seasons.
• Stanford is 71-37 (.657) against AP ranked opponents since 2007-08, fifth in the country in such wins over that span and fourth in percentage.
• Connecticut (.902), Baylor (.754), Notre Dame (.731), Stanford (.657), Tennessee (.618), Duke (.567), Maryland (.531) and Texas A&M (.504) have winning records against ranked teams the past decade.

SHARP SHOOTING »

• Stanford entered Wednesday night's game still struggling to replace the 3-point prowess of the departed Karlie Samuelson, who shot 44.3 percent for her career (20th in NCAA history).
• In its first seven games, the Cardinal was 46-of-166 (.277) from behind the arc.
• Aganist the Dons, Stanford was 4-of-10 on triples in the first half and then exploded in the second, going 11-of-21 across the third and fourth quarters.
• The 11 3-point makes in the second half are the most in a half in program history and the 15 total makes on 31 attempts (.484) are tied for third at the school all-time behind a pair of 16 3-point efforts at UCLA (Feb. 24, 2002) and at Washington (Feb. 24, 2001).
• Freshman Kiana Williams, who had made four of her first 15 career 3-point attempts, led the charge by going 5-of-9 from deep. Alanna Smith, DiJonai Carrington and Alexa Romano each made three and Anna Wilson added the other.
• Sophomore Anna Wilson, who battled injures as a freshman and only played 48 total minutes in six games, came off the bench against Ohio State on Nov. 25 and poured in 21 points in 19 minutes, making 7-of-8 from behind the arc.
• Wilson became the 10th Stanford player to make seven 3-pointers in a game and the first since Bonnie Samuelson dropped in eight against UCLA on Feb. 15, 2015.
• The school record for 3-point makes in a game is nine shared by Lindsey Yamasaki (Feb. 24, 2001 at Washington) and Molly Goodenbour (Dec. 21, 1993 at Tennessee).

FROM DOWN UNDER »

• A candidate for this year's Lisa Leslie Award, Alanna Smith was named Pac-12 Player of the Week for the first time following her three games in Vegas. She averaged a double-double of 23.7 points and 11.7 rebounds in Stanford's 2-1 week, shot 64.6 percent from the field (31-of-48), 40 percent from deep and also averaged 2.0 blocks per game.
• Smith's 33-point, 16-rebound performance against No. 9 Ohio State is the nation's only 30-point, 15-rebound double-double against a ranked team this season and the first against an AP top-10 team since Stanford's Chiney Ogwumike went for 32 points and 20 boards against No. 3 Tennessee on Dec. 21, 2013.
• It's also just the fourth by a Pac-12 player against a top-10 team since 2000 and the others are all Cardinal. In addition to Ogwumike's in 2013, Nneka Ogwumike had 42 points and 17 rebounds against No. 6 Tennessee on Dec. 20, 2011 and Nicole Powell put up 32 points and 16 rebounds against No. 2 Tennessee on Dec. 14, 2003.
• Smith's point total is the second-highest single-game effort in the Pac-12 this season and the most at Stanford since Chiney Ogwumike dropped in 37 against Washington State on March 1, 2014.
• In her last 23 games, Smith is averaging 14.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.0 blocks in just over 26 minutes of action.
• In her first 57 career appearances, the first international recruit in program history averaged just 5.6 points, 3.2 rebounds and 0.9 blocks 13 minutes per game.
• Smith has put together double-doubles in each of her last three games and is averaging 22.5 points on 64.9 percent shooting and 11.5 rebounds since Thanksgiving.

CARRINGTON EMERGES »

• After averaging 2.5 points and 2.3 rebounds in 7.8 minutes as a freshman, sophomore DiJonai Carrington has emerged as Stanford's third-leading scorer (12.8 ppg) and its second-best rebounder (8.4 rpg) this season.
• She dropped in 21 points against No. 1 UConn on Noc. 12 and pulled down a career-high 22 rebounds one game later against UC Riverside on Nov. 17.
• The 5-foot-11 guard's rebound total is now tied for third in school history with Kaylee Johnson and Mikaela Ruef. Johnson grabbed as many twice during her freshman season against New Mexico on Nov. 24, 2014 and Santa Clara on Dec. 14, 2014. Ruef had her 22-rebound performance at Washington on Feb. 9, 2014.
• Chiney Ogwumike, who totaled a school-record 24 rebounds against Oregon on Feb. 24, 2013, and Nneka Ogwumike, who had 23 at Oregon on Jan. 23, 201, are the only Cardinal players with more boards in a game.
• No player under 6-feet has had more rebounds in a game in the country since Texas A&M's 5-foot-11 Anriel Howard grabbed 27 in March 19, 2016 against Missouri State.
• Carrington scored a career-high 24 points and had 10 rebounds for her second double-double of the season in Stanford's 79-54 win over Kent State on Nov. 23.
• Carrington's brother Darren is a senior wide receiver at Utah and was second team All-Pac-12 in 2015 while at Oregon. Her father, also Darren, played football at Northern Arizona and was a fifth-round draft pick of the Denver Broncos in the 1989 NFL Draft. He appeared in Super Bowl XXIV with the Broncos and Super Bowl XXIX with the Chargers.
• Carrington herself played two years of tackle football in middle school with the Clairemont Hawks in San Diego.

McPHIRE »

• Senior Brittany McPhee had a breakout junior campaign and was named All-Pac-12 and to the Lexington Regional All-Tournament Team as a result. She was second on the team in scoring at 13.3 points per game and improved her scoring average by 6.8 points over her sophomore season.
• A candidate for this year's Ann Meyers Drysdale Award and John R. Wooden Award, McPhee scored in double figures 25 times, had seven 20-point efforts and led Stanford offensively in its run to the program's 13th Final Four, averaging a team-high 16.8 points per game and making 44.4 percent from behind the arc in the NCAA Tournament.
• In the season opener at No. 5 Ohio State, McPhee poured in 24 points on 11-of-21 shooting. Of her 10 career 20-point games, four have come against ranked teams.
• A human biology major with a 3.73 cumulative GPA, McPhee was also honored at the 2017 Final Four as women's basketball's Elite 90 award winner, which is presented to the student-athlete with the highest grade point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA's 90 championships.
• In her first 33 games of 2016-17, McPhee shot 24.2 percent on 3-pointers (23-of-95). In the final four games against Kansas State, Texas, Notre Dame and South Carolina she was 12-of-22 from deep (.545).
• McPhee made her USA Basketball debut this summer at the U24 Four Nations Tournament in Tokyo. She averaged 9.3 points on 61.1 percent shooting (11-of-18) and 4.0 rebounds in 15.7 minutes per game and the United States swept its three games against Australia, Canada and Japan.
• McPhee made the 12-person roster from a group of 36 hopefuls following a week of camp at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Athletes eligible were U.S. citizens, 23 years old or younger and were freshmen, sophomores or juniors during the 2016-17 collegiate season.

THE ART OF THE ASSIST »

• Marta Sniezek, who has handed out five or more assists in 31 of her 81 career appearances, averaged 4.4 assists per game as a sophomore and has upped that to 4.8 apg this season.
• Sniezek, also scoring 5.1 points per game and grabbing 5.4 rebounds per game, is one of three players in the Pac-12 averaging 5.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game (Sabrina Ionescu - Oregon; Mikayla Pivec - Oregon State).
• In the last 20 years, only Nicole Powell, Milena Flores, Jeanette Pohlen and Amber Orrange have averaged more assists for Stanford over the course of a season than Sniezek did last year. Powell averaged 6.3 in 2001-02 and 4.7 in 2000-01. Flores averaged 7.3 in 1998-99, 6.1 in 1997-98 and 5.9 in 1999-00, Pohlen averaged 4.8 in 2010-11 and 4.5 in 2009-10 and Orrange averaged 4.5 in 2013-14.
• She played at least 20 minutes without committing a turnover five times and handed out 113 assists against 48 turnovers in her last 24 games, a 2.35 assist-to-turnover ratio.

GETTING ON THE GLASS »

• Kaylee Johnson pulled down 14 rebounds in Wednesday's win at San Francisco, her highest total since Feb. 2, 2016 against Cal (16).
• With 777, the senior is now three shy of entering the school's all-time top 10 in that category. Rachel Hemmer (1991-95) and Kristen Newlin (2003-07) are tied for 10th with 780.
• Johnson's 7.3 career rebounds per game average would be eighth in Stanford history. She has pulled down 10 or more 33 times in 107 career games and owns a pair of 22-rebounds performances as a freshman.

SO INTERNATIONAL »

• Prior to Alanna Smith's arrival in 2015, Stanford had not recruited an international prospect to The Farm and now has three on its 2017-18 roster in Smith and a pair of Canadians (Brewer/Jerome).
• This summer, Smith was a late add as an injury replacement to the Opals' roster, Australia's senior national team, for the FIBA Asia Cup in Bangalore, India. She showed well at the program's selection camp in Phoenix in late June and didn't disappoint in her first action at the senior level, finishing second on the team in scoring and field goal percentage and third in rebounding.
• One of two Opals to score in double figures for the tournament, Smith averaged 10.8 points on 58.3 percent shooting and 5.3 rebounds. Australia took home silver and qualified for the 2018 FIBA World Cup by virtue of its top-four finish.
• Jerome captained Canada to bronze at the U19 World Cup in Udine and Cividale del Friuli, Italy, its first podium finish at the event. In her fourth FIBA tournament, Jerome averaged 7.6 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 26.3 minutes per game.
• Brewer was invited to Canada's U19 National Team tryouts in July 2017 for the FIBA U19 World Cup, but elected to remain on campus to prepare for her sophomore season.

NEW LOOK ON THE BENCH »

• On April 13, Amy Tucker stepped away from coaching following an illustrious career spanning more than 30 years at Stanford. She remains with the program in an administrative role.
• Tucker arrived on The Farm with Tara VanDerveer in 1985-86 and helped guide the Cardinal to an 889-183 (.829) overall record. She was promoted to associate head coach prior to the 1996-97 season.
• When VanDerveer was tabbed to lead the USA Basketball National Team during the 1995-96 campaign and for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Tucker was named interim head coach. Stanford's 29-3 season, which included the program's fifth NCAA Final Four appearance of the 1990's, earned Tucker UPI (United Press International) National Coach of the Year and Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors.
• Tucker began coaching soon after completing her successful playing career at Ohio State. She joined VanDerveer on Ohio State's bench as a graduate assistant in 1983-84 and a year later was promoted to assistant coach.
• The season opener at Ohio State was the first college game since March 12, 1980 that Tara VanDerveer coached without Tucker involved as either a player or assistant. Cal State LA beat VanDerveer's Idaho team that day, 84-81, in the AIAW Tournament.
• Stanford hired alumna Lindy La Rocque to fill Tucker's coaching role. La Rocque, who spent the past two seasons on staff at Belmont, played in 138 career games for Stanford, the eighth most in program history. She was instrumental in helping the Cardinal compile a 137-12 record during her four years, including a 71-1 mark in conference. Stanford appeared in the Final Four each season during her undergraduate career and advanced to the national title game in 2010.

#TARA1K »

• In her 32nd season on the bench at Stanford, Hall of Famer Tara VanDerveer has accumulated a 1,017-234 record in her 38+ years as a collegiate head coach and an 865-183 mark on The Farm.
• Her teams have won 20 or more games 32 times and collected at least 30 victories 14 times. Pat Summitt (36) and C. Vivian Stringer (34) are the only coaches to lead their teams to more 20-win seasons.
• In November 2013, VanDerveer became just the fifth college women's basketball coach to win 900 career games and on Feb. 3, 2017 she joined her good friend Pat Summitt as the only NCAA women's basketball coaches with 1,000 career wins.
• Summitt (1,098) along with Mike Krzyzewski at Duke (1,079) and Herb Magee at Philadelphia University (1,057) on the men's side are the only college basketball coaches with 1,000 wins.
• VanDerveer has more career wins than 341 of the country's 349 Division I programs.

PROGNOSTICATIONS »

• Stanford is No. 16 in the Associated Press women's basketball poll released on Monday.
• It has been ranked 518 times out of 733 total polls since 1977 (70.7 percent), with an average positioning of 7.2. It's been in the past 309 polls, the second-longest active streak behind Connecticut (454).
• The Cardinal's 518 all-time appearances in the AP top 25 are fourth behind Tennessee (701), Texas (524) and Georgia (522).