New Year's Eve HoopsNew Year's Eve Hoops
Richard Ersted
Women's Basketball

New Year's Eve Hoops

Stanford (7-6, 1-0)
vs. USC (10-2, 0-1)
Sunday, Dec. 31 • 1 p.m.
Maples Pavilion • Stanford, Calif.
Tickets
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Television • Pac-12 Networks
Radio •GoStanford.com
Live Statistics •GoStanford.com
Complete Release (PDF)
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THE GAME: Coming off a win over No. 11 UCLA, Stanford (7-6, 1-0) closes the weekend by hosting USC (10-2, 0-1) in Maples Pavilion on Sunday, Dec. 31 at 1 p.m. Anne Marie Anderson has the call on Pac-12 Networks and Kevin Danna will handle 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 fell out of the AP poll for the first time since 2001 on Monday ... The Cardinal had six losses heading into league action for the first time since 1998-99 ... Stanford leads the nation with six games against ranked opponents and notched its first win of the season against a top-25 team Friday against No. 11 UCLA ... Eleven of the Cardinal's last 19 games have been against ranked foes ... In her two games since returning from injury, Brittany McPhee is averaging 26.5 points ... Against UCLA the Cardinal had a full contingent of healthy bodies for just the third time this season ... Alanna Smith is 14th in the Pac-12 in scoring and tied for second in both rebounding and blocks ... Stanford, which hasn't consistently put two first-year players in its starting five since 2005-06, has started a pair of freshmen in back-to-back games ... Kaylee Johnson is 10th in program history in rebounds (828) and seventh in blocks (140) ... Brittany McPhee (Ann Meyers Drysdale Award/Wooden Award/Naismith Trophy) and Alanna Smith (Lisa Leslie Award) are the Cardinal's representatives on major preseason watch lists.
 
VS. USC: Stanford is 57-20 all-time against USC dating back to Feb. 2, 1979, 29-6 against the Trojans at home and has won 18 of the teams' last 19 meetings. The Cardinal has prevailed 15 times in a row against USC in Maples Pavilion. The Trojans haven't won on The Farm since March 1, 2001 (62-59). Tara VanDerveer collected her 1,000th career victory against USC in the teams' most recent meeting on Feb. 3, 2017, 58-42. Stanford survived a first-round scare from Mark Trakh's New Mexico State Aggies last season in Manhattan, Kan., 72-64.
 
WHERE WE STAND »

  • Stanford entered conference play with a 6-6 record, the program's first time heading into league action with at least six losses since 1998-99. Stanford was 4-7 in its regular-season nonconference slate in that season.
  • The Cardinal dropped out of the AP poll for the first time in 17 years on Monday. Stanford was last unranked in the 2001 season, when a 72-54 loss at No. 20 Oregon on Jan. 13 knocked the No. 24 Cardinal out of the polls. It wouldn't get back in until opening the next season at No. 9.
  • The Cardinal had been in 521 AP polls, the fourth most all-time, and 312 in a row. Stanford's streak is tied for the third longest in the history of the poll. Tennessee had the longest run at 565 weeks, Connecticut has an active 458-week streak and Duke also appeared in 312 consecutive rankings.
  • Stanford is 39th in the NCAA RPI and has played the nation's fifth-toughest schedule.

SETTING THE STAGE »

  • Tara VanDerveer and Stanford faced Mark Trakh 14 times in his previous stint at USC from 2005-09. The Cardinal was 13-1 in those games, its only loss coming in Los Angeles on Jan. 6, 2008, 73-72.
  • Trakh also served as the head coach at Pepperdine from 1994-2004 and Stanford won three meetings with the Waves during those 10 seasons in Nov. 2001 (75-63), Jan. 2003 (91-58) and Nov. 2003 (69-61).
  • Overall, VanDerveer and the Cardinal are 17-1 against Trakh's teams. Stanford opened its Final Four run last season with a 72-64 win over Trakh's New Mexico State Aggies in the first round.
  • New Mexico State led by as many as nine early before Alanna Smith gave Stanford its first lead midway through the third quarter and Brittany McPhee provided the lead for good midway through the fourth. Smith had 19 and 11 and McPhee added 16, six rebounds and a career-high five steals.
  • The Cardinal is 7-0 this season when holding its opponent under 70 points and has used six different starting lineups in its 13 games.

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 - 22.6).

BAPTISM BY FIRE »

  • Stanford leads the nation with six games against ranked teams - each against top-15 squads - and is 1-5 in those contests, notching its first win of the year against No. 11 UCLA on Friday night, 76-65. In beating the Bruins, Stanford snapped a six-game losing streak against ranked foes.
  • The Cardinal has played five top-10 teams in No. 5 Ohio State (Nov. 10), No. 1 UConn (Nov. 12), No. 9 Ohio State (Nov. 25), No. 9 Baylor (Dec. 3) and No. 7 Tennessee (Dec. 21). No other school has more than two games against top-10 opponents this season.
  • For comparison, Stanford played five top-10 opponents all of last year, which was the program's most since 2010-11 (7).
  • Dating back to last season, 11 of Stanford's past 19 games have been against ranked opponents, including eight in the top 10 and four in the top five.
  • "We can schedule it so that we are 12-0 or 10-2, but this team went to the Final Four last year and that's the level that we have to get to," Tara VanDerveer said of her team's nonconference schedule. "We need our tough schedule to pay off for us, but it only pays off if we build on it. Don't get frustrated. Get mad and go to work. We are looking up at people right now. We need people to look up at where we need to be and embrace that challenge."
  • Stanford was 8-4 against ranked teams last season and has won multiple games against top 25 opponents for each of the last 15 seasons.

HEADING INTO CONFERENCE »

  • With its win over UCLA on Friday night, Stanford moved to 29-3 in Pac-12 openers. Its last loss came at Arizona State (74-68) on Jan. 6, 2000.
  • Since 2007-08, the Cardinal owns a conference road record of 79-11 and a Pac-12 home record of 85-6.
  • Stanford has the most conference wins of any team the past 11 years with 164. Marist and Green Bay are tied for second (161).
  • Stanford's all-time Pac-12 record is 487-72 and 152 wins clear of the next closest team (UW - 335).
  • Stanford was picked to finish in a tie for second in the Pac-12 when the conference announced the results of the preseason coaches' poll on Oct. 20. It's the third consecutive season Stanford has come in second in the preseason poll. The Cardinal had topped the rankings for 15 consecutive years beginning in 2000-01.
  • The Cardinal totaled 108 points and garnered two first-place votes. Oregon also collected 108 points, including three first-place votes. UCLA was the leading vote getter for the second consecutive year, receiving seven first-place votes and 115 points.

AGAINST RANKED »

  • From 2000 to 2012, Stanford played 27 conference and conference tournament games against ranked opponents and went 21-6. In just the last six seasons, the Cardinal has played a ranked Pac-12 team 31 times in conference and conference tournament games, going 21-10.
  • Stanford is 72-39 (.649) against AP ranked opponents since 2007-08, fifth in the country in such wins over that span and fourth in percentage.
  • Connecticut (.903), Baylor (.756), Notre Dame (.725), Stanford (.649), Tennessee (.624), Duke (.562), Maryland (.531) and South Carolina (.505) have winning records against ranked teams the past 11 seasons.

BRITT'S BACK »

  • Stanford welcomed its top player back to the lineup against No. 7 Tennessee in Brittany McPhee.
  • The senior had missed the previous nine games recovering from a right foot injury and in four games this season is averaging 21.5 points and 5.0 rebounds per game.
  • McPhee has been marvelous in the two games since her return, scoring 27 against the Lady Vols on Dec. 21 and 26 against No. 11 UCLA on Dec. 29.
  • In the season opener at No. 5 Ohio State, she poured in 24 points and two days later she scored nine in Stanford's loss to No. 1 UConn on Nov. 12 and hadn't played since.
  • At her best against the best, of McPhee's 12 career 20-point games, six have come against ranked teams and her four highest-scoring performances have come against top-15 foes. She scored a career-high 28 against No. 8 Texas on Nov. 14, 2016 and also dropped in 27 in the Elite Eight against No. 2 Notre Dame on March 26, 2017 in addition to her 27 and 26-point efforts the past two games.
  • In fact, each of McPhee's last eight games dating back to last season have come against ranked teams and she is averaging 19.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists.
  • Sunday's date with USC will be her first outing against an unranked team since she scored 16, had six rebounds and five steals against another Mark Trakh-coached team in New Mexico State in the first round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament.
  • McPhee, an All-Pac-12 performer as a junior and candidate for this year's Ann Meyers Drysdale and John R. Wooden awards, averaged 13.3 points per game last season, including 16.8 points on 44.4 percent shooting from behind the arc in the NCAA Tournament.
  • She made her USA Basketball debut this summer at the U24 Four Nations Tournament in Tokyo. McPhee 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.

INJURY WOES »

  • McPhee is back and so is sophomore DiJonai Carrington, who had missed three straight games after taking an elbow in practice. Friday's win over UCLA was just the third time all season Stanford had a full contingent of healthy bodies. The Cardinal hadn't had its full roster available since the first two games of its season at No. 5 Ohio State and against No. 1 UConn.
  • After averaging 2.5 points and 2.3 rebounds as a freshman, Carrington has emerged as Stanford's third-leading scorer (11.2 ppg) and its third-best rebounder (7.4 rpg) this season.
  • She dropped in 21 points against No. 1 UConn on Nov. 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 tied for third in school history with Kaylee Johnson and Mikaela Ruef. 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, 2010, are the only Cardinal players with more boards in a game.
  • 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 just finished his career as a wide receiver at Utah and was a two-time All-Pac-12 second teamer. 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.

LEARNING ON THE FLY »

  • New faces at Stanford 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 was named MVP of the West Team after scoring a game-high 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting.
  • The two have both in the starting lineup the past two games. Stanford hadn't started a pair of freshmen since Erica McCall and Briana Roberson at UCLA on Feb. 23, 2014.
  • The Cardinal hasn't consistently started two freshmen since Jillian Harmon and Ros Gold-Onwude did so 16 times together in the 2005-06 season.

HOME ON THE FARM »

  • Stanford is 153-12 (.927) at home the last 11 years and one of 11 schools to have more than 150 home wins during that span.
  • Its .927 home winning percentage since 2007-08 is third behind Connecticut (.973) and Baylor (.959)
  • With the Dec. 18 loss to Western Illinois, the Cardinal has dropped a nonconference game at home to an unranked opponent for three consecutive seasons (Gonzaga - 2016; Santa Clara - 2015).
  • With results against WIU and Tennessee, Stanford lost multiple regular-season, nonconference home games for the first time since 1998-99 when it fell against No. 24 Illinois on Nov. 19 (76-58) and No. 15 Texas Tech on Nov. 27 (75-69). Those results sandwiched a 73-72 takedown of No. 1 Purdue on Nov. 22.
  • The Cardinal, which lost back-to-back home games for the first time since Dec. 2012 and Jan. 2013 against No. 2 Connecticut (61-35) and No. 7 Cal (67-55), avoided dropping three in a row at home for the first time since 1985-86 with Friday's win over UCLA. In what was Tara VanDerveer's first year on The Farm, the Cardinal lost four straight in Maples to UCLA, USC, Fresno State and Cal in late January and early February as part of an overall nine-game winless skid.
  • Interestingly enough, that last time Stanford had dropped two straight at home, the Cardinal also righted the ship against No. 14 UCLA on Jan. 18, 2013, 75-49, behind 25 points and 13 rebounds from Chiney Ogwumike, 16 points from Joslyn Tinkle and 15 points from Amber Orrange.

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 on Nov. 27 following her three games in Las 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 was the nation's first 30-point, 15-rebound double-double 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.
  • On Dec. 13, Mississippi State's Teaira McCowan also did it with a 35-point, 19-rebound effort as part of a 90-79 Bulldog win against No. 9 Oregon.
  • Smith's is 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 28 games, Smith is averaging 14.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.1 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 five of her last eight games and is averaging 16.7 points on 52.9 percent shooting and 10.1 rebounds since Thanksgiving.
  • Her five double-doubles are tied for third in the Pac-12 with Marie Gulich (Oregon State). Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu has six, including three triple-doubles, as does UCLA's Monique Billings.
  • Smith is averaging 14.2 points, 8.8 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game this season, one of just 13 players in the country putting up 14/8/2. In the Pac-12 it is just Smith and Gulich with those averages.
  • The Australian is 14th in the Pac-12 in scoring and tied for second in both rebounding and blocks.

WATCH WILLIAMS »

  • Freshman Kiana Williams, who started the first game of her career on against UNLV on Dec. 16, has been Stanford's third-leading scorer in its past six games, averaging 10.8 points.
  • Williams, who was averaging 3.1 points and shooting 20.7 percent (6-of-29) in her first seven collegiate games, scored a career-high 17 at San Francisco on Nov. 29 and followed that up with 13 points in 34 minutes at No. 9 Baylor on Dec. 3, 14 points in 18 minutes against UNLV on Dec. 16 and another 17 in 30 minutes against Western Illinois on Dec. 18.
  • Her 10.8 points per game average since Nov. 29 is the third-best among Pac-12 freshmen over that time behind Colorado's Annika Jank (13.5) and Oregon's Satou Sabally (13.1).
  • A five-star talent, rated as the eighth best player in the country according to ESPN HoopGurlz, Williams was the Cardinal's first top-10 recruit since Chiney Ogwumike signed as the top player in the country in Nov. 2009.

GETTING ON THE GLASS »

  • Kaylee Johnson has pulled down 10+ rebounds in four of the last six games.
  • With 828, the senior is in 10th in program history. Next on the list is Katy Steding, who grabbed 864 from 1986-90.
  • Johnson's 828 rebounds are third among active Pac-12 players behind UCLA's Monique Billings (932) and Utah's Emily Potter (899).
  • Her 7.4 career rebounds per game average would be eighth in Stanford history. Johnson has pulled down 10 or more 36 times in 112 career games and owns a pair of 22-rebound outings as a freshman.
  • She is also seventh in school history with 140 career blocks.
  • Johnson, who had started 87 career games and 31 in a row, came off the bench against UCLA on Friday and played a season-high 33 minutes with four points, six rebounds and three assists.
  • In her career as a starter, Johnson averages 5.2 points on 45.2 percent shooting and 7.7 rebounds. In her 25 games as a sub, she averages 5.3 points on 62.7 percent shooting and 6.2 rebounds.

THE ART OF THE ASSIST »

  • Marta Sniezek had nine assists and just one turnover on Dec. 21 against No. 7 Tennessee, her fourth career game with at least nine assists.
  • She has handed out five or more assists in 34 of her 86 career appearances and is 10th in the Pac-12 averaging 4.8 assists per game this season.
  • Sniezek, also scoring 4.3 points per game and grabbing 4.8 rebounds per game, is one of six players in the Pac-12 averaging 4.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game (Sabrina Ionescu - Oregon; Minyon Moore - USC; Jordin Canada - UCLA; Mikayla Pivec - Oregon State; Mikayla Cowling - Cal).
  • 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's 4.4 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.

NONCONFERENCE PERFORMANCES »

  • 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).
  • In an 81-57 loss at No. 9 Baylor on Dec. 3, Shannon Coffee scored a career-high 14 points and was 4-of-8 on 3-pointers.
  • Stanford's center became the first player in the nation at least 6-foot-5 to hit four 3-pointers in a game since Delaware's Elena Delle Donne made the same number against Georgia State on March 6, 2013. Delle Donne made four or more 3-pointers 15 times in her career.
  • Down four at halftime, Stanford scored 62 second-half points and made 15-of-31 3-pointers to beat San Francisco on the road on Nov. 29, 86-66.
  • Against 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).