STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford will travel to Baton Rouge, La. on Thursday, Dec. 5 to face LSU in the 2024 SEC/ACC Women's Basketball Challenge, which was announced Wednesday by the two conferences and ESPN.
Coverage details, including game time and platform designation, will be announced at a later date.
The trip to LSU will be the first in program history for the Cardinal, which is 0-2 all-time against the Tigers. In the teams' first meeting, LSU beat Stanford in Maples Pavilion on Jan. 8, 1981, 85-60. The most recent matchup was a 62-59 LSU win in the Elite Eight in San Antonio on March 27, 2006. Candice Wiggins had 23 points for the No. 13 Cardinal, while Seimone Augustus had 26 for the No. 5 Tigers.
The game will mark the first for Stanford in the state of Louisiana since March 30, 1991. That day, the Cardinal lost to No. 4 Tennessee in the Final Four in New Orleans, 68-60, its lone tournament loss sandwiched between the program's 1990 and 1992 NCAA titles.
Stanford is 1-2 all-time in Louisiana. In addition to that Final Four defeat, the Cardinal beat No. 8 Iowa in the Sweet 16 in Ruston on March 23, 1989, 98-74, and lost to host and No. 3 Louisiana Tech in the Elite Eight on March 25, 85-75.
The Cardinal is 57-46 all-time against members of the SEC in 2024-25.
The LSU matchup is Stanford's first game announced as an ACC member. In 2024-25, Stanford will begin play in a new conference for the first time since Tara VanDerveer's first Cardinal squad played in the Pac-West in 1985-86. Left behind is a program lineage that includes 27 Pac-12 regular-season championships, 15 Pac-12 Tournament titles and a 594-90 (.868) Pac-12 record.
The 2024-25 season will also be the first for Setsuko Ishiyama Director of Women's Basketball Kate Paye. Paye, a two-time WBCA Assistant Coach of the Year who spent 17 seasons on VanDerveer's staff, succeeded her mentor as Stanford head coach on April 16. The 50-year-old Paye has been part of two of Stanford's three national championships – as a player on the 1992 team and an associate head coach for the 2021 squad. VanDerveer, college basketball's all-time wins leader with 1,216, announced her retirement on April 9 after 38 seasons at Stanford.
