Dec. 20, 1996
No. 1 Stanford Crushes Ohio, 95-59
by Kian-Tat Lim
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- After an up-and-down trip to the East Coast, the not-yet-unseated #1 Stanford Cardinal (9-1) boarded charter buses instead of airplanes to get to their next games at the Santa Clara Diet Coke Shootout. Their first opponents would be the Ohio University Bobcats (2-3). The winner would take on Santa Clara, who had beaten Jackson State in the early game, 79-48, the next day.
The Bobcats' coach, Marsha Reall, was a graduate assistant with Tara VanDerveer at Ohio State and was looking forward to the reunion. The 1994 Mid-American Conference champions, who had led Notre Dame at the half earlier this year, faced a highly pro-Stanford crowd at Toso Pavilion.
Barb Grbac is the sister of Elvis Grbac, the San Francisco 49ers' backup quarterback. Elvis was in the building for the game. Marlene Stollings, a 5-11 shooting guard and three-point specialist who transferred from Ohio State, was out with what was variously described as a stress fracture or a leg inflammation. It was later revealed that Starbird had had a 102-degree fever the day before the game.
The tip between Scott and Blackstone went to Starbird, who quickly made an uncontested layup. Blackstone got open for a bucket herself, though. A Starbird shot was short, and Nygaard's offensive rebound was stolen by Ballard. Mulitauaopele poked it off Robare, and the Cardinal had possession again. Scott made the most of it, kissing one off the glass. After misses by both teams, Wideman fouled Blackstone, but neither free throw would fall. The Bobcats got it back when Scott knocked the rebound out of bounds, and Britt drove by Starbird for a 10-foot pull-up to tie the score at 4.
Scott had an inside shot go in and out, but she was fouled by Grbac. Olympia made one of two. After a Ballard miss, Mulitauaopele took a Wideman pass to the hole through a double team. Ohio was stopped, but Starbird threw a pass directly to Britt. Robare missed a three, and after Grbac's second quick foul, Nygaard missed a three. Scott stole the ball and took it in for a fast-break layup; Mulitauaopele tried to go for the steal but missed, allowing Ballard to get an easy basket. Starbird got a bit out of control in transition and missed, while Robare made a runner in the lane the other way. Scott tossed one too high for Mulitauaopele, and, for some reason, Ohio took a :20 timeout. 9-8 Stanford, as Ohio was hanging in in the early going.
Tara took the opportunity to talk things over with her team, and they tightened up, to say the least. 16 straight points for Stanford left no doubt as to who was going to win this one, with defense, transition offense, and especially offensive rebounds playing a role. To start, Scott made another steal-and-bucket play. Mulitauaopele stuffed a shot. Scott got an offensive rebound and made two free throws after Djara Barnes (6-1, F, Jr) fouled her. Mulitauaopele put back an offensive rebound. Charmin Smith (5-10, G, Sr) did the same.
Heather Owen (6-4, F, Jr) came in at 15:28 as Ohio called a timeout. She was immediately poked in the neck by Amy Turner (6-4, C, Sr transfer from Ohio State) and had to go back to the bench. She was kept out for the rest of the game as a precaution, with ice applied to the injury. The foul was ruled intentional (but not flagrant), so free throws were awarded despite Stanford not being in the bonus. With Owen out, her replacement, Chandra Benton (6-7, C, RSo) took the shots, making one of two. With possession retained on the intentional foul, Starbird rattled in a trey. The run continued with a Mulitauaopele basket after an Ohio turnover and a Mulitauaopele put-back after Milena Flores (5-6, G, Fr), in for Wideman, forced Robare to travel.
Britt finally broke things up with a 16-footer. Notable plays for the rest of the half: another in the series of great pinpoint long-distance Flores passes for a basket at 10:15. Benton getting on the offensive glass to put back a missed Nygaard trey. Christina Batastini (5-10, G, Fr) poking the ball away from Robare to Flores, who no-looked it back to Batastini, who then went up strong and drew a foul from the much taller Turner.
Robare threaded the needle to Barnes for two, and, on the next possession, she banked in a three-pointer as the shot clock was expiring. Batastini made a floating scoop shot -- count it, and the foul from Turner made it a three-point play. Melody Peterson (5-9, G, Fr) drained a three as the half ended to make it 51-26.
The second half saw no extended runs for either team, just strings of a few baskets at a time as Stanford extended its lead. Scott was just too quick for Grbac, who picked up her third and fourth fouls in the first 2:10 of the half trying to defend her. Almost everything was working for the Cardinal offense, unlike the Old Dominion game, with Starbird and Scott scoring in transition and Mulitauaopele hitting inside the paint. The one missing ingredient? Three-pointers by Nygaard (or anyone else). For the most part, they were unneeded, but Nygaard, Batastini, and Smith all missed attempts.
Batastini drove and dished to Benton for a 5-footer to make it 72-34, the biggest lead Stanford would have, at about the 12:00 mark. Nygaard finally got her first points of the game at 9:17 when she made both ends of a one-and-one after being shoved by Robare.
Benton equaled her career high of 10 points on a high-low pass from Mulitauaopele; she then proceeded to eclipse the mark on the next possession with two free throws and eventually made three more free throws and a basket (on the dribble!) to finish with 17.
VanDerveer had a chance to do some more lineup experimentation. At one point, the positions from 1 to 5 were Flores, Peterson, Smith, Tara Harrington (6-0, F, Sr), and Benton. (Harrington was apparently out of the doghouse after whatever kept her from making the Tenn/ODU trip.)
Britt scored last for the Bobcats. Grbac fouled Harrington for her fifth at 0:50; Tara made both to close out the scoring. Benton had a couple of monster rejections of Britt and Robare to prevent Ohio from getting any more points in the closing seconds. The final was 95-59.
As expected, Stanford dominated the statistics. They out-rebounded Ohio, 50-29, out-shot them 49.2% to 38.1%, made 29 of 38 free throws (76.3%) to Ohio's 7 of 14 (50%), and had 8 blocks to none. Areas of concern were three-point shooting (a poor 2 of 13 for 15.4%), turnovers (20, to 25 for the Bobcats), and Vanessa Nygaard's line (0-7 from the floor, 0-3 behind the arc, 2-2 from the line, for 2 points and 6 boards).
Ballard led the Bobcats with 23 points and 8 rebounds. Britt contributed 10 points. For the Cardinal, four players were in double figures. Scott led all scorers with a double-double of 21 points and 10 boards in only 17 minutes of action. Mulitauaopele was close with 19 points and 9 rebounds. Benton had her first career double-double, and career highs in points and boards, with 17 and 10, respectively. Starbird, likely not at 100%, managed 11 points.
The Stanford bench got lots of playing time, with no starter going more than 26 minutes. Flores was on the court more than Wideman, and Batastini had only two fewer minutes than Starbird. Christina finished with 7 on just 1 of 5 shooting from the field, but 5 of 7 from the line.
Would the Cardinal let up for Santa Clara? Stay tuned...
OHIO (59)
fg ft rb
min m- a m- a o- t a pf tp
Blackstone 26 1- 4 0- 2 0- 0 0 2 2
Grbac 15 1- 4 0- 0 1- 3 0 5 2
Ballard 29 9-14 5- 6 3- 8 1 4 23
Robare 31 2-10 0- 2 0- 2 6 4 6
Britt 32 4- 8 1- 2 0- 2 4 3 10
Deering 16 2- 6 1- 2 2- 2 3 0 6
Barnes 18 4- 5 0- 0 1- 3 0 3 8
Tatman 6 0- 4 0- 0 0- 1 2 1 0
Turner 12 1- 6 0- 0 1- 3 0 4 2
Mitrovic 15 0- 2 0- 0 0- 3 0 1 0
TOTALS 200 24-63 7-14 8-27 16 27 59
Percentages: FG-.381, FT-.500.
3-Point Goals: 4-11, .364 (Blackstone 0-1, Robare 2-4, Britt 1-2, Deering 1-1,
Tatman 0-3).
Team rebounds: 2.
Blocked shots: None.
Turnovers: 25 (Robare 8, Deering 5, Blackstone 4, Ballard 3, Turner 3,
Mitrovic, Tatman).
Steals: 12 (Robare 3, Ballard 2, Britt 2, Deering 2, Mitrovic 2, Barnes).
STANFORD (95)
fg ft rb
min m- a m- a o- t a pf tp
Scott 17 7-11 7- 8 4-10 0 3 21
Nygaard 24 0- 7 2- 2 3- 6 1 2 2
Mulitauaopele26 8-13 3- 4 3- 9 2 1 19
Wideman 17 2- 2 0- 0 0- 1 4 2 4
Starbird 18 5-10 0- 0 0- 2 1 0 11
Gbalazeh 2 0- 0 0- 0 0- 1 0 0 0
Flores 21 1- 1 0- 0 0- 1 0 1 2
Smith 19 1- 5 3- 5 2- 3 2 0 5
Peterson 9 2- 2 0- 0 1- 2 0 1 5
Benton 25 5- 8 7-10 3-10 0 3 17
Harrington 5 0- 1 2- 2 0- 0 0 0 2
Batastini 16 1- 5 5- 7 0- 2 3 1 7
Owen 1 0- 0 0- 0 0- 1 0 0 0
TOTALS 200 32-65 29-38 16-48 13 14 95
Percentages: FG-.492, FT-.763.
3-Point Goals: 2-13, .154 (Nygaard 0-3, Starbird 1-3, Smith 0-3, Peterson 1-1,
Harrington 0-1, Batastini 0-2).
Team rebounds: 2.
Blocked shots: 8 (Benton 3, Scott 2, Nygaard, Mulitauaopele, Harrington).
Turnovers: 20 (Benton 4, Nygaard 4, Batastini 2, Peterson 2, Scott 2, Flores,
Mulitauaopele, Smith, Starbird, Wideman).
Steals: 11 (Starbird 3, Scott 2, Wideman 2, Batastini, Flores, Mulitauaopele,
Nygaard).