Stanford's Nice Place in a Wonderfully Chaotic Conference

 

Warren Grimes

The women's hoops Pac-12 season, now at the halfway point, is wonderfully chaotic.  The preseason rankings are already a misfire; bottom half teams are winning games against top teams (as in Washington and Washington State’s victories in Southern California last weekend); and the quality of basketball, although uneven, is very high. 

Stanford, picked to finish third, leads the conference with an 8-1 record.  Colorado, picked to finish fourth, is in second place with a 7-2 record.  Oregon State, picked to finish tenth, is in third place with just three losses.  Meanwhile, Utah, picked to finish first, has four losses. while UCLA, picked to finish second, has three losses. 

Injuries and health have had an impact.  Utah lost its best three-point shooter and (for a time) a starting point guard.  UCLA has played its last couple of games without Lauren Betts.  And Arizona and Washington State have lost key players for at least a few games.  Stanford (fingers crossed) lost Cameron Brink for most of a two-game weekend but has been relatively unaffected. 

The wonderful chaos will continue this weekend as the Southern California schools visit Maples in key matchups.  With Stanford’s rise to the top of the standings comes extra motivation for opponents.   Expect USC and UCLA to bring their very best games to Maples on Friday and Sunday.

Having lost two #1-ranked high school recruits (Haley Jones and Lauren Betts) as well as Fran Belibi, Ashten Prechtel, Indya Nivar, and Agnes Emma Nnopu, there is no wonder that the media did not make Stanford the favorite for this season.  The three transferring players are starters for their new teams (Betts for UCLA, Emma-Nnopu for TCU, and Indya Nivar for North Carolina).

Stanford is exceeding preseason expectations for several reasons, mostly named Kiki Iriafen and Talana Lepolo.  Both players continue to improve as the season progresses. In the nine conference games played so far, Iriafen has assumed the role as the team’s highest scoring player, averaging 22.6 per game and shooting at a team-leading 52.6% clip.  She is tied with Brink in rebounding, averaging 12.4 per game.  And she’s converting 87.5% of her free throws.   A small part of Iriafen’s success can be attributed to being in the game while Cameron Brink is distracting defenses.  If you believe that Iriafen is leaning on Brink, however, consider the Oregon State game where Iriafen scored a career high 34 points while an injured Brink sat on the bench.

In the nine conference games, Lepolo has also moved beyond her earlier performances.  For the entire season, Lepolo’s three-point conversion rate is an excellent 42%.  But since conference games began, Lepolo has converted 17 of 30 three-point attempts for an amazing 56.7% rate.  Her assist to turnover rate is 2.77 for the entire season but is 3.06 in conference play. 

Iriafen and Lepolo are not the only players who have improved.  Coming off the bench, Jzaniya Harriel has made 9 of 16 three-point attempts (56.3 %) and substantially leads the team in steals per minute.  In the Arizona game, Chloe Clardy came off the bench for 21 minutes to score 6 points, get 4 assists and 2 steals to steady the team against Arizona’s aggressive and theft-oriented defense.  Brooke Demetre remains the first player off the bench and scores field goals at a 47.3% clip while maintaining an impressive 2 to 1 assist to turnover ratio.  Both Nunu Agara and Courtney Ogden continue to contribute, playing 10 plus minutes per game.

During all of this, Cameron Brink continues her leadership and statistical dominance in many areas.  Since the conference games began, Iriafen has scored more points than Brink (.74 points per minute compared to Brink’s .67 points per minute) and has a higher conversion precentage (52.6% versus Brink’s 47.9%).  But Brink continues to lead the team in other ways.  Brink is number one in free throws (93%) and in blocks (4 times as many blocks per minute as Iriafen).  In rebounds, Brink has .55 per minute compared to Iriafen’s .41 per minute.  And Brink gets more assists per minute (.099) than Iriafen (.067).

Together, Brink and Iriafen are a formidable duo.  Last weekend in games against the Arizona schools, they scored 53% of Stanford’s points and grabbed 60% of Stanford’s rebounds.  May that pattern continue.