February 09, 2014

Dawgs bite the Cardinal

The Dawgs held the lead for all but 28 seconds of the first half and trounced the Cardinal, 87-82.

The Cardinal had trouble getting the ball inside against the Dawgs' three-two zone. When they succeeded, Chiney was double- and triple-teamed and held to just 23 points and 14 rebounds.

The Cardinal's outside game was disrupted by the Dawg defense too. They sank nine treys, but those came from 41 attempts! Bonnie made four, Lili made three and Karlie and Taylor made one apiece. The Cardinal's success beyond the arc was actually even less than that. Three of Bonnie's came in the last two minutes of the game as the Cardinal made a desperate attempt to overcome a 12-point deficit. In the first 38 minutes of the game, the Cardinal made just 18% of their 3-point shots (six of 34).

The Dawgs also made nine treys, but at a rate of 41%, on hits by five players. The Cardinal defense didn't slow down the Dawgs inside either. As Chiney said of the Cougs on Friday, "They were scoring left, right and center." All five of the Dawgs' starters scored in double-digits, headed by freshman sharp-shooter Kelsey Plum with 23 points.

Mikaela battled fiercely and effectively for 37 minutes, but couldn't do it all by herself. She scored her career-high 16 points and grabbed her career-high 22 rebounds for her fourth double-double of the season.

In other Pac-12 action today, Arizona State blew the opportunity to advance to just one game behind Stanford as Arizona, in its first conference win of the season, defeated them 68-49. Cal got its second win of the weekend with an 87-70 defeat of Washington State.

Here are game reports and commentary:

The box score and play-by-play,

Stanford-UW postgame notes from Stanford Athletics,

The game highlights video from Pac-12 Networks

The post game press conference with Tara, Chiney and Mikaela

And photos of ecstatic Dawgs by Elaine Thompson (Associated Press):

No comments: