Looking back one last time

A story of 2014-15 Stanford Women's Basketball with pictures from Stanford Athletics. Click here.

Thanksgiving in Florida

The Cardinal will spend the weekend after Thanksgiving in Southwest Florida as part of the third-annual Gulf Coast Showcase (there's also a mens' tournament on the three days before Thanksgiving).

The women's tournament will be held from Nov. 27-29 at Germain Arena in Estero, Florida. The Cardinal will be joined at the event by:

The Dayton Flyers
The Louisville Cardinals
The LSU Tigers
The Maine Black Bears
The Marist Red Foxes
The Missouri State Lady Bears
The Purdue Boilermakers

The tournament format is an eight-team playoff, with winners playing winners and losers playing losers in the second and third rounds, to determine places one through seven.

Game times and the first-round pairings have not been announced yet.

Click here for the Gulf Coast Showcase announcement of the tournament fields.

For complete information, go to the Gulf Coast Showcase website. There you can find information about buying tickets (which go on sale on May 15) and travel packages (which will be announced on May 1).

If you want to consider making your own travel arrangements:

Map of Germain Arena in Estero, from which you can search for nearby hotels. If you zoom way out, you'll find that Estero is a suburb of Fort Myers and about 10 miles south of the nearest major airport – Southwest Florida International Airport.

TripAdvisor review of the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa, the official host resort for each of the participating teams.

Way-too-early Top 25 for 2015-16

Charlie Creme (espnW) is already eagerly looking ahead to next season. He puts the Cardinal at #20 with this evaluation:

Amber Orrange and Bonnie Samuelson depart, but look for Lili Thompson to be an even bigger scorer and for Erica McCall and Kaylee Johnson to blossom as sophomores. The Pac-12 run of dominance is over, but the Cardinal will still be one of the league's top-three teams.

Click here to read about Creme's other 24.

The website lives on

The season is over. Why is the FBC website still here?

After it was announced a month ago that I was planning to retire the website after the end of the season, many of you told me how much you would miss it. As the season wound down, I realized how much I was going to miss it too – both working on it and having it as a resource.

So, I've changed my mind, and the website will continue much as before.

Check the website during the summer for:

• News of Amber, Chiney, Nneka, Kayla, Jeannette, Jayne, Candice and maybe Jos  in the WNBA
• News  of 2015 USA Basketball competitions – PanAm Games, FISU World University Games,  FIBA U19 Women's World Championship. Hopefully, some Cardinal players will be selected for one or more of these events.
• Game reports  from Kezar summer basketball if any Cardinal players participate.
• Judy Richter's report of the Awards Banquet.
• Judy Richter's report of what the Cardinal players are doing this summer.
• Bob Kinder's Pac-12 team previews.
• The 2015-16 schedule, which is usually published late in July or early in August.

And come back in November for another season of exciting Cardinal basketball.

The diminishing returns of UConn’s dominance

Alexa Philippou (Stanford Daily): I will never forget the day that Stanford women’s basketball beat UConn. Going into the game, no one -- and I mean no one -- expected the Cardinal to come out with a win. Read More »

More accolades for the Cardinal

The Cardinal received accolades last week for their athletic and academic achievements.

Taylor Greenfield, Erica McCall, Amber Orrange, Briana Roberson, Bonnie Samuelson, Karlie Samuelson and Lili Thompson each earned a spot on the Pac-12 All-Academic honorable mention squad. Read more...

Amber was named a Senior CLASS Award Second Team All-American. Read more...

Amber Orrange earned 2015 Women’s Basketball Coaches’ Association Division I All-America honorable mention accolades. Read more...

Season retrospectives

John Reid (Palo Alto Daily News) concludes that the Cardinal's 2014-15 season wasn't too shabby, all things considered: Stanford women's hoop did all it could

FBC reporter Judy Richter is writing her annual in-depth review of the season and has published the first part, the non-conference season: A look back: Part 1 of 3

Keep an eye on her FBC Event Reports blog for parts 2 and 3 in the next week or so.

In the Record Book 2014-15

Bonnie set one Stanford record and earned six other entries in the Stanford record book and one entry in the Pac-12 record book.

Amber earned six entries in the Stanford record book.

Kaylee set two Stanford records and earned five other entries in the Stanford record book.

Bonnie Samuelson

Bonnie calmly sank 90.8% of her free throw attempts in her senior season, which breaks the Stanford record of 89.5% set by Louise Smith in 1979-80. Bonnie's career free throw average was 90.5%. It's likely that she would have broken that record too, but she took only 147 free throws in her career and the minimum for record-setting is 200.

Bonnie sank 237 3-pointers in her career, which places her third in career 3-pointers behind Candice Wiggins and Jeanette Pohlen and tenth in Pac-12 career 3-pointers.

She made 81 of those 3-pointers this season, which places her in a tie with Jamie Carey for seventh place in Stanford single-season 3-pointers

She made eight 3-pointers on February 15, 2015 vs UCLA, which places her in a tie with Candice Wiggins and Lindsey Yamasaki for third place in Stanford single-game 3-pointers.

She launched 598 shots from beyond the arc in her career, which places her third in that category behind Candice Wiggins and Jeanette Pohlen. She launched 185 this season, which places her tenth in Stanford single-season 3-point attempts.

This season, Bonnie made 3-pointers at a rate of 43.8%, which ranks eighth in the nation. Her career 3-point percentage was 39.6%. (Note: Stanford publishes the leader in these categories, but not the runners-up.)

Bonnie played in 141 games in her career, which places her ninth in that category between Joslyn Tinkle and Lindy La Rocque.

Amber Orrange

Amber scored 1,426 points in her career, which places her 20th among the 35 members of the Stanford 2,000/1,000 Point Club.

She dished 552 assists in her career, which places her seventh in Stanford career assists between Jeanette Pohlen (2007-11) and Virginia Sourlis (1982-86).

Amber joins Jennifer Azzi, Sonja Henning, Jeanette Pohlen and Nicole Powell as the fifth Stanford player with more than 1,000 career points and 500 assists.

Amber played in 146 games in her career, which places her fifth in that category – just one game less than Jayne Appel and one game more than Chiney and Nneka Ogwumike.

She played 5,200 minutes in her career, which places her fourth in that category behind Kayla Pedersen, Chiney Ogwumike and Jeanette Pohlen.

She played 1,179 minutes in her junior season, which places her eighth in Stanford single-season minutes played – just one minute less than Jeanette Pohlen and 15 more than Kayla Pedersen.

Kaylee Johnson

Kaylee grabbed 344 rebounds this season, which breaks the Stanford freshman record of 329, set by Kayla Pedersen in 2007-08. Jayne Appel grabbed the same number of rebounds in her sophomore season. She and Kaylee now share tenth place in Stanford single-season rebounds.

Kaylee averaged 9.6 rebounds per game, which breaks the Stanford freshman record of 8.7 set by Katy Steding in 1986-87. That rate places Kaylee in ninth place in Stanford single-season rebounds per game, between Val Whiting and Kayla Pedersen.

She had 22 rebounds twice this season, which places her in a third-place tie with Mikaela Ruef for single-game rebounds. She and Chiney Ogwumike are the only Stanford players with multiple 20-rebound games in their careers (Chiney did it four times).

She blocked 51 shots, which places her in a third-place tie for blocks by a freshman behind Jayne Appel and Val Whiting.

Kaylee played in all 36 games this season, which places her in a seventh-place tie with Milena Flores, Erica McCall and Lili Thompson for games played by a freshman.

The 2014-15 Team

The team won only 26 games this season, but it won the Pac-12 Tournament for the 11th time and advanced to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen for the 22nd time.

The team extended its Pac-12 record for most 20-win seasons to 26 and retained its record for most conference championships (23).

The team goes into the Stanford record book with these single-season records: fourth in 3-pointers made (241), sixth in games played (36), eighth in blocks (166) and ninth in 3-point percentage (0.378).

Considerations of next season's team

Tom Fitzgerald (San Francisco Chronicle) considers the players who will comprise the 2015-16 team in: Wholesale changes expected for Stanford women

Ashley Westhem and Alexa Philippou (Stanford Daily) discuss this season and how the team will fare next season in: Was this a rebuilding year for women’s basketball?

Amber receives AP All-America honorable mention

Amber earned Associated Press All-America honorable mention honors in voting announced by the organization on Tuesday.

For a report of Amber's honors and accomplishments, see the Stanford Athletics article: Associated Press Honor.