Cardinal squelches Northeastern

Stanford fans at home watched this game as a silent movie: the live video stream from the tournament was smooth and of good quality but had no sound-track. Get used to it; looking ahead, all the women's games from this tournament are noted as "no audio".

What fans saw in silence was a defensive stifling of a weaker team. Stanford held Northeastern to 32% shooting for the game, and kept their top three shooters to 19 points, 24 below their season average.

The defensive element was important because the Cardinal started out cold and only began to take a lead late in the first quarter, and even as late as the second half held only a ten-point lead over a team that was obviously not of their calibre.

Alanna scores the first Cardinal point

Bird scores the first Cardinal basket

The final score was a comfortable 74-45.

Two Stanford players did most of the scoring. Erica tied her career high with 27 points on 11 of 14 shooting (including 2 for 2 from outside the arc), and Karlie had 18, going 6-13 on threes.

Alanna started in place of Kaylee (who was not suited up) and played 21 minutes during which she was a major contributor to the defense, with nine rebounds, four blocks and a steal. She had a frustrating offensive day, however. She was clearly focused on playing under the basket, where she took eight shots but hit only one, although she was often fouled and made 5 of 6 free throws.

To round out the starters, Brittany also had a frustrating offensive day, hitting only one of seven shots (going 0-4 from three), and Bri was 0-5.

Major contributors off the bench were Dijonai with six points and nine rebounds in 14 minutes; Nadia was five and five in 23 minutes; Shannon scored seven points in six minutes; and Marta scored once and assisted five times in 20 minutes.

The Cardinal are up bright and early again tomorrow to play the Wichita State Shockers at 8:00. The Shockers probably lost to Purdue today — they were down 48-25 at the half.

Here are game recaps and some commentary:

• No. 11 Stanford beats Northeastern 74-45 in Cancun Challenge , the Associated Press game recap
• Stanford hold off Northeastern in Cancun opener, the Northeastern Athletics game recap
• Thanksgiving Win, the Stanford Athletics game recap
• WBB: Stanford games at Cancun from the CARDboard

AND the game statistics.