Cardinal crushes Wildcats with big first quarter, 73-46

This game was decided by the first quarter, at the end of which Stanford was ahead 28-6. The final score makes the game look like a romp, but if you subtract the first quarter, the scoring in the other three-fourths of the game was 45-40, merely a narrow win for the Cardinal.

Bird began the scoring with a three, but the star of the first quarter was Brittany, who had a layup, two jumpers, and a three-pointer, and had pulled down three rebounds, all by the first media timeout.

Kaylee, Alanna, Karlie and Bri also scored to create the 22-point first quarter lead. It was one of those streaks when everything seems to drop in; the Cardinal as a team shot 80% in that quarter.

Arizona is not that bad a team, and they regrouped, stiffened their defense (playing a zone for much of the second half), and began to make baskets.

In the latter part of the game Stanford had spells of sloppy play and gave up too many fouls, but Arizona was never able to close that early gap.

Karlie led all scorers with 15 points, including four of five from long range. She now has 201 career three-pointers and is tied with Nicole Powell at seventh in the Stanford record book. Her percentage for the season is up to 51.1%, third-best in the nation.

Brittany finished with 13 points and six rebounds in 25 minutes. She could easily have had more but her long-range shot was not falling. She made only the one in five tries.

Bird also had 13 points.

Kaylee scored nine points, plus seven rebounds, two blocks and a steal. At the pregame chalk talk, Kate said that Kaylee thinks she's not quite back to 100%, but she looked close to it tonight.

Alanna also had nine points.

DiJonai had four points, plus one brilliant assist in which she fired a pass two-thirds the length of the court to Brittany for an easy layup.

Marta contributed seven assists with just two turnovers

The Cardinal must hope to repeat that opening streak against the more challenging ASU team on Sunday.

Here are game reports and commentary:

• Stanford Comes Out Swinging, the Associated Press game recap by Janie McCauley (posted by Stanford Athletics)
• No. 10 Stanford Defeats Arizona 73-46, the Arizona Athletics game recap
• Samuelson is hot as No. 10 Stanford women crush Arizona 73-46 by Tom FitzGerald (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Arizona women's basketball no match for Stanford by Mackenzie Swaney (The Daily Wildcat)
• WBB: Stanford 73 Arizona 46 from the CARDboard

The game statistics,

The game highlights video,

The video press conference, first Arizona coach Adia Barnes, then Tara and Karlie,

And Karlie's pregame half-court heave:

Layups ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#GoStanford pic.twitter.com/5kJuVZC2Oa

— Stanford WBB (@StanfordWBB) January 20, 2017