Warren Grimes
Stanford finished the season winning 5 of 6, including two
victories over higher ranked teams. One of
those was the overtime road win against Virginia Tech. The other was the season ending home win
against George Tech, a NCAA-tournament-bound team. Stanford can also celebrate its win over top-25-ranked
Florida State. It lost to 7 other top 25
teams, but many of these losses were one-possession games, including the
overtime road loss to #7-ranked LSU.
Four of the last six games were at home. They were against worthy opponents, although none
were against the top six ACC teams. Stanford
can take satisfaction from its wins despite the unavailability of Nunu Agara,
the team’s top scorer, top rebounder, highest percentage free thrower, and a
major assist maker.
Tournament opponents scouting Stanford must cope with
unpredictability in the team’s offense. Entering
the post season, Stanford has on its roster 10 players who qualify as “dofigscos”. A “dofigsco” is a player that has a double
figure score in her season high game. Higher level recognition, a double dofigsco,
goes to players whose season high was 20
points or more. A triple dofigsco goes
to a player with a season high of 30 or more.
Stanford has only one triple dofigsco so far this
season. That is Chloe Clardy, who put up
30 points in the overtime win against Virginia Tech. In that contest, Clardy had 45% of the
assists, 40% of the points, and 33% of the steals. Basketball is a team sport,
but that game was Clardy’s game.
Stanford has five players at the double dofigsco level. Season highs of 20 points or more were
reached by Nunu Agara (29 points against LSU); by Elena Boscana (26 points against
UC San Diego); by Brooke Demetre (24 points against Florida State); by Tess
Heal (24 points against Wake Forest); and by Jzaniya Harriel (24 points against
Le Moyne).
Base level dofigsco recognition goes to Courtney Ogden, Mary
Ashley Stevenson, Shay Ijiwoye and Kennedy Umeh. Three of these players have stepped up their
performances in the late season. Ogden,
who was averaging 6.5 points per game during conference play, averaged 11.5
during the crucial last 6 games. Ijiwoye,
my nominee for most-fun-to-watch player, scored 10 vital points against
Virginia Tech while Stevenson embarrassed Georgia Tech with 17 points.
These three have helped to offset the challenge of an Agara-less
team. Three others have increased their
productivity in the last 6 games.
Brooke Demetre averaged 14 points in the last six games, measured
against a conference average of 9.7.
Clardy, in the last six, has averaged 14.3 points compared to her
overall conference average of 11.9. And
Elena Boscana has averaged 13.5 in the last six compared to a conference
average of 11.7.
There is uncertainty whether Nunu Agara will play again this
season. If she does, Stanford will be very
difficult to scout. If Agara does not
play, Stanford still has 9 other dofigscos that can challenge any defensive
scheme. Four of them will come from the
bench, giving Stanford a degree of depth that should be valuable in
back-to-back tournament games. Bench
players Courtney Ogden and Tess Heal are players with double digit performances
in multiple games. Jzaniya Harriel, if
she can return to form, will be another threat from the bench. Bring it on!
