It’s a 14-year streak that is at the forefront of the rivalry between long-time powerhouse Stanford and the recent success story of the Oregon women’s basketball team.
In their last two seasons as Pacific-10 Conference champions, the Ducks have not won at Maples Pavilion. Head coach Jody Runge, who has an impressive 95-41 career conference record, is a mere 2-12 against Stanford and has never beaten Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer on her home court. In fact, the Ducks have only mustered one victory at Maples in the history of Pac-10 women’s hoops — and that was in the inaugural year of the league, 1987.
Now is the time the Ducks (12-7 overall, 5-4 Pac-10) — losers of four of their last five — say they must win at dreaded Maples Pavilion tonight to have a shot at a Stanford-like three-peat.
And they’re confident that it will happen.
“What’s important this year is that we know that we’re a better team [than Stanford],” junior guard Jamie Craighead said. “It’s intimidating to play at Maples — it’s really loud, the court is different. But I think we know we can go down there and beat them.”
“I feel pretty optimistic,” senior forward Angelina Wolvert said. “This year has been a lot of firsts for us; we’d never lost to WSU, never lost to ASU. Maybe this will be the first year that we win against Stanford at Maples.”
The Ducks already defeated Stanford, 72-54, on Jan. 13 at The Pit. But, as Runge predicted after that game, the Cardinal (12-7, 6-3) are much improved in the latter part of the season.
Injuries forced Stanford to adjust to differing roles, with freshman Nicole Powell having to take over at point guard. Now that they have had time to make the necessary adjustments, Stanford is showing signs of its former self — as evident by an 89-75 win at USC in which the Cardinal shot nearly 73 percent from the floor in the first half.
Despite being swept in Arizona last weekend, the Ducks head to the Bay Area with some confidence after last year’s shocker at Maples. Oregon opened the game with a 36-10 lead with about four minutes to play in the opening period, only to lose the contest 78-62.
“Just knowing we were ahead by 26 last year and gave that game away, I think we have confidence from that,” Craighead said. “It’s going to be a tougher game [than earlier this year]. We pretty much had control that entire game. But down there it’s probably going to be up and down, up and down, but hopefully we can keep our composure and do something we’ve never done before.”
The Ducks, who finished last season 10-5 on the road, are 3-6 this season as they head to Stanford and Cal to finish a four-game road swing.
“We just want to win,” senior center Jenny Mowe said. “It would really lift everyone’s spirits. It’s hard to be in the middle of the Pac-10 season and have four losses and not have things go they way we thought they would.
“But I think it’s a big possibility for us to go down there and take care of business.”