The Oregon women’s basketball team suffered a 70-48 slaughter at the hands of No. 9 Stanford at Maples Pavilion in Palo Alto, Calif. last night.
Senior post Carolyn Ganes and forward Eleanor Haring led Oregon in scoring with 15 points apiece. The pair also combined for 13 of Oregon’s 20 field goals on the night, and freshman guard Taylor Lilley put up 10 points on 4-of-9 shooting.
But Stanford successfully stuffed the rest of Oregon’s offense. Starters Kaela Chapdelaine, Cicely Oaks and Tamika Nurse combined for a mere five points.
Chapdelaine did not attempt a field goal for the first time this season.
Stanford pulled down 55 rebounds to Oregon’s 37, and the Ducks clearly missed the presence of senior post Jessie Shetters, who will be out of action for six weeks with a lower-back stress-fracture.
“We knew it was going to be tough out there without Jess,” Oregon coach Bev Smith said. “Stanford has a lot of different options in the post and they were able to use that to their advantage with her out of the lineup.”
The Ducks managed to keep the Cardinal at bay for all of seven minutes in the first half. Then Stanford set to work, and the Cardinal scored 15 unanswered points to take a commanding 31-12 lead by halftime.
Oregon’s 12 points in the first half marked a new low for the Ducks.
“We didn’t have anyone shooting well early, and that really hurt us,” said Ganes, who played a career-high 34 minutes, and led a late 13-point surge for the Ducks in the dying minutes of the game.
The Ducks simply could not find their shooting touch in the first half: They missed their first nine shots, and were held scoreless throughout the first six minutes of the game. Oregon, usually a good outside shooting team, also had trouble from behind the arc. The Ducks attempted eight unsuccessful three-pointers before they managed to sink one.
In the second half, the Cardinal quickly rolled to a 68-33 lead – their largest lead of the game. At that point, Stanford coach Tara VanDerVeer pulled junior All-American guard Candice Wiggins out of the game to allow her to rest her sprained right ankle, an injury she had sustained against Washington State on Saturday.
The loss to Stanford takes the Ducks to 10-7 overall this season, with a 2-5 Pacific-10 Conference record. The Cardinal improves to 15-3 overall, and remains undefeated at 8-0 in the Pac-10.
Oregon next faces California at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
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