Stanford’s season ends in shocking NCAA Tournament second round loss to Ole Miss
No. 1 seed Stanford loses on its home floor to No. 8 seed Ole Miss,
STANFORD — The senior class that led Stanford back to the top of women’s basketball knew Sunday was their final game in Maples Pavilion together heading into the game.
Ole Miss made it their final game, period.
The No. 8 seed Rebels stifled the No. 1 seed Cardinal all night en route to a 54-49 upset victory, ending Stanford’s season on their home floor in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
After a furious Stanford comeback tied the game with 1:16 to go, Hannah Jump threw the ball directly into the arms of Ole Miss forward Madison Scott, who was fouled by Haley Jones with 18 seconds to go.
Scott made two free throws and Stanford tried to feed the ball into Jones. But Ole Miss double-team caused Jones to lose the ball out of bounds. Ole Miss made its two free throws to go up four and, after its final timeout, Jones committed another turnover on the inbounds pass that effectively ended the game — and the Stanford career for Jones.
“It’s disappointing for my four years at Stanford to close in this fashion,” Jones said. “I think it hasn’t really hit me yet. I told Ash [fellow senior Ashten Prechtel] in the locker room, ‘I think I’m in shock.'”
The Rebels led by as many as 13 midway through the third and led by eight with six minutes to go. But Stanford held the Rebels scoreless for 5.5 minutes and came back to tie the game on layups from Cameron Brink, Jump and Jones followed by two free throws from Brink.
Stanford had a possession with the game tied and less than a minute, calling two timeouts to try and find the right play. On the inbound after the second timeout, Jump picked up her dribble in the corner and tried to hit Jones, but Scott stepped in front of the pass for the steal.
The late fourth quarter turnovers were the final three of 20 the Cardinal committed on the night. The Rebels’ defense also caused all sorts of problems for Stanford around the rim, with the official statistics showing that the Cardinal missed 21 layups.
“I think that we struggled offensively, and I think that I give them credit for working hard defensively. But I think some of the things that we did were self-inflicted,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. “Some of the turnovers, I think the turnovers really hurt us. Just times where the ball just slipped out of people’s hands or just making some maybe poor decisions. Our turnovers hurt us.”
Brink made a major impact after missing the first round game against Sacred Heart because of a stomach bug. The second-team All-American led the Cardinal with 20 points, 13 rebounds and seven blocks, even while feeling well.
“I felt sick. I think I’m still getting back to my normal self but I definitely got a little winded throughout the game but I tried my best,” Brink said.
In what ended up being her final game wearing Stanford red, Jones has 16 points on 7-of-19 shooting and eight rebounds. Jump added eight points. The rest of Stanford’s players only scored five points on the night, and even their stars struggled to consistently connect from the floor and couldn’t keep control of it, either.
Ole Miss (25-8) also outrebounded Stanford 44-39, just the fourth time the Cardinal was outrebounded in a game this season.
“They were more physical than us,” Brink said. “Plain and simple.”
The last time Stanford (29-6) didn’t reach the Sweet 16 – which was also the last time the Cardinal lost an NCAA Tournament game at Maples Pavilion – was in 2007, when Florida State came across the country and knocked off Stanford 68-61 in the second round. It’s only the fifth time Stanford has lost an NCAA Tournament game at Maples Pavilion.
VanDerveer pushed back at the notion that this season should be viewed as a disappointing one for Stanford, even if the end is sooner than anticipated.
“I’m not going to fall into the trap of saying, ‘Wow, we had a horrible season,'” VanDerveer said. “I know that our men’s team would be ecstatic to be playing two games in the NCAA Tournament, and [athletic director] Bernard [Muir] would be happy about that, too.”
It’s also just the fifth time that a No. 1 seed hasn’t advanced to the Sweet 16 since the NCAA women’s tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1994 and the first time since 2009. When asked if this loss means the women’s game is building more depth, Jones responded affirmatively.
“I think that the women’s tournament was very deep this year, deeper than it was last year, which is great to see for the growth of the women’s game,” Jones said. “We hate to be the ones for it to happen to us, which is very … it leaves a fat, sore taste in the mouth. But it says a lot for women’s basketball to have an 8-seed like Ole Miss, to be as talented as they are.
“I think there’s just a lot of depth throughout the tournament and we knew it was going to be like this. So yeah, it’s definitely growth for the women’s game, but it sucks that we have to be on the other side of it.”
VanDerveer added, “I think they are really a tough team. I think they are much better than a lot of 8-(seed) teams than we’ve played before and sometimes you don’t have a really good matchup.”
The Rebels will advance to the Sweet 16 in Seattle Regional 4 and will play either No. 4 seed Texas or No. 5 seed Louisville on Friday at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle (time to be determined).