Stanford's 69-52 victory over the USC women on Thursday made a few thing clear, none of which are startling revelations.
First of all, with its 12-0 conference record, the Cardinal is closing in on its 12th straight conference title, and a victory over UCLA at Stanford on Saturday would move the Cardinal within two games of clinching at least a share of the regular-season title. Second-place Cal is the only team that seems capable of giving the Cardinal a competive game at this point, and the final regular-season game at Cal (9-3 in the conference) on March 4 should be a good one, even though the Cardinal no doubt will have the Pac-12 title wrapped up by then.
Secondy, Nneka Ogwumike apparently will leave Stanford as the school's No. 2 alltime scorer. Her 22 points against USC give her 2,143 for her career, moving her into third place past former teammate Jayne Appel. Ogwumike needs only 72 points to catch Kate Starbird, who is second on Stanford's scoring list, and Ogwumike should reach that in another four games or so. Ogwumike is not going to catch Candice Wiggins, though. Wiggins scored 2,629 career points, and even if Stanford would advance all the way to the NCAA title game, Ogwumike would have to average 36 points a game over the rest of the season to catch her. Because of Stanford's propensity for blowouts, she won't get enough playing time to score that many points.
Finally, sister Chiney Ogwumike is approaching All-American status. She probably would be a uninmous choice for conference player of the year were it not for the presence of her sister, Nneka. Chiney, a sophomore, had 21 points, 12 rebounds and six blocked shots against USC on Thursday. Chiney is now virtually tied with her sister for the Pac-12 lead in rebounding, at 10.9 per game, and she is third in scoring, at 16.1, behind only her sister and Davellyen Whyte of Arizona. Chiney is well ahead of her sister and is second in the conference in field-goal percentage at 59.6 percent, and she is ninth in the conference -- and again well ahead of her sister -- in blocked shots at 1.09 a game. And she has racked up those numbers averaging just 28.1 minutes a game. The encouraging thing is that she has so much room to improve, because she has almost no outside shot, a shortcoming her sister had at the same stage of her Stanford career. Chiney already has 764 career points, and he career is not yet half over. She has a chance to challenge Wiggins' record, assuming a logical progression in her scoring and an expansion of her game over the next two years.
Perhaps the only downside of the Cardinal's victory on Thursday was that all but 11 of the Cardinal's 69 points were scored by three players -- the Ogwumike sisters and Toni Kokenis.
To receive Stanford basketball news regularly, click the subscribe button. It's free.
Comments