Cardinal win big over USC


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There’s a reason Stanford is among the upper echelon of women’s college basketball.  The Cardinal showed why it’s reached the past four Final Fours in a 69-52 rout of USC on Thursday night. The Women of Troy were unable to contain the electric Ogwumike sisters, who dominated in the paint on both ends of the floor. The two combined for 43 points and 20 rebounds, while the younger Chiney had six blocks.

USC fought hard but picked a bad game to shoot poorly from the field. It’s 29.3 percent field goal shooting night was well below their season average of 37.7 percent.

Constantly trailing · The Women of Troy were never able to overcome an early deficit to the Cardinal. USC led once in the game. - Luciano Nunez | Daily Trojan

One positive note for the Women of Troy was their performance on the boards. Though they were outrebounded 37-31, USC pulled down 12 offensive rebounds compared to Stanford’s seven.

Seniors Ashley Corral and Briana Gilbreath led the team with 11 points apiece.

USC hung with Stanford to start the game but fell behind thanks to a 10-0 run by the Cardinal. That spurt proved to be the difference in the first half as Stanford headed to the locker room with an 11-point lead.

After cutting the lead to six to open the second half, USC fell behind after Stanford started to heat up. The lead grew to 18 points at the 8-minute mark and USC was unable to make a serious run at shrinking it.

For the Women of Troy, they will have to respond to this loss against Stanford the same way they did after their first meeting of the season: by beating Cal.  USC beat the Golden Bears 74-54 on Dec. 31 at the Galen Center.

“Cal is playing their best basketball right now,” said Corral. “They’ve been winning, but I definitely think we can go into Cal and win. I’ve never won at Cal, so we’re going to have to go in and take some momentum out of them.”

Cal is coming off a 67-58 win over UCLA and has won nine of its past 10 games. USC has now dropped five out of seven and has its record drop to 12-11 overall and 6-6 in conference play, tied for fifth with Arizona State.