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STANFORD – Maples Pavilion has hosted its share of blowouts over the past three decades. Just never one like this.
No. 3 Oregon handed Tara VanDerveer her worst loss in 33 seasons on The Farm, defeating No. 11 Stanford 88-48 in front of 5,250 Sunday.
“We’re used to looking at the scoreboard with the numbers reversed,” said VanDerveer, who has 903 wins with the Cardinal. “We’ve had a lot of great games in this building, and this was one of our worst.”
Behind 27 points, nine rebounds and eight assists from junior Sabrina Ionescu, a product of Miramonte High in Orinda, the Ducks (23-1, 12-0 Pac-12) left no doubt who the best team in the Pac-12 is.
The nation’s highest-scoring offense (90.7 points per game) shot 57 percent from the field – including 12 of 16 from behind the arc – and scored at least 20 points in each quarter. Oregon scored 14 straight points in the first quarter to take control, and then 15 straight points to end the first half up 44-20.
“It was a train going down the tracks really fast,” VanDerveer said.
Stanford star Alanna Smith was held to six points on 3 of 14 shooting, almost 15 points below her season average, as the Cardinal (19-4, 9-3) had its 22-game home winning streak snapped in shocking fashion.
Oregon had lost 29 straight at Maples Pavilion, dating to 1987.
“This (year’s) team has never lost to Stanford,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said. “What they’ve done in the years before these kids were born, who cares? We didn’t even talk about this game until yesterday.”
Playing in front of about 100 friends and family members, including many of her former high school and AAU teammates, Ionescu shot 12 of 20 from the field and added to her NCAA-leading assist total while falling just shy of her 17th career triple-double. Meanwhile, Oregon’s switching defense harassed Stanford’s starting frontcourt of Smith and Maya Dodson into shooting just 7 for 27 as the Ducks took a giant step toward a second straight Pac-12 regular season title.
The Cardinal had been 3-0 against top 10 teams this season, including Friday night’s 61-44 win over No. 7 Oregon State, and had lost three games by a total of 14 points before Sunday.
Now it must bounce back from the program’s biggest margin of defeat since a 98-56 loss at Long Beach State in 1985, the season before VanDerveer arrived. Sunday was also the second-worst home loss ever, only trailing a 96-51 defeat to Long Beach State in 1983.
VanDerveer noted that Notre Dame lost at Louisville by 33 last season before winning the NCAA title.
“Our team is resilient,” VanDerveer said. “I think they will take it personally. I hope they will. … Sometimes your strength is your weakness. This is a great group. They’re really kind people. Sometimes you wish there was a just a real jerk in there that will, like, get angry. But I think they’ll come together.”
