Ladies’s basketball preview: Looking forward to final Pac-12 season

November is right here, and for Cardinal basketball followers, meaning seeing the powerhouse ladies’s basketball staff again on the courtroom. They began the season off on Wednesday, Nov. 1, in a debut recreation in opposition to Dominican College, which Stanford received 126-53.

The staff options plenty of family names in school ladies’s basketball, with three new faces becoming a member of them.

Coterm scholar Hannah Bounce and senior Cameron Brink lead the staff for one more season. Bounce, a fifth-year guard is coming off of her greatest season, beginning all 35 video games final yr and sustaining a career-high 11 factors per recreation. Final season, she was an All-Pac-12 choose, in addition to ranked eighth nationally in 3-point share (44.1%, her profession excessive) and ninth in 3-point discipline objectives. She is one among 20 gamers on the watch checklist for the 2024 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, which acknowledges high capturing guards in ladies’s school basketball.

Brink can be coming off of an extremely profitable yr. As a junior, she performed 34 video games, beginning in every, and led the staff in scoring, rebounding and blocks. She was one among two gamers within the nation to common at the very least 15 factors, 9 rebounds and three blocks per recreation, breaking her personal file for profession blocks.

Brink additionally set her personal program information for each single season blocks and straight makes from the free throw line, with 118 and 48, respectively. Final yr, she acquired WBCA Defensive Participant of the 12 months, WBCA All-American and Related Press All-America Second Group, amongst different accolades. As a senior, she has already acquired the Preseason All-Pac-12 and the Preseason Related Press All-American. At the moment, the senior can be on the Lisa Leslie Award Watch Listing.

Juniors guard Elena Bosgana, ahead Brooke Demetre and ahead Kiki Iriafen are additionally able to be again on the courtroom.

Bosgana appeared 28 occasions off the bench final season, averaging 3.8 factors, 1.6 rebounds and 0.5 assists per recreation. Demetre appeared in 34 video games off the bench, and averaged 3.9 factors, 1.7 rebounds and 1.0 assists per recreation. The ahead ranked second on the staff with 32 made 3-pointers (33% from deep) and was a two-time Pac-12 Champion. Iriafen’s sophomore yr was additionally extremely sturdy, beginning in 27 video games of the 35 she performed. The ahead ranked third on the staff in rebounding and fourth in scoring, averaging 6.7 factors and three.8 rebounds per recreation and capturing 53.1% from the ground.

Alongside Bosgana, Iriafen additionally acquired the Pac-12 Tutorial Honor Roll (2023). All three juniors had been two-time Pac-12 champions.

Sophomore guards Jzaniya Harriel, Lauren Inexperienced, Stavi Papadaki and Talana Lepolo return to Maples for his or her second yr. Harriel appeared in 19 video games off bench, the redshirt sophomore averaging 1.2 factors, 0.9 rebounds and 0.7 assists per recreation, totaling 5 3-pointers for the yr. Inexperienced made 9 appearances off the bench, averaging 0.2 factors, 0.1 rebounds and 0.1 assists per recreation. Papadaki appeared in 11 video games, averaging 0.2 factors, 0.2 rebounds and 0.1 assists per recreation.

Lepolo appeared in 34 video games, beginning 31, and averaged 4.8 factors, 1.8 rebounds and three.7 assists per recreation. She had the sixth most assists by a freshman in program historical past, and made the third most 3-pointers of the staff, with 25. As a freshman, she acquired a Pac-12 All-Freshman Honorable Point out and has acquired the Preseason All-Pac-12 Honorable Point out as a sophomore.

The brand new faces on this yr’s staff are ahead Courtney Ogden, guard Chloe Clardy and ahead Nunu Agara.

Previous to Stanford, five-star Ogden was rated because the tenth greatest participant within the nation by ESPN and made McDonald’s All-American and Jordan Model Basic All-American, amongst different accolades. Hailing from Georgia, she received a gold medal on the FIBA U18 Ladies’s Americas Championship in Buenos Aires, Argentina in June 2022, averaging 2.4 factors, 3.6 rebounds and a pair of.2 assists in 5 video games. At highschool, the ahead performed 94 video games in 4 prep seasons, averaging 20.6 factors and eight.8 rebounds. She led her staff to the second spherical of Class AAAA state playoffs throughout her senior yr, averaging 22.1 factors on 48% capturing and a pair of.7 steals per recreation.

Rated because the thirty ninth greatest participant within the nation by ESPN, Clardy made the Jordan Model Basic All-American and MaxPreps Arkansas Excessive Faculty Women Basketball Participant of the 12 months, amongst different awards. She completed with greater than 2,500 factors in her prep profession and scored 20 factors for the 6A state title in her ultimate recreation. The freshman from Arkansas averaged 24.8 factors, 6.4 rebounds, 4.0 assists and three.2 steals per recreation as a senior and led the staff to a 28-5 file and state championship.

Agara was rated because the thirty seventh greatest participant within the nation by ESPN and received a gold medal on the FIBA U17 Ladies’s World Cup in Hungary in July 2022. The Minnesota participant averaged 6.9 factors and a pair of.9 rebounds in seven video games. She acquired the Jordan Model Basic All-American, was a two-time participant on the CCX Sports activities All-Space Women Basketball Group and scored 10 factors for Group USA on the Ladies’s Nike Hoop Summit in April 2023.

Final yr, the Cardinal’s season got here to a detailed within the second spherical of the NCAA, however the brand new and returning gamers make it attainable for the Stanford ladies’s basketball staff to proceed what they began.

The freshmen and sophomores could tackle bigger roles on this upcoming season, with the 2023-24 roster being smaller than common and with solely 5 upperclassmen. The returning 4 starters (Brink, Iriafen, Bounce and Lepolo) additionally provide an opportunity for the Cardinal to have a brand new participant beginning for this ultimate Pac-12 season.

The staff’s final Pac-12 schedule begins on Dec. 29 at Cal.