No. 5 women’s basketball defeats No. 14 Stanford, improves to 8-0

By Blanche Schaefer

AUSTIN, Texas — The No. 5 Texas women’s basketball team remained undefeated after taking down No. 14 Stanford, 77-69, Sunday afternoon in Austin. Senior guard Empress Davenport led the Longhorns with a career-high 23 points, grabbed six rebounds and was perfect on four attempts from the free-throw line.

“Our team came out with a lot of confidence and energy,” Texas head coach Karen Aston said. “We have a different sense about us right now. Our guards have [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]a confidence about them I haven’t seen since I have been here. They have a maturity and a confidence, and I think their steadiness throughout the game was the difference.”

The Longhorns and Cardinal battled closely throughout the game, with each team connecting on 42 percent of its shots. The largest point margin was a 13-point Texas lead in the fourth quarter.

Stanford, which was led by guard Lili Thompson’s 21 points, got on the board first with a three-pointer from junior guard Karlie Samuelson. The Longhorns responded with a 7-0 run, including two scores by sophomore guard Brooke McCarty to put Texas up, 7-3. But Stanford went on a 6-0 run of its own to take a 9-7 lead. Texas battled back with the help a three-pointer from freshman forward Jordan Hosey and Davenport’s eight first-quarter points. The Longhorns closed the quarter with a 20-16 lead.

“It’s the way the ball flowed,” Davenport said. “(Texas assistant) Coach Travis (Mays), the offensive coach — he has been emphasizing calling for the ball, demanding the ball when you’re open in practice. (We) guards carried that over into the game, because we were all demanding for it and taking open shots.”

Texas scored seven unanswered points to open the second quarter. Davenport hit a three-pointer and then grabbed a steal from Thompson and drove it back down the court for a fast-break layup to put Texas up, 27-16. After a timeout, UT senior center Imani Boyette hit a three-pointer, followed by a layup under the basket from Hosey. The Longhorn defense held the Cardinal to two points on the line and entered halftime with a 39-32 lead.

“It’s a sign of maturity in our team that we are able to make adjustments depending on how we are being played,” Aston said. “That is something we haven’t really been able to do before.”

The Longhorns and Cardinal traded scores in the third quarter, but the Texas offense stalled and Stanford narrowed the score to 45-41 after a three-pointer by Samuelson. But Davenport scored six more points and senior guard Celina Rodrigo nailed a three-pointer to put the Longhorns up, 59-48, at the end of the third quarter.

Stanford trimmed the lead to as few as four points in the fourth quarter, thanks to consecutive three-pointers by guard Brittany McPhee, who scored all of her 12 points from behind the three-point arc.

Free throws made the difference for Texas in the fourth quarter. During the quarter, the Longhorns made 80 percent of their shots from the line — including the last two UT points of the game on a pair of free throws by Rodrigo —compared to Stanford’s 57 percent.

In addition to Davenport, two other Longhorns scored double-digits: McCarty finished with 12 points, while Rodrigo scored 11 points and brought down six rebounds.

“Last year, (the guards) were all hesitant,” McCarty said. “But this year, we know that they can’t just only guard our post. We have great offensive players at guard. We all just have that confidence to shoot the ball, and our coach has been giving us that confidence this year.”

Texas faces Canisius at 7 p.m. Wednesday night in Austin. The Longhorns then play Arkansas at 1:30 p.m. Sunday in Oklahoma City in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

Aston said that while it’s still early in the season, her team’s undefeated record and the way in which the Longhorns have earned that record have allowed her to start thinking of just how good this year’s Texas team can be.

“I’ve been (coaching) long enough to know what a team looks like that has capabilities of winning championships,” Aston said. “We look like a team right now that has capabilities of doing that. We have to keep getting better, stay focused, stay healthy … but we definitely have that type of feel.”

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