Girls’s basketball preview: Waiting for final Pac-12 season

November is right here, and for Cardinal basketball followers, which means seeing the powerhouse girls’s basketball workforce again on the court docket. They began the season off on Wednesday, Nov. 1, in a debut sport towards Dominican College, which Stanford gained 126-53.

The workforce options a lot of family names in faculty girls’s basketball, with three new faces becoming a member of them.

Coterm scholar Hannah Soar and senior Cameron Brink lead the workforce for an additional season. Soar, a fifth-year guard is coming off of her finest season, beginning all 35 video games final 12 months and sustaining a career-high 11 factors per sport. Final season, she was an All-Pac-12 choose, in addition to ranked eighth nationally in 3-point proportion (44.1%, her profession excessive) and ninth in 3-point subject targets. She is one in every of 20 gamers on the watch record for the 2024 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, which acknowledges prime capturing guards in girls’s faculty basketball.

Brink can also be coming off of an extremely profitable 12 months. As a junior, she performed 34 video games, beginning in every, and led the workforce in scoring, rebounding and blocks. She was one in every of two gamers within the nation to common at the very least 15 factors, 9 rebounds and three blocks per sport, breaking her personal document for profession blocks.

Brink additionally set her personal program data for each single season blocks and straight makes from the free throw line, with 118 and 48, respectively. Final 12 months, she acquired WBCA Defensive Participant of the Yr, 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. Presently, the senior can also be on the Lisa Leslie Award Watch Checklist.

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

Bosgana appeared 28 instances off the bench final season, averaging 3.8 factors, 1.6 rebounds and 0.5 assists per sport. Demetre appeared in 34 video games off the bench, and averaged 3.9 factors, 1.7 rebounds and 1.0 assists per sport. The ahead ranked second on the workforce with 32 made 3-pointers (33% from deep) and was a two-time Pac-12 Champion. Iriafen’s sophomore 12 months was additionally extremely sturdy, beginning in 27 video games of the 35 she performed. The ahead ranked third on the workforce in rebounding and fourth in scoring, averaging 6.7 factors and three.8 rebounds per sport 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 12 months. Harriel appeared in 19 video games off bench, the redshirt sophomore averaging 1.2 factors, 0.9 rebounds and 0.7 assists per sport, totaling 5 3-pointers for the 12 months. Inexperienced made 9 appearances off the bench, averaging 0.2 factors, 0.1 rebounds and 0.1 assists per sport. Papadaki appeared in 11 video games, averaging 0.2 factors, 0.2 rebounds and 0.1 assists per sport.

Lepolo appeared in 34 video games, beginning 31, and averaged 4.8 factors, 1.8 rebounds and three.7 assists per sport. She had the sixth most assists by a freshman in program historical past, and made the third most 3-pointers of the workforce, 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 12 months’s workforce are ahead Courtney Ogden, guard Chloe Clardy and ahead Nunu Agara.

Previous to Stanford, five-star Ogden was rated because the tenth finest 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 gained a gold medal on the FIBA U18 Girls’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 workforce to the second spherical of Class AAAA state playoffs throughout her senior 12 months, averaging 22.1 factors on 48% capturing and a pair of.7 steals per sport.

Rated because the thirty ninth finest participant within the nation by ESPN, Clardy made the Jordan Model Basic All-American and MaxPreps Arkansas Excessive Faculty Women Basketball Participant of the Yr, 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 remaining sport. The freshman from Arkansas averaged 24.8 factors, 6.4 rebounds, 4.0 assists and three.2 steals per sport as a senior and led the workforce to a 28-5 document and state championship.

Agara was rated because the thirty seventh finest participant within the nation by ESPN and gained a gold medal on the FIBA U17 Girls’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 Girls’s Nike Hoop Summit in April 2023.

Final 12 months, 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 potential for the Stanford girls’s basketball workforce to proceed what they began.

The freshmen and sophomores might 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, Soar and Lepolo) additionally provide an opportunity for the Cardinal to have a brand new participant beginning for this remaining Pac-12 season.

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