STANFORD – While most of the attention had been on Stanford’s defense allowing 51 points to JuJu Watkins in Friday’s loss to USC, Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer was more concerned with how her team played on offense.
Through a series of film studies and individual conversations, particularly with star posts Cameron Brink and Kiki Iriafen, VanDerveer stressed simplifying the offense.
The results were immediate. In a nationally televised matchup between top-10 teams Sunday afternoon at a sold-out Maples Pavilion, No. 4 Stanford had its best shooting day in 10 years in an 80-60 win over No. 7 UCLA.
The Cardinal (20-3, 9-2 Pac-12) shot 63.5 percent from the field, its highest percentage since making 64.9 percent of its shots against Boston College in 2014.
“I’m really proud of our team to not just say, ‘Oh, we had a bad game,’ but listening and fixing what was going wrong,” VanDerveer said. “It’s painful, but pain was a great motivator for us.”
Brink had 19 points, 19 rebounds and seven blocks and Iriafen, a Los Angeles native, had 18 points and seven rebounds.
“I told them yesterday, ‘Put the team on your back, and you’ve got strong backs,’ ” VanDerveer said. “And they did.”
The Cardinal shot 31.6 percent in the 67-58 loss to USC.
“We just listened to Tara,” Brink said. “She knows what she’s doing.”
After UCLA (17-4, 6-4) scored on the opening possession, Stanford scored 11 straight points to quickly jump ahead. The Cardinal led 45-27 at halftime and was up by 30 late in the third quarter.
“For us, the most important thing is that our team, after a loss, didn’t throw anyone under the bus,” VanDerveer said. “No one liked it. We were all very disappointed. I personally took it really hard because I felt like I didn’t do a good enough job. I really talked to Cam and Kiki about how to run our offense. First couple plays you could see they were totally locked in, doing the right thing. We scored, we scored, we scored. It shows how coachable these players are and they are about the big picture.”
Stanford has never been swept in a home weekend as a member of the Pac-12 Conference.
“Nobody wants to play Stanford after a loss,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “I knew they were going to come out with a vengeance.”
The Bruins didn’t have Lauren Betts, who came to Stanford as the No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2022 but transferred to UCLA after playing sparingly with the Cardinal last season. Betts leads the team in points (15.4) and rebounds (8.6) but has missed the past four games for undisclosed medical reasons.
Brink, in particular, took advantage of Betts’ absence. The senior forward added to her nation’s best 3.38 blocks a game and shot 8 of 10 from the field.
After getting burned by Watkins, sophomore guard Talana Lepolo and Stanford’s perimeter defenders contained UCLA guard Charisma Osborne, who was 5 of 18 from the field and went scoreless in the second half after scoring 13 by halftime.
With the win, the fourth-ranked Cardinal (20-3, 9-2) remained tied with Colorado atop the Pac-12. Stanford travels to Washington and Washington State next weekend before returning to Maples to face Cal on Feb. 16.
After being upset with herself for how she prepared the team on Friday, college basketball’s all-time winningest coach was in a much better mood Sunday.
“If we shoot 60% I’ll be a pig in slop,” VanDerveer said.
NOTABLE: This was the last scheduled meeting between the longtime rivals, but Close said she has offered to play home-and-home series with both Stanford and Cal in the future. “I hope we’ll get the chance to do that maybe every other year, or something like that,” Close said.