Stanford’s Nunu Agara scored Stanford’s first six points all by herself, all in the paint—and by the end of the first quarter, the Cardinal had secured a 20–9 lead.
That trend continued throughout the game as the Cardinal (15–4, 4–2 Atlantic Coast) scored 52 total points in the paint, helping it to a 77–52 win over Boston College women’s basketball (4–16, 0–7) on Thursday night.
BC trailed 43–15 at the half, and Stanford did not slow down. The loss marked BC’s 12th consecutive defeat, an all-time program high.
“It’s hard to be super positive when you’re losing like this, but negativity does you no good, ever, in life,” BC head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. “So, can you get to neutral and figure out some solutions to keep working on them?”
Hailee Swain scored nine paint points in the first half, driving to the rim for three layups and sinking an and-1 free throw that put Stanford up 23–9 with 8:50 left in the second quarter. She impressed in the second half, too, as she tipped in her own miss and beat the third-quarter buzzer to make it 66–24 heading into the final period.
“Yeah, that tip-in, if it could have been us doing it, it was awesome,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “But having to be on the other end of it, it was kind of like insult to injury a little bit.”
Four Stanford starters scored 10 or more points, shooting a combined 19 of 36 from the floor. The Cardinal started the second half on a 6–0 run, stretching the lead to 49–15 with a turnaround jumper from Agara.
“With [Somfai] and [Agara] being able to post up and really get, interiorly, the positioning that they wanted, it allowed us to not double-in off where we wanted to,” Bernabei-McNamee said.
The Cardinal outrebounded BC 44–24 and scored eighteen second-chance points.
“We definitely need to make contact first and block out first before we go and try to get a rebound,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “Today, there was multiple times where I saw us, even when we were trying to contest … but then we wouldn’t turn and block out.”
Although BC entered the final quarter down 42 points, the Eagles outscored the Cardinal 28–11 in the final period to bring the final score within 30. Kayla Rolph led BC with 15 points, going 6 of 11 from the field, while Amirah Anderson scored 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting.
“One of the things that I know I can always count on Amirah for is staying mentally engaged,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “She does a really nice job of keeping herself fired up even through the tough.”
