Huskies Upset #2 Stanford 72-67

Feb 5, 2023 - 10:31 PM

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The Tina Langley era hasn’t gotten off to the greatest of starts for the Washington women’s basketball program. But in year 2 under Langley the Huskies managed their biggest victory in a long time by upsetting #2 Stanford 72-67. True freshman Elle Ladine set a career high for the second consecutive game and led all scorers with 21 points. The win moves the Huskies to 13-9 (5-7) on the season.

It didn’t necessarily seem like an upset was in the making early on. Washington scored the first basket but Stanford went on a bit of a run and held a 17-8 lead by the end of the first quarter. The Huskies failed to make a field goal for the final 6:25 of the quarter.

Things turned around in the second quarter though as Washington got scorching hot. The Dawgs shot 75% going 12 of 16 including a stretch where they made 9 of 10 shots. That allowed Washington to slowly catch and up and eventually take the lead into the break by a margin of 38-34.

The good vibes continued coming out of halftime. Dalayah Daniels made a layup with 7:10 left in the 3rd quarter that put the Huskies up double digits at 44-34 and it almost looked like Washington may run away with it. However a team as good as Stanford was always going to make a run. The Cardinal clawed away at the deficit and ended the 3rd quarter with the final 6 points to reclaim the lead at 54-53. That stretch included Stanford’s Brooke Demetre making her 5th 3-point shot of the game.

It was more of the same at the start of the 4th quarter as Stanford quickly scored 5 points extending the overall run to 11-0 and now Washington appeared on the verge of losing control. The Huskies countered with their own 6-0 run to tie the game with all of the points either scored or assisted on by Elle Ladine. Stanford star Haley Jones made basket after basket but every time Washington had an answer and neither team led by more than 2 points for the majority of the 4th quarter.

With under 2 minutes to go Stanford finally missed a shot and Washington took back the serve on a layup by Ladine which put them up 67-65. The final few minutes took much longer than that in real time due to a pair of lengthy reviews at the monitor by the refereeing crew. One gave the Huskies the ball on a 50/50 type out of bounds call where it was impossible to say with certainty whose fingers it went off last.

The Huskies left the door open for Stanford going 1 for 4 at the free throw line for a stretch. Stanford’s Demetre got up a potential game tying 3-point attempt with 19 seconds left but it was off the mark and Elle Ladine secured the rebound then made a pair of free throws to ice it.

Stanford ended up shooting a higher percentage than Washington both from the floor (48% to 43) and from 3-point range (43% to 30%). But Washington’s defense still flustered the Cardinal at times and helped the Huskies to a 16-11 turnover advantage. More important though was that Washington was dominant on the offensive glass winning the offensive rebound battle by an 11-2 margin thanks in particular to Haley Van Dyke’s 5 such boards. That allowed Washington to put up 8 more field goal attempts and 8 more free throw attempts and overcome the worse overall shooting.

Haley Van Dyke finished with a double double securing 14 points and 10 rebounds while Dalayah Daniels also scored in double figures with 15 points and 7 rebounds. Washington has another tough one up next playing at #7 Utah on Friday night.