Indiana Women's Basketball Announces Home-and-Home Series with Stanford

Coach Teri Moren and the Indiana Hoosiers are never one to shy away from a challenge.

On Thursday, the team announced a home-and-home series with perennial powerhouse Stanford, led by the all-time winningest coach in the history of women's college basketball, Tara VanDerveer.

VanDerveer is herself a former Hoosier, playing for the Indiana women's basketball team from 1972-75 under coach Bea Gorton.

To Palo Alto this season, at The Hall in 2024. 👀 pic.twitter.com/NkjQSpySsg
— Indiana Women’s Basketball (@IndianaWBB) August 31, 2023

The first matchup will take place in Palo Alto this season on Nov. 12, as Moren and the Hoosiers visit the Cardinal in an early season clash between two national title contenders.

VanDerveer and Stanford will return the favor in the 2024-25 season when they fly to Bloomington and play at Assembly Hall.

Indiana already had an early season bout against a top tier women's basketball team scheduled for 2023-24, as the Hoosiers will take on the Tennessee Volunteers in the Fort Myers Tip-Off on Thanksgiving Day. This is just another feather in their cap for what has grown into an impressive non-conference schedule for the upcoming season.

IU was ranked No. 5 overall in the country by ESPN's Charlie Creme in his "Way-Too-Early Top 25" for the 2023-24 women's college basketball season. Stanford he ranked No. 9 overall, and Tennessee clocked in at No. 11.

Despite Moren's Hoosiers being ranked ahead of the Cardinal, hardly anyone has had as much success as VanDerveer has in Palo Alto during her coaching tenure. She's coached every Stanford women's basketball team since the 1985, save for the 1995-96 Cardinal. That year, VanDerveer was busy coaching the USA Basketball National Team to a 52-0 exhibition record, and a subsequent 8-0 record and gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

VanDerveer has also won three championships at Stanford, in 1989, 1992 and 2021.

On the court, Indiana and Stanford have only ever faced each other three times, with Stanford leading the all-time series 2-1. The last meeting took place in November of the 2021-22 season in the Baha Mar Hoops Nassau Championship in the Bahamas. Stanford emerged with a narrow 69-66 victory in that game behind 21 points from Cameron Brink. The only current Indiana players to have played in that matchup from '21 are Mackenzie Holmes and Chloe Moore-McNeil.

Stanford also beat Indiana back in the 2001-02 season, with the game taking place in Palo Alto. Indiana's lone victory over Stanford in the series' history took place in Chapel Hill, when IU beat Stanford in the 1979 North Carolina Christmas Classic by a score of 73-63.

The two teams have never played at Assembly Hall, making Stanford's scheduled trip to Bloomington in 2024 even more anticipated than it already will be.

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