Stanford Shows Fight, Shortcomings Against No. 19 Tennessee

The Stanford Cardinal faced their toughest test of the season thus far, and in some regards, they were up for the challenge. In others, they dropped the ball—or turned it over. As a team, the Cardinal turned the ball over 30 times against a tough Tennessee program that was swarming the ball every chance they had.

While freshman Hailee Swain had some buckets in key times, she also had three key turnovers beginning late in the third quarter. With Stanford up 45-42, she committed the first of those turnovers with 45 seconds left in the quarter. Tennessee and Stanford would trade two pointers before the end of the third.

Swain hit a jumper and the and-one in the fourth quarter, putting the Cardinal up 50-46, but then committed a second turnover with 8:06 left, and the third with 6:49 remaining. In the span of game time, those are relatively back-to-back-to-back miscues, and they came at a time when Stanford had the lead and was attempting to get a little cushion.

At 6:31, the Lady Vols had taken a 51-50 lead.

This isn't to point the finger specifically at Swain for the 65-62 loss. There were 30 turnovers after all, and every player that touched the court had at least one. Swain didn't even lead the team in turnovers—that was Chloe Clardy with seven, while Swain had six.

But those turnovers—all of them throughout the game—are the takeaway from Wednesday's loss. At the same time, this game could provide a huge spark moving forward. Swain is a freshman, and this was her tenth game on The Farm. She was playing meaningful minutes, crunch time minutes, against a ranked opponent for the first time.

It would have been incredible if she didn't struggle at least a little bit. At the same time, she also led the team in scoring, along with Nunu Agara, with 14 points, collected seven rebounds, dished out three assists, and ended up +4 for the game. She had a tremendous evening, and there is room for growth. In the grand scheme of things, that's a pretty good outcome.

Swain is certainly not the reason they lost this game, but the reason she's a focal point afterwards is because she showed a little bit of what she has to offer the Cardinal moving forward. Being a freshman, she'll learn from this experience and make adjustments for the next time.

This is a game that Stanford shot well and defended well, but couldn't take care of the basketball. It's also early December, and there is time to fine tune these things ahead of conference play. They shot 46.4% from the floor, including 28.6% from three, and held the Lady Vols to just 34.7% shooting (19.2% from three).

Tennessee is a program that has benefitted from points off turnovers this season, and they were credited with 16 steals in this one. Talaysia Cooper scored a go-ahead layup with six seconds left on the way to 19 points and a career-high 10 steals.

We should also point out Nunu Agara's key moments down the stretch, dropping in a three ball to bring Stanford back within two at 62-60 with 1:13 remaining, and then after freshman Lara Somfai missed both of her free throw attempts with 11 seconds remaining, Agara collected the rebound and dropped in the game-tying shot as well.

Agara finished with 14 points, 11 boards, an assist, a block, and three steals.

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