Trio of Stanford Women's Basketball Stars Honored by ACC

Stanford women's basketball may have experienced another season of struggles, but hope for the future is extremely high. Earlier this week, a trio of Cardinal stars were honored by the ACC and received very prestigious honors, proving that while the program is still not quite ready to return to the national spotlight, they have plenty of young players to build around.

Junior Nunu Agara earned All-ACC Second team honors while freshmen Lara Somfai and Hailee Swain made the conference's All-Freshmen team. This is Agara's second consecutive season making the team, adding yet another dominant campaign to her college resumé after averaging 15.1 points and 8.5 rebounds per game.

For Somfai and Swain, they are the first pair of Stanford teammates to land on a league’s all-freshman team, a feat that was last accomplished in 2006-07 when Jayne Appel and J.J. Hones were on the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team. It’s also the first time the ACC has had multiple all-freshman performers from the same team since 2021-22 when Florida State had O’Mariah Gordon and Makayla Timpson.

Jayne Appel-Marinelli is Senior Vice President of Player Relations for the WNBPA.

Stanford's leading scorer and second on the team in rebounds, Agara continues to impress and be in WNBA prospect conversations, being one of only six Power Four players to average 15.2 points and 8.6 rebounds this season, joining NC State's Khamil Pierre, Miami's Ra Shaya Kyle, UCLA's Lauren Betts, Kentucky's Clara Strack, and Oklahoma's Raegan Beers.

Swain, averaging 10.2 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists, and Somfai (10.8 points, 9.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists) make Stanford the only Power Four program with multiple freshmen averaging 10.0 points per game and one of just eight teams nationally. Somfai is having a particularly strong season, being one of only six freshmen in the country to put up the type of numbers that she is.

The future is bright

This season, the Cardinal are 19-13 and are a bubble team for March Madness—a far cry from the dominance experienced by the program for nearly 40 years under legendary head coach Tara VanDerveer. But the performances of Agara, Somfai and Swain are very encouraging for a team looking to return to championship contention.

During the VanDerveer era, the Cardinal almost always had a clear cut star who they could rely on to put up big numbers. Last season, the first year after VanDerveer's retirement, the Cardinal struggled to figure out their identity, not knowing who their big star was.

But now, the Cardinal can go into either the NCAA tournament (if they qualify) or the offseason knowing who to build around for the future.

Going into next year with more experience, expectations will be much higher for the Cardinal to make a run at another national title. If Somfai, Agara and Swain continue to be the stars that they have shown they are while also taking a step forward, a new Big Three on The Farm could be the talk of the town if things go according to plan.

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