WBB: Utes fall at home to Stanford
It wasn't a Valentine's Day to fall in love if you're the Utah women's basektball team.
Despite jumping out to a quick 8-3 lead, the Utes couldn't stop No. 8 Stanford the rest of the way — falling 97-64 at home.
"Stanford played exceptionally well tonight," Utah coach Lynne Roberts said. "It is hard to get anything going on our end when they shoot the ball like they did tonight."
The Utes jumped out to that quick lead following three-pointers by Andrea Torres and Kemery Martin, but the Cardinal responded with a 15-2 run and the rout was on.
After trailing 23-13 through the first quarter, Utah had no answer for Stanford on offense. The Utes gave up 32 points in the second quarter, despite scoring 20 themselves, to trail 55-33 at the break.
"I think we have to acknowledge how well Stanford shot tonight; I mean they were 15-of-30 from the three," Roberts said. "They came ready to play and played exceptionally well. I don't think we weathered the punches well in the second quarter, and offensively when the game got away from us we tried to do too much one-on-one. They shot 20-percent better than us, and that was the game."
Martin continued to show improvements in her game as she finished with a team-high 15 points, going 6-for-13 from the field and 2-for-4 from beyond the arc.
"Kemery is coming along. ... You can see it," Roberts said. "She took a couple of shots tonight that weren't great, but it is good seeing her be confident and starting to feel confident."
Lola Pendande added 12 points and six rebounds while Daneesha Provo finished with 11.
Reigning Pac-12 freshman of the week Brynna Maxwell, the Utes' leading scorer, was held scoreless on 0-for-6 shooting for the night.
Utah now turns its attention to Cal, when the Utes take on the Golden Bears on Sunday with a 12 p.m. MST tipoff.
"We move on," Roberts said. "We play Cal on Sunday and we will be ready to go and ready to fight."