![\"Guards](\"http:\/\/www.stanforddaily.com\/cgi-bin\/wp-content\/uploads\/spo010810wbb2-300x200.jpg\" "\\"spo010810wbb2\\"")
<\/p>\nGuards Rosalyn Gold-Onwude and JJ Hones and forward Kayla Pedersen enjoy the waning moments of a Cardinal victory. Stanford has had many chances to smile, winning 10 of its first 11 games this season. This weekend\u2019s trip to the Los Angeles schools marks the Cardinal\u2019s first road trip in Pac-10 play. Stanford will take on two tough opponents in USC and UCLA, both coming off sweeps of ranked teams. (MASARU OKA\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/h3>\n
The No. 2 Cardinal will face one of the tougher tests of its still-young Pac-10 season this weekend when the team heads to Los Angeles to play USC and UCLA. After soundly defeating rival Cal its last time out, Stanford will look to continue its momentum en route toward a 10th consecutive conference title.<\/p>\n
While it may be difficult to imagine the 10-1 Cardinal facing a considerable challenge in both games of a road trip, the Trojans (8-5, 2-0 Pac-10) and the Bruins (9-4, 2-0) perennially find themselves in contention for competitive spots in conference and national tournaments. While the Cardinal managed to win all of its matchups against the L.A. schools last season, the games were not easy, including hard-fought Pac-10 tournament games. The Trojans in particular posed a significant threat to Stanford, barely losing the race to a regular season conference title and earning runner-up behind Stanford in the Pac-10 tournament.<\/p>\n
By all indications, it would appear that both teams are off to fantastic seasons. Just last weekend, in fact, the L.A. schools each managed to sweep nationally ranked Arizona State and Arizona.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth teams look great,\u201d emphasized Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer. \u201cI\u2019ve been watching so far, and USC had Tennessee down by 10 at one point on the road, and UCLA had an opportunity to beat Duke at Duke, so they\u2019ve both done well with a tough non-conference schedule. But that\u2019s the nature of it. We want to play teams that have done well and will make us better. This is definitely a very tough road trip, and it might be the toughest combination of teams we face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given what they\u2019ve already been through this season, Stanford should be well prepared to compete on this road trip. The Cardinal purposely scheduled a tough non-conference season, including several games against top-10 teams, and managed to outscore opponents in 21 of 22 halves that it played \u2014 the exception being a disappointing second half against defending champion Connecticut.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played a brutal non-conference season, arguably the toughest ever for Stanford and probably one of the toughest in the country,\u201d VanDerveer said. \u201cI think our team played terrific basketball. I think we learned a lot, and we\u2019re very excited about the Pac-10.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stanford already played one game in its conference season, knocking off the Golden Bears by an apparently convincing margin of 79-58. Never one to rest on her team\u2019s laurels, however, VanDerveer wasn\u2019t entirely satisfied with the team\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
The Cardinal was able to hold Cal to just 35.9 percent shooting and picked up a combined 49 rebounds, but shot a somewhat underwhelming 41.8 percent. Last season, the Cardinal shot an average of 47.3 percent for the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t really pleased with how we played against Cal, and I think we\u2019ve really cleaned some things up since,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing some new things and getting everyone on the same page. Our rebounding and our defense was great, but we\u2019ve since been working really hard to clean up our offense, and it looks a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good teams need good players, something the Trojans and Bruins certainly are not lacking. USC is led on the court by sophomore guards Ashley Corral (15.7 points per game, 5.8 rebounds per game, 5.8 assists per game) and Briana Gilbreath (12.9 ppg, 5.8 rpg). Heading up UCLA\u2019s offense, meanwhile, are standout freshman guard Markel Walker (12.9 ppg, 8.5 rpg) and sophomore guard Jasmine Dixon (12.7 ppg, 7.7 rpg).<\/p>\n
Stanford\u2019s roster, meanwhile, is absolutely packed with star power. Sophomore guard Nnemkadi Ogwumike and junior forward Kayla Pedersen hold the Pac-10\u2019s top spots in scoring with 18.8 and 18.0 points per game, respectively. Senior Jayne Appel\u2019s 9.7 rebounds per game are good enough for third in the conference; Ogwumike and Pedersen are fourth and fifth. Besides these \u201cbig three,\u201d another impressive playmaker has been redshirt junior guard JJ Hones, who is leading the conference with a 2.00 assist-to-turnover ratio after returning from her second major ACL injury.<\/p>\n
Ogwumike, in particular, has impressed of late. After the game with Cal, in which the some of her teammates had a harder time finding the net, the Cypress, Texas, native secured her sixth game with more than 20 points (she had 24) and fourth double-double of the season. She is currently second in the conference with 63.4 shooting percentage.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people talk about a sophomore slump,\u201d VanDerveer said. \u201cThat\u2019s not the case with Nneka . . . she\u2019s been nothing but sophomore spectacular.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ogwumike worked her way into a starter\u2019s role for a portion of her freshman season, and expectations for her couldn\u2019t be much higher.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy biggest goal was to become more of a threat for my team,\u201d Ogwumike said. \u201cI wanted to work on my outside shot and get more of an aggressive mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever her plan was, it seems to be working. One contribution that was less anticipated \u2014 but certainly welcome \u2014 was her defense. Ogwumike had two blocked shots and a steal against Cal. She now is second on the team in both steals (13) and defensive rebounding (72).<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t see myself as the best defensive player, but I think I\u2019m improving,\u201d she said. \u201cOur coaches have definitely been helping us work and improve our defense. It\u2019s progressing right now, and I\u2019d like to be more of a locked-down defensive player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stanford will begin its first Pac-10 road trip tonight at 7 p.m., when it faces the Trojans. After a practice day, the Cardinal will head to UCLA for a 2 p.m. game on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guards Rosalyn Gold-Onwude and JJ Hones and forward Kayla Pedersen enjoy the waning moments of a Cardinal victory. Stanford has had many chances to smile, winning 10 of its first 11 games this season. This weekend\u2019s trip to the Los Angeles schools marks the Cardinal\u2019s first road trip in Pac-10 play. Stanford will take on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}