The FGCU women's basketball team (2-2) stayed with No. 7 Stanford for just over one half, but the Cardinal (4-0) finished 16-for-27 from the field over the final 20 minutes as the Eagles fell 88-65 in the Rainbow Wahine Showdown opener at the Stan Sheriff Center on Friday.
"I thought we played really well for a good portion of this game and then unfortunately I thought our pace let down in the second half when they got a little bit of a lead," FGCU head coach Karl Smesko said. "I didn't think we had the mindset or the attitude to fight to get back in it. We're just learning how to play together and hopefully we'll learn from this experience. I'm encouraged by about half of this game because we played really well against a great team. We just have to eliminate the other half."
Redshirt junior Keri Jewett-Giles poured in a team-high 17 points, while adding two rebounds, one assist and one steal, while junior Nasrin Ulel (13), redshirt senior Lisa Zderadicka (8), sophomore Alyssa Blair (7) and freshman Tanner Bryant (6) also contributed offensively. Nobody had more than three rebounds for the Eagles, who got three each from four individuals while being outrebounded 47-20.
The Green and Blue opened the game in strong fashion with back-to-back layups from Jewett-Giles and Zderadicka. Stanford answered with 12 straight, however, until Blair ended the run with a three-point play.
The Cardinal led 31-21 with 6:07 left in the half, but Zderadicka and Jewett-Giles combined for five straight before Bryantburied a corner 3-pointer to pull FGCU within four. The deficit was down to three following a 3-pointer from Jewett-Giles, but Stanford took a four-point lead into the break.
Ulel opened the third quarter with a pair of layups that pulled FGCU within one, and the Eagles had two chances moments later to take the lead but missed on a pair of 3-point field goal opportunities. Stanford took advantage, went on an 8-0 run and later closed the quarter on a 7-2 spurt to open up a 15-point lead.
"They had a couple good quick hits against us to get layups and then they found their shooters in the second half and shot a great percentage," Smesko said. "We gave up too many open looks from three. But give Stanford credit. After halftime, they did a good job getting better ball movement and getting the ball to shooters."
Ulel made a 3-pointer just 14 seconds into the fourth quarter as FGCU looked to trim the lead, but the Eagles went 0-for-4 with six turnovers over the next five plus minutes as the Cardinal pushed the lead to 23.
Redshirt freshman Tyra Cox and Bryant made back-to-back 3-pointers to end the drought, and redshirt junior Davion Wingate scored her lone points of the game on a fast break layup for the Green and Blue's final points with just under two minutes left.
Stanford's Nadia Fingall frustrated FGCU with a game-high 24 points on 11-for-14 shooting. Kiana Williams (17) and DiJonai Carrington (16) also combined for 33, while those three had 57 of their team's 88 points. On the positive side, Alanna Smith, who came in averaging 17.7 points per contest this year, was held to six points in 13 minutes on 1-for-5 shooting by FGCU's defense.
With her three rebounds, junior Tytionia Adderly is just 12 shy of becoming the sixth player in program history with at least 600 career rebounds. She needs 14 more to eclipse Courtney Chihil (603, 2008-12) for fifth-place all-time.
Bryant, who is now 8-for-15 from 3-point range, entered the game with 26 points this season, which is the most over the season's first three games for a true freshmen in the program's Division-I era. The only two players who scored more were Steffi Sorensen (49, 2006-07) and Adrianne McNally (35, 2006-07), which both occurred in the program's Division-II era.
With her two points, Destiny Washington is now just five shy of reaching 800 in her NCAA career, which has also seen stops at Loyola-Chicago and Ball State.
While FGCU fell to 0-3 all-time against Stanford with Friday's result, they are now 2-2 all-time as a Division-I program while playing in the state of Hawaii.
Smesko remains at 498 career victories and still has the chance to reach 500 this weekend.
The Green and Blue finished 10-for-38 from 3-point range, which gives the team four straight games with double-digit makes to open the season. They have now made at least that many in a game 241 times in program history and are on pace to record at least 15 such games in a season for the 11th straight campaign.
Redshirt sophomore Chandler Ryan had her streak of three consecutive games with four or more 3-point field goals made to open the season snapped. She finished 1-for-3.
Up Next:
The Green and Blue will battle Hawaii (1-5) at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday before closing out the Rainbow Wahine Showdown on Sunday at 5 p.m. against American, who defeated Hawaii 69-57 in Friday's nightcap.
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