By its own well-established standards, last season was a massive disappointment for Stanford’s women’s basketball team.
In their first campaign in the Atlantic Coast Conference and without longtime coach Tara VanDerveer patrolling the sidelines, the Cardinal missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the Reagan Administration.
Between 1988 and 2024, 36 NCAA women’s college basketball tournaments were contested and Stanford was part of every single one. The Cardinal made 15 Final Fours and won three national championships. Like UConn, Tennessee, Notre Dame and Baylor, Stanford had established itself as one of the sport’s blue bloods and a consistent contender.
So last season was seen as an aberration. In Kate Paye’s first season as head coach, Stanford went 16-15 and 8-10 in ACC action as they adjusted to the coast-to-coast league. The Cardinal were eliminated in the first round of the conference tournament by a Clemson team with a losing record. Then, they lost to Portland at home in the second-tier WBIT.
But this is still Stanford. The standard is still high.
In women’s basketball, this program is supposed to compete for championships.
And, in Paye’s second year in charge, the Cardinal seem to be well on their way to righting the ship.
They entered their first ACC road swing this week with 12 victories, including wins over rival Cal, former Pac-12 foes Washington and Oregon and at Gonzaga. Powered by talented rookies like Lara Somfai and Hailee Swain, and guided by steady-handed veterans like Nunu Agara, Chloe Clardy and Courtney Ogden, this Stanford team looks more like the standard and not the group that stumbled time and time again a year ago.
But on Thursday, they fell hard. In front of a sold-out crowd at the historic Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Cardinal lost 74-46 to North Carolina State. Stanford was outscored 23-9 in the fourth quarter, turned the ball over 21 times, and shot a season-low 30% from the floor.
“I just felt like things kind of snowballed on us, and the wheels kind of came off the wagon. For the first time, I think our defense let us down,” Paye told USA Today. “It was a good, old-fashioned ass kicking.”
This is the hurdle for Stanford now, the one it failed to clear most of the time last season. Paye’s team has to figure out how to win conference road games time zones away from California. The Cardinal were 2-7 in such games last season.
If Stanford has aspirations of making the NCAA Tournament this March, that mark has to be better. What went down at N.C. State on Thursday can’t happen again.
“Up into this point, our defense had really been something we hang our hat on,” Paye said. “We’ve rebounded decently. I just feel like we’ve yet to really get our flow offensively, and I think because of that, it puts a lot of pressure on our defense. But our defense has really been our strength, our togetherness.”
Defense and rebounding has been crucial to Stanford’s success this season. Nationally, entering Thursday, they ranked seventh in assists allowed per game (8.6), 11th in defensive rebounding rate (76.4) and 28th in points allowed per scoring attempt (0.88). The women’s basketball analytics site HerHoopStats also gives the Cardinal a defensive rating of 81.0, which is 37th in the country. In their wins over Cal, Oregon, Washington and Gonzaga, Stanford won the rebounding margin in three of those clashes, losing the battle on the boards to only the Huskies.
Somfai has been a big help in that department this season. The 6-foot-4 freshman from Australia — tabbed as a top 12 recruit in the 2025 class by ESPN — grabbed 16 rebounds against N.C. State. With averages of 10.5 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, she and Bonnie Deas of Arkansas are the only freshmen in the country averaging double-doubles.
“Lara is an incredible rebounder. She’s physical in there. She has a great nose for the ball,” Paye said. “And, you know, it’s hard when you’re a freshman — like, we’re counting on you.”
Somfai isn’t the only rookie Stanford is leaning on. Point guard Hailee Swain was the eighth-ranked recruit in her class by ESPN and is averaging 9.6 points and 1.5 assists per game.
“They’re in the starting lineup for a reason. It is not easy being a freshman. There’s a lot coming at you, but they’ve done fantastic. And I just think as they get more experience, they’re going to get better and better, and you’re going to kind of see some of the other stuff in their game really shine,” Paye said. “… But we need more from them.”
Somfai and Swain were Stanford’s most high-profile acquisitions of the offseason. In the era of the transfer portal, NIL and revenue sharing, the Cardinal are doing some things the traditional way: bringing in freshmen with potential and developing them.
Among all Power 4 programs, Stanford has the least number of transfers on its roster. Junior forward Mary Ashley Stevenson, who is in her second season with Stanford after leaving Purdue, is the lone player on the roster who didn’t begin her collegiate career as a member of the Cardinal. Stanford is also tied with Washington for the Power 4 programs who had the least amount of portal movement last offseason, in terms of the combined number of players coming in or going out. The Cardinal had two players transfer out from last season’s squad: Tess Heal to Kansas State and Jzaniya Harriel to SMU.
“What it means to me is loyalty,” junior Nunu Agara said at ACC Tip-Off. “It speaks to what Stanford is about as a program.”
Stanford’s continuity could give it an advantage in its second season in the ACC. Most of the players on the roster have endured the long cross-country flights. With the conference largely playing a schedule that has games on Thursdays and Sundays, Stanford typically doesn’t fly home between road games, instead making a hotel their home for a few days at a time. These players have done that.
“We have the flow and the rhythm,” Paye said. “We certainly learned things last year in terms of travel logistics and little things we can do that we feel like can help our team.”
Ahead is another opportunity for Stanford to get a signature road victory in the ACC. On Sunday, they’ll play in Chapel Hill against the North Carolina Tar Heels, who are ranked 15th in the latest USA Today Sports Coaches Poll.
The common throughline in Stanford’s three losses so far — to Florida Gulf Coast, Tennessee and N.C. State — is turnovers. They’ve had 18 or more in each defeat. And Courtney Banghart’s Tar Heels force 19.6 per game.
“We really have to improve our offensive execution,” Paye said. “We have to move the ball better.”
The expectations are clear for the Cardinal. An early ACC road win could help Stanford meet them.