STANFORD — A season that saw the Stanford women’s basketball team miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 37 years ended Thursday night in a 69-68 overtime loss to Portland at Maples Pavilion in the first round of the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament.
“Obviously it’s really painful anytime your season ends,” first-year Stanford head coach Kate Paye told reporters after the game. “If you do it right and you pour everything you have into it, you have tears in the end. That’s what you see here from Elena (Bosgana) and Brooke (Demetre).”
Stanford finished 16-15 overall in its first season in the Atlantic Coast Conference and was 14-4 at home.
Paye, who took over this season after the retirement of Tara VanDerveer, the second-winningest coach in college basketball history, added: “There are a lot of positives that we can build on, but obviously we have high expectations here at Stanford.
“This time next year we hope to be sitting in a very different position. But if we want something different we are going to have to work extremely hard.”
Thursday, the Cardinal, the top seed in the tournament, led by as many as 13 points early in the third quarter before missing 12 straight shots from the field, but still was up 56-51 on Bosgana’s 3-pointer with 3:23 remaining in regulation. But the Pilots (30-4) sent the game into overtime by ending the fourth quarter on a 9-4 run. Stanford missed two of its final three field-goal attempts and a pair of free throw attempts over the final three minutes of regulation.
Stanford scored the first four points in overtime on baskets by Demetre and Bosgana, and Nunu Agara’s tip-in made it 68-65 with 1:40 left in the extra period, but Portland’s Emme Shearer scored the final four points of the game, including a go-ahead free throw with one second remaining.
The Cardinal had never lost to the Pilots in four previous meetings. When the teams met last season Stanford beat the Pilots 81-51. The Cardinal is now 43-6 all-time in postseason games in Maples Pavilion.
“For our returners, this was a very challenging season. There was a lot of change, a lot of challenge,” said Paye. “What I’m most proud of with our team … is that no matter what adversity that we faced and things not going our way, our team stuck together. We did not come apart at the seams.
“Things did not go our way this year. … but I loved coaching this team.”
Agara returned to the Cardinal starting lineup for the first time since Feb. 6 and had 21 points and 12 rebounds. Bosgana led the Cardinal with 19 points and eight boards, while Chloe Clardy added 11.
Shearer scored all nine of Portland’s points in overtime and finished with a game-high 28 points.
Saint Mary’s women
The Gaels’ season ended in a 54-50 loss against Texas Southern in the first round of the WNIT in Houston.
Edie Clarke and Emily Foy each scored 14 points for the Gaels (14-17), who led 21-18 at halftime but were out-scored 22-8 in the third quarter. The Gaels cut a double-digit lead to three in the final seconds but Texas Southern sealed the victory from the free throw line.