What’s next for Cardinal Basketball?

The Stanford Cardinal men’s basketball program has been on the road since a November 30 trip to Asheville, North Carolina and has stayed on the road through outings against North Carolina, Indiana and their first-ever game against a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in North Carolina A&T. Their ‘return to home game’ against Loyola Marymount was canceled, originally scheduled for December 9 and their next scheduled game is set for a Pac-12 opener against the USC Trojans in LA.

The women’s team has had two of their games scheduled for this week either postponed or canceled with the Washington State game being delayed and the UC Davis game canceled altogether. Their next scheduled game is in Berkeley against Cal, but that isn’t even a sure thing as of right now.

So, while we await word on their next outings, we can at least take a look at what we have seen so far from each squad.

The men’s team has had a mixed bag of outings so far this year and the only game that they weren’t particularly competitive down the stretch was their third game in Asheville against Indiana. Still, through four games all away from home, the Cardinal are 2-2 and have a win over a top 25 team in Alabama.

The season got off to a hot start as true freshman Ziaire Williams led all scorers against Alabama with 19 points in his DI debut. He’s followed that up with 10 points against North Carolina and a combined 10 points in their last two outings. Despite the lower point outages in their last two, Williams has upped his rebounding total and even secured 10 boards against NCA&T.

Oscar da Silva or Daejon Davis have led the team in points over the last three outings as da Silva has scored 13, 17 and 26 points over the last three and Davis has secured back-to-back 18-point games before scoring nine points against NCA&T.

The team is distributing the ball well in their victories and have recorded assists on 34 of the 63 made field goals in the two victories this season compared to just 15 assists on 39 made field goals in the losses.

Overall, this team may continue to improve if they can find some semblance of ball distribution and cut down on the turnovers as even in their wins, they’ve recorded a grand total of 59 turnovers this season.

While they’re scheduled to take to the road against USC this coming weekend, we’ll update if the schedule is altered at all in the coming days.

For the women’s team, however, the Cardinal are the No. 1 team in the nation, receiving 24 of the possible 30 first-place votes in the most recent AP Top 25 poll.

They’ve played just three games so far this season including blowout victories against Cal Poly (108-40), UNLV (101-54) and in the Pac-12 opener against Washington (83-50). As demonstrated in her first 18 games of action last season, Haley Jones is on the shortlist of best collegiate basketball players this season as she’s continued to push the bar in each game.

She’s recorded outings of 16 points, 25 points and 29 points, each of the latter two performances setting new career-highs in points. She’s recorded two double-doubles and has reached 31 rebounds through the first three outings, averaging a double-double in fact.

This team has a wealth of scorers, both inside and outside, as they’ve already combined to shoot 30-for-89 from three-point range over the first three games. They’ve also combined to outrebound their opponents by a combined margin of 154 to 93.

Jones is shooting a remarkable 76.1% from the field (32-42) this season and seems unstoppable, which has opened up the chances for Lexie Hull, Kiana Williams, Cameron Brink, Francesca Belibi and Hannah Jump to reach double-digit figures at least once this year. Jump has knocked home 8-of-22 three-pointers this year as well to lead the team.

The sky truly is the limit for this team as we’ll continue to be on Tara Watch and whether or not head coach Tara VanDerveer can reach the all-time wins record before the calendar year is over. We’d probably already have been there had it not been for four altered games.

We’re scheduled for double-header action for both the women’s and men’s teams this Sunday, and as mentioned above, any changes that occur, we’ll update here.

It’s a special year for Cardinal Basketball — stay tuned!

GO CARD!