College basketball: FGCU women lose to Stanford in NCAA tournament second round

STANFORD, Calif. -- Stanford was just way too tall, too quick, too deep, too skilled. 

And too much.

Florida Gulf Coast University's 12th-seeded women's basketball team couldn't follow up on Saturday's win over fifth-seeded Missouri. Not against fourth-seeded Stanford. On Stanford's home floor. 

Not on Monday night, anyway, in a 90-70 loss. 

Atlantic Sun regular-season and tournament champion FGCU gave the Cardinal all they had and made it interesting for a good long while, whittling an 18-point first half deficit to five before trailing 43-35 at intermission of this NCAA tournament second-rounder as program-founding coach Karl Smesko worked like crazy. 

But Stanford came out sharp in the second half and eventually rolled the don't-quit Eagles in Maples Pavilion where Stanford is now 36-4 all-time in NCAA tournament play. 

Stanford (24-10) advanced to the Lexington (Ky.) Regional to face top-seeded Louisville (34-2) on Friday. 

As previously planned, win or lose, the Eagles flew home out of San Jose after finishing their season at 31-5. 

Small consolation, but FGCU set the NCAA single-season record for 3-pointers. The Eagles sank 17 of them to total 431, which surpassed Sacramento State's 424 made in 2014-15. 

Senior guard China Dow came off the bench to lead FGCU with 23 points, mostly by making 6 of 13 3-point attempts. Junior backup point guard had 16 points and made 4 of 7 treys. Sophomore starter Nasrin Ulel had 10 points. 

The, well, big stats tell most of the story. Stanford destroyed FGCU, 52-18, on the boards and made 19 of 26 free throws compared to 5 of 6 for the Eagles. 

But it wasn't just a taller thing. Stanford shot 50.8 percent from the field and held FGCU to 36.9. 

FGCU was 17 of 47 on 3-point attempts for a 36.2 percentage. Stanford made 9 of 17, 52.9 percent, from behind the arc. 

Stanford 6-foot-4 junior Alanna Smith led Stanford with a game-high 28 points. She came in averaging 13, but made 4 of 7 3-pointers and added 12 rebounds.

The Eagles started shaky, missing wildly on their first three 3-point attempts as Stanford pounded inside easily for a 7-0 lead. 

Smesko uncharacteristically called a quick timeout and the Eagles answered with three 3-pointers -- by Erica Nelson, Taylor Gradinjan and Rosemarie Julien -- to tie at 9-9.

Stanford quickly turned that into a 17-9 lead before treys by Nelson and Zderadicka trimmed that to 19-15, but the Cardinal closed the first period on a 14-2 run keyed by Dijoinai Carrington and Kiana Williams 3-pointers for a 33-17 cushion. 

That grew to 35-17, but Zderadicka made two treys and a layup as the Eagles clawed within 37-27. An 8-0 run by  Ulel and the Eagles trailed just 40-35 before Stanford finished the half with three free throws for a 43-35 lead. 

The Cardinal stated the second half on a 15-3 run to give them breathing room at 53-38 and the Eagles -- who expended so much energy against a much taller team with tons of depth that runs as often as they do -- could not come close to catching up again. They got the deficit down to eight points midway through the third period and trailed by just 10 with 5:44 to go after Dow made four 3s and Zderadicka tossed in another. That almost sawed what had been a 21-point deficit in half. 

But Stanford countered in a big way to cruise in. 

With the loss, the collegiate careers of five senior Eagles -- starters Gradinjan, Julien and Nelson and key reserves Dow and Jessica Cattani -- came to an end.