Marta Sniezek will be in familiar territory when the 14th-ranked Stanford women’s basketball team plays George Washington at the Charles E Smith Center in Washington D.C. at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
The sophomore point guard graduated from National Cathedral School in D.C., where she was a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year in basketball. She was also a Gatorade Player of the Year in soccer, only athlete in D.C. history to earn the award in two different sports.
Sniezek knows how to score, something she did with regularity in high school, recording 54 career goals in soccer and averaging more than 25 points a game in basketball.
At Stanford, Sniezek has more assists (158) than points (146) and her career high in assists (13) exceeds her career high in scoring (11).
It would help if Sniezek were more of a scoring threat, though it’s not imperative given that the Cardinal has other threats and she’s doing a spectacular job of distributing the ball.
“A lot of our success will be our point guard play,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. “We’re really excited about how Marta Sniezek is playing.”
Over her past 25 games, Sniezek averages 4.9 assists with a 2.32 assist-to-turnover ratio. She averaged 1.8 assists with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 0.9 in her first 20 career games.
The Cardinal (8-2) is coming off a 59-51 loss at Tennessee, where Stanford has won two of 15 games. After making seven of its first eight shots, the Cardinal converted just 27.8 percent (15-of-54) the rest of the way. Stanford was 4-of-20 on 3-pointers and after scoring 15 points in the game’s first five minutes it added 36 in the final 35.
“We got them down, and we didn’t keep them down,” VanDerveer said. “I thought the No. 1 thing for me looking at the game was we didn’t pass the ball. We held the ball. We didn’t move the ball. We only had six assists. … We just need to play better team basketball.”
Stanford is 3-0 all-time against the Colonials and 11-2 against teams from the Atlantic 10 since 1999-00.
By Rick Eymer/Palo Alto Online Sports
By Rick Eymer/Palo Alto Online Sports
By Rick Eymer/Palo Alto Online Sports