The Cardinal (11-1, 1-0) hosts UCLA at 1 p.m. Sunday. The Bruins are coming off an overtime victory at Cal and have already beaten the Trojans.

"Our shot selection wasn't great early on so (coach Tara VanDerveer) told us to get to the paint," Williams said. "So that's what we were doing. They were running us off the 3-point line."

Williams scored 13 of her 22 points after halftime in helping No. 6 Stanford escape with a victory over the Trojans on Friday night.

"That's unacceptable. I'm going to have to clean that up," Williams told Stanford grad and Pac-12 Networks analyst Roz Gold-Onwude in a post-game interview. "It just goes to show you what a great defense USC has. It's Pac-12 and every game is going to be a grind. I'm just happy we fought and came out with the win."

Kiana Williams didn't enjoy looking at those seven turnovers on the stat sheet following Stanford's 72-64 Pac-12 Conference victory over visiting USC on Friday night.

The Cardinal scored the final eight points of the third, highlighted by a steal and layup by Lacie Hull at the buzzer, to take a 54-47 advantage into the final quarter. She finished with eight rebounds and seven points.

Stanford outscored the Trojans 12-7 to open the fourth quarter, with Williams making a layup to push the lead to 66-54, the largest of the night.

"We knew it was going to be a gritty game. Gritty, we play through anything," Smith said. "It's a word we like to use to describe ourselves. We don't have to play pretty to win."

Alanna Smith had 19 points, 11 rebounds and blocked five shots as the Cardinal won its fifth straight since losing at Gonzaga.

Junior guard Anna Wilson returned from an injury and played about five minutes. She played three minutes total over her last four games, missing three of them.

Stanford led by seven points near the end of the first quarter, the largest lead for either team through three quarters.

"They are an aggressive, physical team and I thought we responded well," VanDerveer said. "They make it tough. We had a much better second half. We spread the floor better and got into transition."

Nadia Fingall had to leave the game with a hyper-extended right leg early in the third quarter. She returned to the court in the fourth quarter only to leave the game with a hyper-extended left moments later.

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Williams scores 22 in Stanford women's hoop victory