STANFORD — No one left completely satisfied Tuesday night after No. 15 Stanford overcame Cal 53-46 in a Pac-12 rivalry game muted because both schools have fallen from their lofty perches.

The Bay Area teams that once dominated the West Coast found new ways to miss shots in front of 3,268 fans at Maples Pavilion.

After taking a one-point lead into halftime, coach Tara VanDerveer told the Cardinal, “This is about as bad as we can play and we’re still winning.”

But she also warned that Stanford (18-5, 8-3, Pac-12) won’t be so lucky Friday in Berkeley if the players shoot 35.6 percent again in the rematch.

Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb expects the Golden Bears’ shooting to vastly improve in Haas Pavilion.

“I hope that we’ll shoot better at home,” she said. “If we were playing on Mars on Friday we would shoot better than 29 percent.”

It sure felt like a space oddity Tuesday as neither school could find gravity until Stanford pulled away in the fourth quarter.

The Cardinal got a lift from an aggressive Karlie Samuelson, who had 15 points, six rebounds and four assists to lead her team to its ninth consecutive home victory. Fellow junior Erica McCall had 11 points and 13 rebounds while Lili Thompson added 11 points for Stanford. Sophomore Kaylee Johnson got a game-high 15 rebounds as Stanford dominated the boards.

The Cardinal needed the performances to counter Cal freshman star Kristine Anigwe, who had 17 points and 7 rebounds. Courtney Range added 15 points, but the depleted Bears got little help elsewhere.

Cal (11-11, 2-9) dropped its seventh of eight games, a surprising turn for a team picked to finish among the top four in the Pac-12 this season.

“It’s ugly and it hurts and it’s not fun to be in this spot,” Gottlieb said. “At some point I want it to be fruitful. Our focus level was really good. We were locked in.”

The Bears simply missed easy shots, perhaps because they are exhausted with a bare-bones roster. For the fifth consecutive time Gottlieb trotted out seven available bodies, talented and game, but in need of a respite.

The problems were foreshadowed when Cal lost its top three scorers from last season. Brittany Boyd and Reshanda Gray had graduated, but junior guard Mercedes Jefflo was dismissed, the school announced in September.

The roster dropped to nine players in November when freshman guard Breanna Cavanaugh took a leave of absence to recover from concussion-like symptoms.

Then 6-foot-7 freshman Chen Yue of Beijing suffered a foot injury and has not played since Dec. 6. Sophomore star Gabby Green of Oakland missed her fifth consecutive game Tuesday because of a situation the school has yet to disclose. Asked when Green might return, Gottlieb said, “I’m not sure.”

The highlight in this descent has been Anigwe, who is second only to Washington’s Kelsey Plum in league scoring with a 20.1 average.

Anigwe proved to be a handful for the Cardinal after scoring nine points in the first quarter when Cal bolted to a 15-7 lead. But the lanky freshman had eight points the rest of the way.

Stanford was held to its lowest-scoring home game this season whereas Cal had its fewest points any time this season.

It took a mini run for Stanford to pull ahead 44-37 with 5:33 left after Samuelson’s second 3-pointer of the game. The Cardinal defense did the rest to salvage the victory.

Contact Elliott Almond at 408-920-5865. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/elliottalmond.