Elite freshmen should help Stanford women improve next season

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Freddie Rehkow, coach of Central Valley High’s Washington state champions, is eager to see how the Hull twins, Lexie and Lacie, along with Jenna Brown, mesh with the veterans on the Stanford women’s basketball team next season.

He’s not the only one. So is Cardinal head coach Tara VanDerveer, whose team could be back in the Final Four despite losing leading scorer Brittany McPhee and leading rebounder Kaylee Johnson. Reinforcements are on the way.

With the twins starting for four years, Central Valley went 102-6. Over the past three years, it was 83-1, and the one loss was in a state quarterfinal game in 2017 by one point.

Lexie Hull, who probably will play a wing or small forward at Stanford, averaged 20.4 points and 8.4 rebounds and was named a first-team All-American by MaxPreps. In a recent so-called national tournament in New York, she scored 26 in a 66-61 win over top-seeded Hamilton Heights Christian of Chattanooga, Tenn., in the title game. Earlier, she dropped 30 on No. 2 seed Westlake of Atlanta.

Lacie Hull, at 6-foot-2 an inch taller than Lexie, averaged 10 points per game. The twins made it clear to recruiters that they wanted to play together in college.

“They work as hard in practice as they do in games,” Rehkow said. “They’re a joy to coach because they set the tone for everybody else.”

Lexie’s offensive skills lead to comparisons with McPhee. Both were state players of the year in Washington.

Lexie Hull (10) averaged 20.4 points and 8.4 rebounds in her senior season in high school and was named a first-team All-America by MaxPreps. Lexie Hull (10) averaged 20.4 points and 8.4 rebounds in her senior season in high school and was named a first-team All-America by MaxPreps. Photo: Ted S. Warren / Associated Press 2016 Photo: Ted S. Warren / Associated Press 2016 Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Elite freshmen should help Stanford women improve next season 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

“Taking nothing away from Brittany because she’s a great player,” Rehkow said, “but I think what people will see with Lexie is a much stronger ball-handler and a more well-rounded player as far as outside and inside. Defensively, she might be ahead of where Brittany was going into Stanford.”

McPhee takes with her a 16.7-point average. But next season, the Cardinal will have the next four leading scorers back from this season’s team: forward Alanna Smith (13.5), guard Kiana Williams (10.4), guard/forward DiJonai Carrington (8.8) and point guard Marta Sniezek (5.5).

Lexie Hull and Brown, both five-star recruits, probably will make an immediate impact.

“We need to be a more skilled team,” VanDerveer said. “Just looking at the numbers — field-goal percentage (42.4), free-throw percentage (64.2) — we need to improve those.”

This might have been the worst foul shooting team of her 32 years at Stanford. It ranked 314th out of 349 teams in that category. Only Williams (82 percent) surpassed the 70 percent mark among regulars.

VanDerveer made it clear what she expects of her returnees in the offseason: a lot of time in the gym, working on their shots, their offensive moves and their foul shooting. It was indicative of the team’s defensive prowess and the coaching of VanDerveer and her staff that Stanford (24-11) finished second in the Pac-12 (14-3) and reached the Sweet 16 despite being the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

Although it beat UCLA at Maples Pavilion in the Pac-12 opener, the team’s high point was the Oregon trip — knocking off then-No. 16 Oregon State and No. 6 Oregon, both of which would reach the Elite Eight.

Brown, a 5-10 guard, should be one of the key players next season. After missing her junior year at the Lovett School in Atlanta, she averaged 24 points, 10 rebounds and four assists as a senior.

Basketball has deep roots in her family tree. Her grandfather is former Detroit Pistons head coach Herb Brown, and her granduncle is Hall of Famer Larry Brown, the only head coach to win both NCAA and NBA titles.

“I want to win a national championship — that’s definitely the goal,” she told an interviewer last season.

Smith hopes to play for Australia in the World Cup in September, and VanDerveer wants her to become more physical. She wants two other prospective starting forwards, Nadia Fingall and Maya Dodson, to improve their low-post moves. VanDerveer pointed out that, because of injuries, this is the first time since middle school that Carrington will have an offseason to work on her skills.

The nonconference schedule again will be tough, but not as tough as the 2017-18 schedule. Baylor and Ohio State visit Maples. The Cardinal play at Tennessee and Gonzaga and meet Buffalo (a Sweet 16 team this year) in Toronto. Oregon (the likely Pac-12 favorite) and Oregon State will play at Maples.

Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @tomgfitzgerald