SEATTLE – Kelsey Plum surpassed Jackie Stiles to become the NCAA’s all-time scoring leader with a career-best 57 points in the final regular-season game of her career, leading No. 11 Washington past Utah, 84-77, on Saturday.
Plum hit 19 of 28 shots and was 13-for-16 at the free throw line, surpassing Stiles’s mark of 3,393 points midway through the fourth quarter. Plum tied the mark with a hesitation drive and scoop over the outstretched arm of Utah center Emily Potter with 4:57 left in the game. After a Utah basket and a timeout, Plum hit a runner from just outside the lane with 4:06 remaining to move past Stiles on the all-time list. Plum now has 3,397 career points.
The expectation was Plum would likely break the record next week during the Pac-12 tournament. Instead, she placed a memorable exclamation point on her career at Washington, setting school and Pac-12 single-game records as well. She fell three points shy of the NCAA single-game scoring record.
Plum checked out with 44 seconds remaining to a standing ovation from the home crowd as Washington (27-4) closed the regular season with seven wins in its final eight games.
Plum gave herself a shot at setting the all-time mark with a big third quarter where she scored 16 points, giving her 38 for the game and needing another 16 in the fourth quarter to pass Stiles. She did more than that, taking over the entire scoring load after Chantel Osahor fouled out early in the fourth quarter. Plum scored 19 of Washington’s 22 points in the final quarter.
“She did tonight exactly what she’s done for us since she got on campus, what is needed. We needed her. We needed every one of those shots,” Washington Coach Mike Neighbors said.
Plum added, “You don’t do something like this by yourself and I hopefully make that very clear. This is an individual record but it’s broken by a village of people. It’s broken by every teammate that I’ve ever played for, every trainer, doctor, my parents, my sisters my brother, it’s this university, it’s the support I’ve been given. I’m very grateful, but it’s not something I take on myself because it’s not broken by just me.”