The No. 5 Stanford women’s basketball team might be one of the best college squads in the country, but the U.S. national team played on an entirely different level last night, thrashing Stanford 97-62 in an exhibition game at Maples Pavilion.

Guard Sue Bird scored 19 points for the national team to lead all scorers. Stanford’s leading scorer was freshman forward Kayla Pedersen, who went 4-for-9 for 11 points. Pedersen also grabbed nine boards to lead the Cardinal in that category. Junior forward Jillian Harmon and sophomore center Jayne Appel followed up with 10 points each.

The Cardinal (2-0) never led against Team USA, which compiled a perfect 8-0 record during its college tour, beating the likes of No. 1 Tennessee and No. 2 Connecticut along with Stanford. The win over Stanford was the USA’s biggest margin of victory on the tour.

“I guess we were doing our civic duty,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer deadpanned after the game.

Stanford fought hard in the first period, but Team USA put the game on ice early in the second half, running all over a tired-looking Cardinal squad and stretching its lead to 30 points with 12 minutes left before cruising through the rest of the game. Stanford committed five turnovers in the first four minutes of the second half, allowing the national team to quickly build its advantage.

VanDerveer acknowledged that her team could not keep up with the high speed of the game.

“They shot extremely well, and they play at a pace that our team is not used to,” the veteran coach said.

Team USA led 45-30 at halftime behind 13 points each from its pair of ex-UConn guards, Bird and Diana Taurasi. Stanford fell behind early and trailed by 11 with nine minutes left in the first half as Team USA came out shooting 53.7 percent from the field.

The Cardinal made a spirited comeback attempt, though, scoring eight points in a row — four of them from Harmon — to narrow the score to 25-22 with six and a half minutes before the interval.

The USA women continued to make open shots, however, and the lofty margin was soon restored thanks to six points from Taurasi, four from former LSU star Seimone Augustus and a pair of three-pointers from Bird before halftime.

The game was also a homecoming for ex-Stanford guard Jamie Carey, who spent three injury-riddled years at Stanford in the early portion of this decade before transferring and finishing her college career at Texas.

Despite the lopsided loss, VanDerveer was sure that the experience would improve Stanford all over the court and especially on the inside.

“No matter who [the posts] play against now, they should be confident,” VanDerveer said.

Stanford will get an immediate chance to test that theory with its busy Thanksgiving week schedule. The Cardinal will first head to Utah before jetting off to the U.S. Virgin Islands next week to take part in the Paradise Jam tournament.

Stanford will play Connecticut and Old Dominion in the preliminary round of the tournament. Connecticut is the second top-three opponent that the Cardinal will meet in November. Stanford beat then-No. 3 Rutgers last weekend.

The Huskies (2-0) have been led by highly-touted freshman Maya Moore thus far. Moore has scored 26 points per game in blowout wins over Stonybrook and Holy Cross. Last year’s quartet of double-digit scorers — Renee Montgomery, Tina Charles, Charde Houston and Kalana Greene — are all back for the loaded Huskies.

Old Dominion (2-0) has also won its first games of the season behind sophomore forward Jessica Canady and the early leading scorer and junior Shahida Williams, who leads the team in rebounding. The Monarchs are outside the national rankings but received votes in the latest Associated Press poll.

No. 10 Duke headlines the other half of the Paradise Jam bracket. Depending on its finish in the round robin stage, the Cardinal will play either the Blue Devils, Purdue, or Temple in the third and final game of the tournament.