This weekend was much better than last for the Stanford women’s basketball team.

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Senior guard Candice Wiggins blows by an Oregon defender in the Cardinal’s 83-49 win on Saturday.

The No. 7 Cardinal crushed Oregon, 83-49, on Saturday afternoon, two days after dispatching Oregon State, 81-45, Thursday evening. The two easy wins — which were much-needed bounce-back victories after the Cardinal was swept by unranked UCLA and USC last week — came in different fashions, however.

On Thursday, Stanford (14-3, 4-2 Pac-10) pounded the ball inside to sophomore center Jayne Appel, who led all scorers 25 points in the win. With Appel neutralized by foul trouble on Saturday, however, the Cardinal turned to suffocating defense and — who else — senior guard Candice Wiggins, who led Stanford with 20 points against the Ducks (8-8, 2-3 Pac-10).

“We are a great offensive team,” Wiggins said. “And defense can bring us lots of energy.”

Offensively, the Cardinal shot a blazing 51.5 percent from the field. On the defensive side of the ball, Stanford forced 27 Oregon turnovers on Saturday (including 11 Stanford steals). Despite being credited with only six official fast-break points, the Cardinal defense created numerous opportunities in the transition game.

Another chunk of points came off of second chances. Junior forward Jillian Harmon added 15 points for the Cardinal, one short of her season high, to go with nine rebounds, five of them on the offensive glass. Harmon converted those missed shots into three lay-ups and a pair of free throws for Stanford.

“I see offensive rebounding as a way to get easy baskets,” Harmon said. “In L.A. we weren’t as aggressive as we needed to be. It’s my job to crash the boards.”

Harmon and Wiggins outscored the entire Oregon team until only eight minutes remained in the game, at which point the Cardinal’s starters had long since been removed in favor of the reserves.

Stanford never trailed in the contest and jumped out to a 10-point lead just 3:06 into the game after a pair of steals and fast-break scores by sophomore point guard Rosalyn Gold-Onwude and Wiggins.

Then the senior All-American took off. Before the game, Wiggins received the 2007 USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year award, and the veteran showed why she gets the accolades in the middle part of the first half.

After Oregon and Gold-Onwude traded baskets to make the score 14-4, Wiggins went on a personal 10-2 run, netting the Cardinal’s next four baskets against just one from the Ducks. The senior guard sunk a jumper while drawing contact and added in a free throw before burying a three-pointer and two more mid-range jump shots to inflate Stanford’s lead to 24-6.

The Cardinal coasted through the rest of the first half and headed into the intermission up 38-22, before bursting out of the locker room with a 14-3 run to begin the second stanza. Stanford’s backups started to fill out the lineup at that point, with all 11 available players getting in the game and 10 of them registering points.

Freshman guard Jeannette Pohlen was Stanford’s other double-digit scorer on the day, chipping in 15 points, thanks mostly to three second-half three-pointers. Fellow frosh Hannah Donaghe was 2-for-2 from long range for six points.

Stanford hits the road this week, when it faces Arizona on Thursday and No. 25 Arizona State on Sunday.