USC

With heavy hearts C and R turn on our respective computers to watch the stupid GameTracker, the online version of live stats (Yes, this is blog #862 complaining about Women’s basketball NEVER BEING ON NETWORK TV!).

To backtrack, C came over to R’s house to watch the Stanford Women’s Basketball Team take on USC. We turned on our two computers because GameTracker freezes up all the time, usually around the 17-minute mark, so we thought that with constantly refreshing our screens we could see the majority of the game. As C’s computer is booting up, R reminds her we have three hurt point guards. C does her best Homer Simpson imitation (Don’t forget to tune in to the Simpson’s 20th Anniversary Hour Sunday) and says, “D’oh!”

When GameTracker finally starts we see Jeanette Pohlen, one of the three hurt guards playing. Well, she did just have a sprained ankle and not the knee swelling of the other two. We read, not see, that Kayla Pederson makes a basket, Nneka Ogwumike has a fast break lay up, Jayne Appel makes a block…and suddenly we are up 30-7. It looks like a great game…that we are missing! (Blog #862 and a half about women’s basketball not being televised…)

During that time, Jayne is on a tear and we hope she is back to her old self and not bothered by her knee. Joslyn Tinkle comes in with Jayne instead of for Jayne, a rarity that they get to play together, and as we shake our imaginary tinkle bells, we cannot help but think of her new, inadvertent nickname, Jingle. Then we read Jingle misses a three! Jayne rebounds and puts it in, and R notes that is something Jingle can do that Jayne can’t, and that is hit a three. An interesting dimension for her, one we might need to explore more next year when we don’t have Jayne.

With the constant freezing of our scoreboard and refreshing R notices USC finally gets to double digits with 8:58 left in the first half, with them hitting a three to go from 9 to 12 points. We are killing them. JJ Hones has come in, injured guard number 2, so her knee must be feeling better.

Kayla now grows cold, and is 5 for 9 from the field. Jingle fouls and gets subbed out, replaced by Jayne, which is more common, and now it is 33-16. They have almost half our score. Nneka gets cold, making misses. Is this a comeback?

Then we don’t score for 2 and a half minutes. Then it is 35-21, us. Then our computers freeze. Then Kalya gets her tenth rebound with 5:46 left in the half. Wow, she is already in double digits for rebounds in the first half.

Okay, we are enjoying the one perk seeing the game this way in that can see instant stats. For example, we are shooting 53% to their 35% and have 22 rebounds to their 7. Yes, they only have 7 rebounds. Then JJ Hones misses a three and then comes right back and misses another three. We are 0-8 from three-point land. Not good.

The half ends 39-25, with us in the lead. GameTracker pops up a screen saying Kayla leads with 11 points and 11 rebounds and Jayne with 8 points and 8 rebounds. How symmetrical!

We start to watch a rerun of Glee while we are waiting for GameTracker to start the second half. It’s the one where that woman from Wicked comes on to corrupt our sweet innocent kids from McKinley High. Oh wait, the second half starts.

Okay, watching this exciting game from GameTracker is boring and writing a blog about watching little chess pieces shoot an imaginary ball is boring and I can only imagine reading about watching stats is VERY boring so let’s just say nothing eventful happened in the second half and skip ahead to the rest of Glee.

Except USC closed the gap to within 9. How? Well, the score is 43-34 and we see we are 0-12 from the three-point line until Jeanette finally hits one to go 1-13. We also have a lot of turnovers. Then JJ Hones hits not one but two three pointers. With about 13 minutes left, we have 41 rebounds to their 18 yet 7 turnovers to their 3. That is not good. Then we pull away.

Jingle, Tinkle makes a three pointer and we wonder what her career high is? We are now 6-20 from three-point land but our instant stats say that is a magical 30%. Anything over 30% from the three-point line is good, so we have somehow salvaged our three point shooting percentage. C swears she sees Melanie Murphy’s name in the game, which would make her injured guard number 3 to be better, but we read later she did not play. Hmmm, GameTracker….

Then the Internet goes down. We are not sure if it is the entire Internet in the whole wide world or just the wireless at R’s house. We get back on with a few minutes to go and the subs are coming in. R predicts we are going to win. We do, 82-62. Kayla finished with 24 points and 14 rebounds and Nneka added 21 points and 12 boards. Jayne alllll-most got a double double, too, finishing with 11 points and 9 rebounds. We out rebounded USC 54-27, great, but had triple the turnovers then USC, not great. We need to take better care of the ball or else that could come back to haunt us.

We also beat first year had coach Michael Cooper, who came from the WNBA and coaching Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker. So far this year USC have beat three Top 25 teams this season and thought they could make Stanford the fourth. So ha, um… we beat you! (Okay, C was never any good at trash talk). BTW, we just found out former Trojan Lisa Leslie showed up to the game in support of USC. Cool. Too bad we couldn’t see her!

Stanford continues their LA road trip by playing UCLA Sunday. Guess what, not televised. Aren’t you shocked? Better fire up GameTracker now to be ready.