Stanford vs. USC on Super Sunday

I just want to say this about the Stanford Women’s Basketball game vs. USC on Sunday… Peyton Manning looked so good until that one and only interception! Okay, it was a banner day for sports fans in that there was a Stanford women’s basketball game on Cable TV no less, and the Superbowl, a culmination of six months of football.

For a basketball game that was changed to the Sunday of the Superbowl, it was a pretty good turn out of over 4,100. Of course, Stanford was also honoring their 1990 team that won Stanford’s first National Championship, a team that has a special place in Stanford fans’ hearts.
Before the Stanford game, both C and R worked hard to get our Superbowl party preparations in order. Here’s all you need to know about C and R. R went to the local farm by C’s house to buy fresh veggies (twice) and C went to the store (twice) to make sure she had enough salty chips and dip. In fact, C forgot the dip mix and had to rush back to the store and R forgot fresh cauliflower and rushed back to the farm. But we had the dip a chillin’ and the bugs scrubbed out before we left for the Stanford game at 1 PM.

The game opened with Nneka Ogwumike on fire, rebounding and scoring, then it seemed her knees were bothering her and she leveled off. USC had some cool road uniforms, all black, but had the worst luck shooting we have ever seen a team have. The first half stats said USC shot 9.7% from the field and made zero threes. The score at the half was Stanford 29, USC 10. Yes, that’s right, they only mustered 10 points by half time. It was the lowest scoring half in USC’s program history. The 10 points they scored in the first half surpassed the school's previous-low of 15 on Jan. 27, 1990. And it was not that Stanford over powered them. They got great looks and made great shot selections. They hustled the ball up the court. Just nothing fell through. Boy, we bet USC coach Michael Cooper was wishing he never left the WNBA and Candace Parker.

Plus, the whole 1990 Stanford National Championship team sat right in front of our seats. (Every day C thanks R for maintaining those season tickets!). Look, there’s Jennifer Azzi, there’s Katy Steding, now they are hugging Molly Goodenbauer.

Also in the first half, Jayne Appel surpassed Nicole Powell to become Stanford’s rebound Queen with 1,153. She would finish the game with 13 rebounds and 15 points. Our other twin towers also got a double double. Nneka finished with 13 boards and 16 points, and Kayla Perdresen had 14 boards and 18 points. It’s nice to see our three tall trees have a great game and spread the scoring around. When you have three players that can score and rebound like that, you are hard to beat.

The only negative for Stanford was when they pressed us we made turnovers. We had 10 in the first half. When they pressured Jeanette Pohlen, they picked her pocket and forced her into a bad pass on consecutive plays. We have to improve on the press if we want to have any realistic shot at beating UConn. Oh, wait, make that two negatives. We missed a lot of free throws in the first half, too. For the game we were 12 of 19, about 63%. This ain’t high school and we need to make those.

We do want to give a special shout out to USC’s Jacki Gemelos. This kid has torn her ACL FOUR times. She has had five knee surgeries. She first came to USC in 2006. She has two years of college eligibility left after this year. Her first game back was at Cal on Thursday. She played on Sunday and scored 13 points in her team’s loss. Pretty remarkable in that the team made only 12 for 67 baskets in the whole game.

The only drama was could our subs, who came in around the 3 minute mark, keep them under 40. We did, the final score being 77-39. See UConn, we can (almost) beat teams by 40 points, too.

Oh, we mentioned to the announcer of the game, you know, the guy who sits next to Lisa Leslie and told him we shake the Tinkle Bells when Joslyn Tinkle comes in the game. He said last game he would mention it on the air. So we reminded him again. WE shook them hard when Joslyn came in. We forgot to tape the game, so we wonder if her kept his promise. Did anyone hear if he mentioned the tinkle bells?