Too Tall for Texas

Ice, Ice, Baby!

That’s Kayla Pedersen, BTW, during the Texas game, hitting those two technical free throws to put Stanford up 2-0 BEFORE THE GAME STARTED! BECAUSE TEXAS FORGOT TO SUBMIT A LINE UP BEFORE THE GAME! Oops, sorry for yelling, and yes… we know, we know C and R are extremely late on the Texas blog, the game that happened Sunday. (and for those of you who saw us buddy buddy with some Cal fans, they did not, repeat did not poison our salsa at Chevy’s where we went to discuss all things women’s basketball, and no, they are not so much Cal fans as fans of all of women basketball and impressed us with their fountain of knowledge of all other teams not named Stanford. We kinda forget to pay attention to those other teams….streak, what streak, who has a streak going on… BUT. I. DIGRESS.) Now I am yelling and being grammatically incorrect, something R hates, and now I am switching which person I am speaking in, and oh, be nice to me, I have had a headache of a week because I am teaching DANCE to my students. Sure yeah, if I was teaching basketball I could teach a cross over move on the way to a lay up to the basket like it was nobody’s business. But all this week I have been trying to memorize the steps to the Macarena, the limbo and the d'hammerschmiedsgselln (boy, did that dance just break my spell check). Google it, then try it with a friend, it’s fun!

And today I was doin’ the hula in one class and doing Bollywood dance in another.
NO. I. AM. NOT. LYING. AND. NO. THERE. ARE. NO. EXISITNG. PICTURES. (that I know of)
BUT… I………. DIE…..GRESS

No wonder I complain to R all the time that it takes me so long to write a Stanford Women’s basketball blog because I am already a jillion sentences in have not really talked about Stanford women’s basketball at all. Boy, I am not sending this baby to the serious sites that discuss women’s basketball. At all.

Anyhoo, back to Kayla, she is so smart. R called her perfection the way she shot those free throws before the game with a perfect arc-- it was nothing but net and no doubt! She is so smart. Also, when Kayla got her fourth foul with about 4 minutes left in the game, Tara sat back impassively instead of subbing her out. Why? Because she trusts Kayla. She trusts her to play smart and not get the last foul, unlike our beloved Chiney Ogwumike! WHO FOULED OUT! Well, first of all, we thought the officiating was really good, all three refs. And although the game was called tightly, it was called consistently tight for both sides. Texas quickly got everyone on their team in foul trouble. And Chiney couldn’t help herself! Poor sister Nneka was tossed around inside, too. Our Cal friends, who know a quality basketball player when they see one, said Nneka needs to put some meat on her bones. (Loved Kayla’s leaping tip-in, too!)

Okay, best live moment of the game you won’t see in a stat sheet: Kalya asking a question of the ref while the game was going on and him answering. It was when Kayla went for a defensive steal and knocked the ball away and kinda dribbled it then picked it up. She ended up with the ball in her hands and her elbows out as everyone ran down the court. I was wondering if she could dribble. Did that little pushing around count as a dribble. Kayla paused there with a thoughtful look on her face and actually turned to the ref and said, “Can I dribble?” The ref was getting ready to run down the court and stopped and looked at her. And I’m thinking (yes, I do that occasionally, too) that he won’t answer her, he is not allowed to answer her during live play, and he turns to her and says, “No.” So Kayla motions Jeannette back with her hand, she runs back down the court and Kayla passes it to her. Smart. And as for the ref, he probably was so shocked she asked, he just answered her automatically. Does anyone know, can a ref give a verbal ruling or answer a question like that during live play?

Scariest moment of the game: Watching Texas Tech warm up. Okay, technically that happened before the game, but when C and R first sat down, we saw how intense they were doing a man on man pressuring drill. And then we saw they had size like us. We thought oh no, they are going to press us with their long arms and pick on our lack of depth at guards. After watching Stanford play hum-ho against South Carolina, we were worried indeed. And then... Stanford came out and was all business, and a different team then the one of Friday. Boothe gave quality D, and we were successful when we dribble penetrated. And teams can stop full court pressing us right now; because we solved it right away. First we passed down-court quickly and got some easy baskets, a memorable one to Kayla all alone. And then we inserted frosh Toni Kokenis at point guard and she just out ran them before they could trap her. She out ran both pressing guards. It was great. Texas quickly called off the press.

And kudos to the big crowd. Friday’s game was sparse, it was nice to see a showing against a ranked team, and nice Stanford responded too, beating Texas 93-78. The game never really was in any doubt. (Oh, except when they led 6-9 in the opening minutes). Kayla scored 19 with 12 boards and Nneka added 22. Chiney got 14 before the foul out.

Reminder:
Head Coach Tara VanDerveer is only 2 victories from joining the tony 800 win club. She is trying to become the 5th women coach to do it. Quick, can you name the other 4? The first one to write in correctly (and can tell me where to find the answer) gets a “Fear the TreeS” T-shirt. Oh, oh, oh, Tara has more wins then Geno, by the way!

Good luck to the Stanford players who are taking finals and resting. We are sure Kayla, whose majors are communications and psychology is taking finals like..ah… Advanced Cognitive Neuroscience Computational Neuroimaging Analysis Methods and the affect on Cell Signaling and Behavior and the ever popular Neural Basis of Cognition: A Parallel Distributed Processing Approach and then the Applications of Parallel Distributed Processing Models to Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience.

And how to Dance the hula 101. (okay, I got those fancy titles off the Stanford psychology website and combined several together just to make R laugh, so if I even remotely guessed and got close to a real class Kayla is taking, it is all pure coincidence, Kayla’s parents, we are not stalking the players on campus. Only after games and at coffee shops and such. No, R is pulling out her hair with her one good shoulder, she hates when I call us stalkers, we are just normal fans. Well, mostly normal. A little Abnormal. Maybe we need a psychology class or two.. and maybe I need help with my digression.

Se ya at the next game whenever it is.
C-