Hidey-ho Stanford fans. C and R were away from their computer all day yesterday, so we invited guest blogger TH, who lives in Oregon and actually got to see Stanford live the last two games, to blog about Stanford playing Oregon. And for someone who lives in Oregon, she is probably a bigger fan of Stanford Women’s Basketball than C and R, if that is possible. Without further ado, here is T in her own words. (And just what were C and R doing all day yesterday? Oh, just coaching our little girls team to second place in the end of the year tournament. Everyone got trophies, including C and R, which made C’s day! We hardly recognized our girls from the beginning of the season to now, they have grown and improved so much! Oh yeah, here’s Stanford)
Greetings from Oregon, C&R. I love it when Stanford comes to play our two teams. It’s like hosting an annual visit from some fancy relative who comes to town, wows your friends, gives you a ride on the back of her motorcycle and then tears off down the road while you wave goodbye, kind of slack jawed and woozy. I dare any of my Oregon sports buddies to say otherwise. Uh huh. You can’t. You know it’s true.
So, in today’s game against Oregon, Stanford was relaxed, on target and well oiled from the first minute. Nneka Ogwumike sunk a decisive, take-that kind of bucket, then Jos Tinkle sidled up to the arc and dropped a three-pointer. Pretty soon, the Stanford threes were dropping like Oregon rain. I couldn’t really keep up. The nice people sitting behind us tried to help us count. We think, by the end of the first half, Tinkle had one, Toni Kokenis had two, Bonnie Samuelson and her braid combined for three(!) and we were split on whether Lindy LaRocque had one or two. But you get my drift. The perimeter was really lighting up out there.
For several reasons, the defensive play was super. First—OK--- we were kind of enjoying a height advantage. But even so, everyone seemed to be scrapping and getting a hand on incoming passes. Toni K had one of her signature steals, galloped across the court, took a hard foul and sunk one of her free throws. Amber Orrrrange also had a great steal and sunk an exciting lay-up at top speed. And Tinkle had an all out stuff under the basket. You’ll just have to trust me when I say it was awesome and should have been accompanied by a raspy horror movie voice saying, “Geeeeet Oooouuuuut!”
At the half, we were 42-20. Not even close. During the second half, Tinkle continued to play bruiser defense and finesse offense. She was a box out & rebound machine, but on offense, she had a soft touch all day, including one really groovy, retro looking fade away hook shot. In Oregon, if you have to cream us, cream us retro-style, OK?
When Tinkle drew a foul in the key and stepped up to the free throw line, some local roughnecks tried to distract her by singing “Tinkle Tinkle Little Star…” Nice try, fellas. When Chiney Ogwumike took a gratuitous elbow or forearm to the back, as she was already falling out of bounds, the refs called a technical and Coach Tara VanDerveer (Coach V) had Tinkle take the two free throws. She hit those too. Final score: 81-46.
The sisters played great—don’t get me wrong. But today’s performance was more of a well-balanced one with Tinkle scoring 19 points, and lots of 2 and three point jumpers from our guards. We will surely need all hands on deck next month, so hopefully, we'll continue to see more supporting play from Tinkle and our guards to enhance Nneka and Chiney's ongoing awesome-ness.
Off you go, Cardinal. Don’t forget to come back next year…
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