Stanford Survives USC

The Stanford Women’s Basketball team has been a Jekyll and Hyde team all season long. First they beat Baylor (Baylor!) and a ranked Tennessee team on their home court. Then lose (And lose big time) to UConn on their home court. They bounce back to beat Cal at their place to keep them from throwing victory balls to their home crowd, then lose to Cal less then a week later at Maples, depriving C and R a chance to catch a Stanford victory ball.

Then they beat UCLA and look like the Stanford of Old, and then they do a Jekyll and Hyde in ONE GAME. Stanford goes up by 19 points in the second against USC even though they were shooting poorly in the first half, then let USC come back to within 5…all in the same game. Oh, wait, we said that.

To start, it was good to see Stanford guard Amber Orrrrange step up where she left off against UCLA. She drove to the basket and most of the time she made it all the way for some great layups against a taller USC team. She would score 13 points for the game.

In fact, USC was playing Stanford pretty much straight up one on one and when you do that to All-America Chiney Ogwumike, what did we say last time? She makes you pay. Chiney’s Hyde (bad) was shooting only six shoots and only making two, plus two free throws in the first half. Her Dr Jekyll (good) was scoring 26 points in the second half for a combined 29 points and 16 rebounds for the game, and a second straight double-double.

Stanford's Sara James drives to the basket. George Nikitin - AP Photo

Sara James also took over where she left off. She got her second straight start and hustled hard. She had a great stretch in the first half where she ran ahead on two fast breaks and scored. The first was a thing of beauty, though. It started when Chiney blocked a pass, grabbed it and ran to the basket. Her way was impeded by a USC player but she spied Sara streaking by on her right she threw down a long bounce pass, leading Sara to the basket. Sara caught it in stride and finished at the basket. A great play by all. Sara would end up with 13 points as well, and made a three. 

Although Sara went to the bench a few times, but she definitely got more minutes than against UCLA. This time we noticed she was matched up with a taller player on defense, and since Stanford was playing man to man all night, she had to come out of the game. C and R realize that happened against UCLA and even though she provided a spark, she came out because of that mismatch. She played many minutes in the second half and she played defender on a similar-sized player.

When Stanford got up by 19 with 12 minutes left in the second half  (they were up 33-20 at the half, thanks to Joslyn Tinkle’s three in the final seconds), it was due to great ball movement to free up players for some key threes. And thanks to Tinkle for her two three pointers in a row in the second. Tinkle scored 15, and was 3-3 from the three-point line. It was good to see her points come earlier than last time when they were needed more. She also was 3-3 from three-point land last game, so she is technically 6-6 between the two games. Wonder what the record is for consecutive threes in multiple games? When USC got within five points with 2:42 left, it was because Stanford went into that slow rotation offense and USC pressed started to work again.

It was weird, and again, Jekyll and Hyde with this press. USC rolls out the press, Chiney the post player is dribbling the ball up court for Stanford (bad), and they are breaking it and getting baskets fairly regularly off of it (Good). But USC kept with it and then they started to get some turnovers (Stanford had 14 for the game-bad). And then Stanford’s vaulted man-to man defense broke down and they let USC’s #14 drive right to the hoop...four times. Number 14 is Ariya Crook and she single handedly willed USC back into this game, and ended up with 18 points. And after watching her drive to the basket two or three times, why didn’t anyone wearing a Stanford jersey stop ball? Chiney got some key baskets when things got close (good), and Stanford prevailed 75-66 (double good).

So for those of you keeping score at home, that was four, count ‘em four Stanford players in double figures. And all four are starters (good). However no bench players scored any points (bad). Stanford is now in a two-way tie with Cal for the PAC-12 lead (good) (but they should not have lost to Cal (bad))!!

Next up, Utah and Colorado come to town this weekend. Lets hope for some good wins.

Follow C and R for all the good and the bad on Facebook and Twitter, too!

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Stanford Destroys USC at Home!

The funny thing is, USC appeared to play Stanford better than UCLA, and yet Stanford beat USC by 44! The final score was 95-51, and Stanford had its bench in for the last 10 minutes of the game vs. their starters.  USC coach Michael Cooper himself said Stanford is ready to claim a national championship.

So, you ask C and R, how can you claim USC played better than UCLA if UCLA “only” lost by 26? Well, Stanford was beating them by 35 for most of the second half before the bench came in and UCLA trimmed it to 26. How did USC play better? Well, for starters, USC can box out, which is a hard thing to do against our trees, and they did a good job in the first half. USC even had the lead twice early in the first half, by two and then by one 8-7, which is something UCLA couldn’t do once. But more importantly, it seemed USC did a better job of freeing up their shooters and knocked down some shots even when Stanford was in their face, at least in the first half. USC shot 38% from the field in the first. In the second half, only 18%, or more telling, they were 6-32. Yes, Stanford has a tenacious D, and USC stopped doing what was helping them in the first half in the second half.

In the first half, USC got players free by setting screens, in a variety of ways, which C and R haven’t seen a lot of teams try. They screened down low, which not a lot of teams do, as they tend to screen up near the three point line to free up a shooter. USC had double screens, two players together in a wall, which we have seen other teams do and they had staggered double screens, which were very effective which we will get to in a minute. They even had a taller player set a screen on Stanford’s shorter guards and when Stanford switched players, as they are wont to do in man to man, USC had the taller player roll to the basket and they actually hit them with the ball for a score. Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer quickly counter with not switching players to knock that noise off. So USC did that afore-mentioned staggered screen, where the Stanford guard sees the screen and fights through instead of switching so they are a half step behind their player, and then they run into a second screen they were not expecting and now are fighting through again and are a full step off and then the shooter is free to shoot. Very effective when they did it. Inexplicably they stopped doing that in the second half.

Speaking of Tara, watching her over the years we have come to see she is a master of adjusting to the other team. Sometimes at half time and sometimes, more impressively, on the fly. For example, Stanford went in to a half court 1-3-1 defensive trap, with long-armed Chiney Ogwumike at the point using her speed and aggressiveness to harass the ball carrier entering the half court. The theory is the point player and the line of three players around the foul line trap, steal, harass, force a turnover, or somehow prevent the ball from being thrown or shot before the foul line. The weakness is if the other team can see over the wave of defensive players and place two players on either side of the basket, and the ball handler can get a pass to at least one of them, Stanford only has one player back under the basket and either misses the steal or guards one player who quickly gives it to the other open player on the other side of the basket before Stanford can get back to help. (It takes a lot less time to do then we just explained!) Well, USC said yes, we can do that and they got it to a wide-open post player for an easy two and Stanford did not play that defense for the rest of the game. Not even, lucky try, can you do it again? Tara said okay they got that figured out, let’s go back to our smothering man to man.

Speaking of the staggered double screens, Jeanette Pohlen had the most set on her and in the second half she got picked hard (and illegally-moving or knee stuck out to trip) twice under the basket in the space of 10 seconds as USC was trying hard to free up their shooter near the baseline. Jeanette turned red and got even more determined. She shut her shooter down and used her anger on the other end to score 21 points and give out a career high 12 assists. Boy, she was determined. Don’t make her mad if playing cards or basketball!

Speaking of Micheal Cooper, and I don’t know, somewhere we were, we loved to hear him espouse about our Nneka. Quoting the Stanford website write-up of the game, “Nneka, there were a couple of plays I was in awe,” Cooper said. “You don’t usually see that in a the women’s game. You see that in the men’s game.” He of course would be referring to the alley oop. Jeanette threw an alley oop pass near the Stanford basket and Nneka leaped, caught and shot it in the air. She banked it off the glass and the angle was just a little bit off for the miss, but it must intimidate the hecka out of the other team. And then there were several offensive rebounds were she leaped high, caught and shot before landing. She made all of those, we think. Again, as a defender what do you do? She doesn’t even land so you can get a chance to foul her. And then there was sister Chiney’s steal and fast break all alone. We screamed “Dunk it!” but she laid it in and the replay showed her hand causally hitting the backboard as she laid it in.

Glad to see Kayla Pedersen continue her aggressiveness around the basket, scoring 16 points. We liked seeing her go to the basket. On one play, she drove to the basket, pulled up for a short jumper and missed. So the next play down she drove to the basket, all the way to the basket and jumped and laid it up and over the rim, about 8 inches from hand to basket, to make Sure she did not miss this time. R has said it before, Kayla is about perfection.

This game, she was much more effective at making her threes. She was 3-4 from downtown. The team as a whole made 50% of their threes in the first half, and it was great to see Lindy LaRoque bombing away and making two. Lindy was tentative to shoot in the first half of the season, and now she is taking much more shots. I guess Tara had to threaten to beat them if they didn’t shoot. No, wait, C and R made that up. Instead she threatened strangulation! Here is the quote from the Stanford website. "I really want to play a more open game. This year with people, keep shooting until I strangle you is my motto," VanDerveer joked. "We want to score more and run more." That Tara has a wicked sense of humor!! (Which is bad news for other teams if they want to run and score more!).

Freshmen guard Toni Kokenis was in the black sweat suit of injury, and the Stanford website revealed she got hit in her head when fouled and had a slight headache. The team was being cautionary and she should return the next game. Wow, we have never seen so many Stanford players sit with head injuries in one year. We think there is more awareness in general about head injuries and being cautious is the new treatment, which is great. Although, we are puzzled when they say the player has headaches after a head blow but a concussion is ruled out. Isn’t a headache one symptom of a concussion? Especially prolonged ones? Maybe a Stanford doctor can explain it to us!

Saturday’s game was a banner day for C and R. Our row won coupons to Mike’s Sports Bar and Grill! And they got the publicity at the game and now free publicity from the blog, double your advertising dollars (Hmm, hope the fix wasn’t in). And Nneka threw us a victory ball, which ended a long drought for C and R. Thanks Nneka! We will miss the team during the long lay off until the next home game Feb 10th.

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?

PAC-10 News

PS
Check out C and R’s comments on Swish Appeal, your happening place for PAC-10 news and reviews. Q McCall asks in his Pac-10 Week in Review: Is Stanford Just Bored?

PPS
What was Michael Cooper thinking? At the start of the USC/UCLA post game press conference, USC women's basketball coach Michael Cooper first words were: "[expletive] UCLA”

He has since apologized, according to ESPN.

Another blogger wrote something like, “What was the big deal? And it's just college.” So of course we had to chime in:

We say, yes, it does matter that Michael Cooper is at an institute of higher learning, that he is a coach, educator and role model to his players and the University at large, and that he is to lead the way in graciousness, sportsmanship and class for the University he represents. This was not some “trash talking” that he did in a private arena; say in his practice or in a hallway or among friends. This was in a very public arena, a press conference, one of the ways to help publicize the sport of women’s basketball. They were the first words out of his mouth! Unacceptable. Is this the type of attitude we want to teach any player, male or female? In these days where you have parents getting in physical altercations with opposing players’ parents and coaches and even officials (witness the case of the hockey coach who confronted a referee after a game and knocked him to the ground, only to have the ref hit his head on the ice and die), we need some civility, grace, and sportsmanship in our sports, and we need the leaders to be the coaches at colleges and universities, including a high profile one like USC and Michael Cooper.