Nom, Nom Nom
That is the sound of C and R eating their words. Heck, it is the sound of the Nation eating their words. NO one believed Stanford could do it, not the National Media, not the local media, not UConn, not the Stanford fans, not the bloggers and tweeters, including us, Stanford’s biggest homer fans. Heck, even Stanford Head Coach Tara VanDerveer was hedging her bets, saying in a SJ Merc article that this will be a great learning situation regardless of the score, just want to see the team battle. Mea Culpe to you, Stanford team.
 Stanford's Amber Orrange (33) takes on UConn (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) |
Oh yeah, big plays: Stanford guards Amber Orrange and Lili Thonpson driving the lane for baskets in TVD’s new offense, including Amber’s pair of lay ins in the final seconds to keep it close. Or how about Amber’s three with 1.4 seconds left in regulation to tie the game at 77? UConn guarded the Samuelsons but left Amber alone…BAM. Lili was flying all over the floor and scored 24, including two free throws to cut the lead to 71-70 with 42 seconds to play. However it was Amber Orrange’s 17 points at key, key points that kept Stanford in it. Amber even made a go-ahead jumper with 1:38 left in overtime, and was trending on twitter, something that is hard to do for women’s sports.
And what about D? In overtime, Stanford forced a 5-second violation and prevented the Huskies from getting off a final shot on OT. Stanford shut down UConn’s three point shooter, Kalena Mosqueda-Lewis. She was guarded primarily by Karlie Samuelson, had only two points in the half. She only got four shots off and missed them all. Her points came on the free-throw line. She finally made her first basket, a three, with 9:40 left in regulation. UConn’s preseason All-America Breana Stewart, at one point in the second half, scored about 8 points in like, two seconds to start to pull UConn away, and C turned to R and said, oh no, here we go. She looks like a player who could take over a game, like our very own Nneka Ogwumike. And then she disappeared. If she can learn that skill to go for the kill, then they will be unstoppable. This variation of UConn looked beatable.
But, there before the grace of god go I...or us...or Stanford. Really, with a two point win in OT, it was really just one bad foul call away from going the other way. I just want to give a shout out to all the UConn fans I saw in social media. They were gracious, and if there were any bad sports, C and R don’t want to hear about them. Yes, this is just the second game of the season, both teams will look very differently in March, when the games really count. We know, we know. Someone on twitter said, after watching the Stanford student body storm the court, geez, Stanford acts like they won the National Championship or something. When you feel like an underdog, and it is reflected back to you by so many outside sources, this IS a national championship, a very hard thing to win, and something that those players will remember forever.
Looking forward to a great season! C and R really, really mean it this time!
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