Tara-isms: Words of Wisdom From a Hall of Fame Bound Coach

Stanford Women’s Basketball Coach Tara VanDerveer will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame this Friday, August 12th. She is currently only one of seven women to be inducted into that hallowed Hall, so that makes it even more special. You can watch Live Coverage if you get the NBA channel (hint, our good friend P does, please tape it for us), starts at 3 PM Stanford time, with enshrinement Ceremony starting at 4 PM Stanford time.

Former and current Stanford players and coaches have been reminiscing on social media, mostly Twitter, about “Tara-isms.” Tara-isms, or Taraisms are sayings only Tara VanDerveer’s creative mind could come up with to “school” her players.

Taraisms are not new. First of all, Tara has been coaching for 32 years and counting, so there ya go. Plus, C and R are veterans of many Senior Night tributes and the players like to share their favorite Taraisms.

Jilllian Harmon (class of 2008) shared our favorites. She was the original storyteller, at least to our ears, of “Prayer Basketball!” She said in one of her first Stanford practices, she was making a long pass (and she claimed her arm was bumped) and it didn’t go as planned and Coach Tara yelled out, “Jill, this isn’t Prayer Basketball. We don’t just throw the ball and PRAY someone will catch it!”

Jill also told the crowd about, “don’t be a squirrel caught on the wrong side of a tree!” But so many other former players have quoted this, perhaps she says it to all defensive players who are on the wrong side of the offensive player, and does that happen a lot in practice?

Assistant Coach Kate Paye has had the benefit of being a player to receive Taraisms as well as a courtside seat to them, so to speak. She shared the most on her Twitter account. (Acknowledgements to players and coaches who give Taraisms on Twitter are listed below-comments from C and R in parentheses) .

Taraisms from former Stanford player and current Stanford coach Kaye Paye
-The “S” doesn’t stand for stupid. (Several players remembered hearing this one!)
-Mind over mattress.
-You don't have to be best friends, but you do have to be best teammates.
-It's not the start of the race but the finish.
-Mental is to physical as 4 is to 1. (Several different players liked to point out that Tara wanted to prepare them for the “thinking part” of basketball)
-You want to have fun, try winning.... that's fun! (Again shared by several and so apt!)
-Sometimes you're the dog and sometimes you're the fire hydrant. (Okey-dokey!)
-Basketball is a team sport. If you’re into individual things, take up tennis!
-Basketball was invented as a team sport, it’s always been a team sport, and it always will be a team sport. (Along the same vein-must have been some hot doggers she needed to take care of!)
-This is not a democracy. (Love this one and will use it on kids and students)
-Christmas is over; quit standing around like a decoration. (hee hee)
-Excuses are like belly buttons…everyone has one.
-FINISH! (Not sure if a Taraism, but several players said you just had to hear her voice)
-Got to put the hammer down.
-Sleep nights. (C always says you can sleep when you’re dead. Plus the players are so young and have boundless energy, why are they tired?)
-I was born at night, but it wasn't last night! (Tara’s no dummy!)

Former Stanford player Jayne Appel
-Don't be running like a station wagon if you have the ability to be like a Ferrari on the court. (Wow, that is so cool! Also probably why Jayne ran so hard on fast breaks!)
-You can't be a light switch and turn your game off and on, it has to be on all the time (Very Good!)

Former Stanford Player Angela Taylor
-Why use a water pistol when you have a cannon?

Former Stanford Player and Assistant Coach Charmin Smith
-A repetition of error shows a lack of intelligence (We all could use this quote-many other players remember this one, too, such as Vanessa Nygaard, so it must have occurred a lot!)

Former Stanford player Ros Gold Onwude was on fire with her Taraisms. We think she appreciated Tara’s wit the most!
-They already made the movie ‘Dumb and Dumber’ and you’re NOT in it! (Remembered by Ros Gold-Onwude and JJ Hones)
Don’t be a pig and hog the ball!
LESS is More.
-When I was playing I used to love guarding weak Wilma because I could help in and get steals!
-You have to be more than a one trick pony! (On having more than one “go to” move)
-There's too much mustard on your hotdog. (Ros said this was said on showoff/fancy moves)
-You don't want to be “the nice girls from Stanford.” (Ros said Tara was telling them to be tough)
What offense are you running? Mumbo Jumbo?!!! Be a point guard! Run the play! (I think that was specific to Ros!)
-That play’s not for you! The play is called money! Not funny! (For Ros only?)
-This play is called “Motion”….not “SLOW Motion” (For Ros only again?)
-No, no no, Candice, just play dummy D on her, she's not ready for real D yet. (We are sure Ros and Tara had a great relationship!)

Former Stanford Player Jeanette Pohlen
-Even a blind squirrel can find a nut (Guess Tara likes the squirrel and nut thing!)
Former Stanford Player Melanie Murphy
-You’re making million dollar moves but taking nickel shots (We can only imagine)

Former Stanford Player JJ Hones
-If there’s a fire in the house, get off the porch! (JJ said this was in reference to the ball in the key and helping in, and it took her “a sec to get it.” C and R still don’t get it, maybe meaning if the other team has the ball is in the key, you better go and get it before they score?)
-JJ shared this one, not so much a Taraism, but a way of life, “Tara would yell ‘YOU CAN’T DO THAT!’ Cue sub asap”

David Siegel at Hoop Feed.com gathered several former players and got them to talk on his show Dishin & Swishin to give “A Tribute to Tara VanDerveer.” Several Taraisms were mentioned. Here, due to the modern marvel of modern technology, you can listen to the Tara podcast your very own self.

In the Tribute, Candice Wiggins talked about quotes that motivated her, “Hungry lions hunt best,”  (about drive) and “Pressure creates diamonds.” The latter helped her in Stanford NCAA playoff runs.

Vanessa Nygaard shared many gems. One she remembered was when Tara would shout, “get your big toe off the line,” in reference to stepping on the three point line and making the shot go from 3 points to 2. “Worst shot in basketball, worst shot in basketball!” Tara would call out, Vanessa remembered.

In the Tribute, Vanessa Nygaard (we think that was her voice) shared she was not a great student and one day she was jawing with teammates about how far away she could hit a shoot, from off the court, from the doorway, and then Vanessa bragged, “I like to shoot from the library!” And Tara quipped right back, “you don’t even know where the library is!” Fast thinker, that Tara.

And great coach. Acknowledged basketball genius, and funny to boot!

* Special thanks to these player and coaches (And there Twitter handles)
Ros Gold-Onwude (@ROSGO21)
Candice Wiggins (@CandiceWiggins)
Kate Paye (@KatePaye)
Jayne Appel (@JayneAppel
Mel Murphy (@melmel0)
Jeanette Pohlen (@JFP32)
Charmin Smith (@21Charmin)
JJ Hones (@jj_hones)
Angela Taylor (@AFTAylor22)

**PS
Don’t forget to check out Tara VanDerveer through the 2000s, including pictures, from the Official Stanford website.

Stanford Rebounds to Beat Cal

C and R have a plan. Our plan is to drive almost to the Berkeley campus, where the Stanford Women’s Basketball Team is playing Cal, and park on the street. R has gotten the inside dope from a friend who is a Cal fan that the meters don’t require feeding on Sunday. Yes, that is the focus of C and R’s worry on Sunday, and yes, R has another friend and can you believe she is a Cal fan? Stanford, on the other hand, became everyone’s friend by knocking off UConn and has to worry about a big post game let down since they had their biggest victory in years and make sure they don’t overlook a young up and coming team in Cal.

Speaking of feeding the meter, tip off is right around lunchtime so C and R need to feed their faces so they also have a plan surrounding that. Their favorite Greek café is right on the way to Cal’s Gym and they stop and order falafels (only in Berkeley) but we want our food to go so they make falafel burritos, double only in Berkley.

So the third thing we have to accomplish is tickets and as of Sunday morning we don’t have a plan, we were just going to show up and get tickets at the box office, but late Sunday morning R’s other two friends named D & C, who, gasp, are also Cal fans call and offer her two free tickets. So C and R are set.

With the car successfully parked on the street for free, falafel burritos in hand, we find our Cal friends with their friend J on the steps of Haas Pavilion and skip the long long lines at the ticket booth. The attendance is 5,198 and quite a few are Stanford fans. The Cal fans give us their tickets for free, and that is a class act right there, and inform us we won’t be sitting by them. C suspects they thought we would be insufferable after the UConn win and banished us to Siberia. R ferrets out that they bought the tickets at a later date for their parents who decided at the last minute not to make the trip so their was no ulterior motive for giving us tickets away from them We promise to meet up with them after the game and go celebrate either way. And the seats were NOT in Siberia, they were fantastic, right behind the Stanford bench. We saw the Ogwumike family and JJ Hones again. Once we get situated in our great seats we dive into the falafel burrito; they are good. C likes hers so much she bites into the foil. Twice.

Oh yeah, there was a game, wasn’t there?

Cal introduces its player NBA style with spotlights and smoke and everything. It is fun to see, especially because C and R know straight-laced Stanford would never do that. Eventually the game starts…

Cal comes out with a lot of energy and very aggressive and makes the first basket. C and R worry. Stanford responds like a brick wall returning a tennis ball, that is they match their energy and take it inside with much success. Jeannette Pohlen drives inside, posts up, and in short is continuing her game from Xavier and UConn. What has gotten into her and how can we spread it to the rest of the team?

Once again Stanford coach Tar VanDerveer has a tailored game plan for Cal. Kayla Pedersen, who is 6-3, is on Cal’s 5-8 guard Eliza Pierre. Eliza is super fast and likes to slash and drive to the basket. We are worried she will totally blow by Kayla. We watch as Kayla often leaves Pierre to help double team and lays off her on the three point line, daring her to shoot. Pierre is reluctant to shoot the three and misses the only one she attempts. The gamble works. She does not burn Kayla driving inside, nor does she burn them with threes. Once again, what do C and R know?

Cal goes flat and Stanford curiously does too, almost like an echo effect. We are slow and plodding against slow teams and try to out-energize the energetic teams. We also stop taking the ball inside in this game and do not compensate with threes.

We pick it back up again, mostly thanks to Nneka Ogwumike and at the half it is Stanford 38-17, and we meet up with D & C & J. They also noticed how flat Stanford was in the middle of the first half and it was too bad Cal couldn’t take advantage of them. Well observed. We need Cal to get back up so Stanford can get back up!

Early into the start of the second half, around the 17:52 mark, Nneka hits the ground hard after a foul while shooting. R saw her head bounce. She stays down and clearly is in pain. Little sis Chiney checks in on her on the floor as they are helping her up. After she gets helped up and moved to the bench, the way she is moving so gingerly, C and R are worried she has a concussion. She did not return to the game. The internet would say she hurt her shoulder, and has a headache.

Tinkle comes in and is holding her head up high ever since that UConn game. She makes a steal around the foul line and instantly looked down court, but because Stanford was on D, no one is down there so she takes off down court for a fast break, and no, she decides, no fast break and slows up for everyone and then sees Jeannette Pohlen pull ahead so finally decides, yes let’s run and does and passes to JP for the lay up and that has to have been the slowest fast break C and R have ever witnessed!

Tara does a good job emptying their bench. Cal matched up size-wise with Stanford having two players as tall as Kayla an Sarah Boothe, but Stanford won the rebounding battle 49-26. Cal is sorely missing a “go to” player who can take charge and ultimately score. The team is mostly made up of frosh and sophs, so expect Joanne Boyle to bring them along every year. The final score is 78-45. Our Cal friends invite us out for salty snacks at a yummy taco bar that had the most impressive salsa bar! They actually watch a lot of different women’s basketball games, not just Cal and Stanford and it is great to get the inside scoop from them. Hopefully they will travel to Stanford when Cal comes to town!

No Bad (Stanford) News

Ya know, it’s funny; R just asked me if I had heard from our junior bloggers this season. Faithful readers like Mom will know that the junior bloggers are still in school and almost as obsessed with Stanford Women’s Basketball as we are. Almost. And they have even taught C and R a thing or two in the stalking department. So it was serendipitous (it’s okay, they live near Stanford and that radius automatically boasts your vocabulary level by about 20 points on the SAT and they know even bigger words than C and R), serendipitous that I should receive an email from one of them today, taking a break from her algebra homework or facebooking or whatever the devil it is kids do today.


It was on the subject of who (whom?-- I never know, I don’t live in the radius of Stanford and therefore I are dumb) who Stanford Head Coach Tara VanDerveer should get rid of if we have six recruits coming in 2011 and five active seniors graduating, which was the subject of our last post.

It began: Hey Stupid Idiots….
No, no, no, the junior bloggers are waaaaay too polite to begin a letter like that.
So it really began, DEAR Stupid Idiots….
No, no, no, and right now Mama Junior blogger has had a heart attack twice over. No, Junior Mama, just kidding, your daughter is very polite and very nice. In fact, she was so polite she wrote and said she wanted to point out a small detail I forgot. She said there are 15 scholarship spots and we have 14 players on the roster now with one spot open due to JJ Hones being dismissed last year, so we have six spots open.

Isn’t that cute, saying we “forgot” that detail, instead of calling us out and saying you idiots forgot about the void from JJ, which is what really happened (and thank you to other email writers who are not junior bloggers to point out the same thing to us). So although we are embarrassed, we are relieved Tara does not have to make the difficult decision to let someone go before they are a senior.

Well, the season is almost here, although I have to dish that one of the junior bloggers is going to MISS the Rutgers game, and I am so upset I think I might have to revoke her Tinkle bell. But it is okay, she is going to Yosemite, which is R’s favorite place in the world, so she is excused and gets to keep the Tinkle bell and will make the next home game!

What did JJ Do? Golf Cart. Alcohol. Police. Need we say more?

Well, yes we need to say more! Right now C and R don’t know whether to laugh or cry!

All year long the funniest stories told by the Stanford women’s basketball team involved a golf cart. They hold a special place in the hearts of the players. See, you get a golf cart when you have a knee injury. Mel Murphy had one Jeanette Pohlen’s freshmen year and she remembers the hijinks that ensued.  JJ Hones has torn her ACL so many times Stanford probably has a golf cart with her name engraved on it.

So…..JJ recently had knee surgery again and Stanford gave her a golf cart. Then in the early hours of May 2, she was driving her golf cart recklessly while drunk and the campus police asked her to stop. So she tried to evade them. In her golf cart. While DUI….This would be really, really funny, except she was drinking and she was arrested and booked for driving under the influence, reckless driving, evading a police officer and resisting arrest. Serious charges. Trying to evade police in a golf cart? And JJ is supposed to be Stanford educated! She was booked into the Santa Clara County jail (right by R’s house, we could have brought her some cookies) and released on bond. Then Tara VanDerveer dismissed her from the team.

I’m sorry (C writing here), it appears C and R are being flip and I guess we are, I mean I can remember all the dumb, hilariously-stupid things I did in high school and college, and I can totally picture the event with the golf cart, just I never caught! But JJ did get caught and this has serious consequences for the young lady. She is also a role model for those who follow women’s basketball, and drinking and driving is never funny (I believe JJ is over 21 and legally allowed to drink alcohol).

First and foremost in my mind is does this affect her scholarship for next year? Does she now have to pay her way through school? And if so, might she not come back next year for her academics? Also, she was rehabbing her knee and I am sure using the Stanford facilities to help with that. Is that all lost to her as well? Will this affect her recovery?

Two, this stupid college maneuver and getting kicked off the team is now in the headlines nationwide (BTW, thanks to our intrepid fans who first found this breaking story and forwarded it to us). This is just so embarrassing for the young lady. Think of your most embarrassing moment. Would you like it published all over the Internet? Such a sad ending for a great player who always gave it her all.

We hope she is not cast adrift in her rehabilitation and isolated from her support network, especially now when she needs it the most.

What Did JJ Do?

Stanford point guard JJ Hones has been “dismissed from the Stanford women's basketball team due to a violation of team rules”, head coach Tara VanDerveer announced Monday.

What?!? C and R have been frantically searching the Internet to see just what the heck happened and so far come up with nothing.

Jake Curtis of the Examiner surmised that with her off-season surgery she wouldn’t be back until late December and probably wouldn’t be full strength until Jan or Feb, so therefore would miss most of the season. If he is thinking Tara wants to free up that spot for someone else, then we think Tara would have said just that to JJ. She is not one to play games and would have more respect of her players. And the brief articles we are finding say she violated team rules.

The Palo Alto Daily Online tried to be more in depth and dug up the last person booted off Tara’s team. They reported that Tanda Rucker was the last one (and perhaps the only other one?) booted off in 1993. She had played on Stanford’s 1992 championship team. The reason she was kicked off the team was for theft. Hmm. Are they trying to make JJ guilty by association?

Michelle Smith, intrepid reporter, called Tara on the phone for a quote. Tara said, “No comment.”

Anyone know any more email C and R right away!!

Stanford Awards Ceremony Part I

OMG, the Stanford Women’s Basketball end of the year banquet was yesterday, and although C and R couldn’t be there, bummer of bummers, our intrepid NOF (number one fan) could (and she plugged our blog to Nneka Ogwumike! When we get T-shirts made, we are giving her a free one!). Here is her report, edited by us, which means lots of typos, with C and R’s (unnecessary and obtrusive) comments in parenthesis.

Hi, C and R,

I wish you could have come to the banquet (us too!), it was a lot of fun. There were somewhere between 250 and 300 people there, fans, players, staff --which is extensive, including bus driver and Jimmy V--, family. It's very different seeing everyone out of uniform - players in mufti, fans dressed up - only Tara looks the same in her suits.

We chatted with people we recognized and stared at the players as they arrived. They look so different dressed up and with their hair down!! Jayne was there and looked great in sweater and jeans. Jeanette arrived in a short, tight skirt and what seemed like six inch heels. Kayla looked lovely, and much more slender--and somehow taller!-- than I expected in a tee shirt and skirt with sandals. Hannah had a very tight, short black dress and long scarf. It was interesting to see what they each chose to wear. JJ was on crutches but still looking fab in short skirt and tank top..... (okay, we don’t want to be one of those blogs that concentrates on women’s fashions when it comes to women athletes, but we love visualizing what these young women choose to wear when not in uniform, so there, it’s appropriate).

So we gawked at people, but only talked with other fans prior to the dinner starting. But we had paid EXTRA to sit at a table with a player, so were kind of excited to see who that would be when we went in to the main dining room. Amazing!!! We were at Nneka's table!! (AHHHGH, you’re killin’ us!!) It was incredible. She looked great in a gray top, short, full black skirt and lots of silver necklaces. She was charming and gracious to everyone at the table, none of whom she had previously met (OMG, we think she is amazing and no wonder we love her so much!!). We rotated people around during the different courses so everyone would get a chance to sit next to her, I felt like a really amateur stalker (good girl) because when my turn came I only had silly questions about her courses, plans for the summer, etc. She had an allergic reaction to something in the salad, so had to go off in search of allergy medicine and couldn't eat any more of the meal, and boy, was she a good sport about all of that, even though her stomach was hurting and she couldn't swallow... (we suspect the pinenuts). BTW, I did ask if she read your blog (good girl again). She said no,(ECK!) she hadn't heard of it, but sounded interested... (Hee hee, a big C and R shout out to you, Nneka, if your there, look at the archives for this year because we think you are in every post, we also think you are great and we are the stalkers who with our little girl’s team got your autograph many times this year!)

Tara did a very nice job with all the thank yous, introductions and commentaries about each member of the team. She told us she was worried about being emotional because she choked up writing her notes, but she toughed it out in the event. It was very moving when she thanked the three seniors--JJ and Mel came up with the Juniors to be introduced, so they are definitely coming back (YES!). Tara said that in her thirty plus years of coaching, the best gift she ever got from a player came from Michelle Harrison, and she brought it to show us. It was a picture Michelle drew of Tara's dog, Scout, a thirteen year old golden retriever. It was a great picture and it obviously means a lot to Tara. She told about how exciting it was when Jayne accepted and how she could remember it so clearly she knew what she was wearing that day. She also told the very cute story of Jayne asking her to keep it secret because Jayne wanted her dad to find out where she was going when he read it in the papers--those Appels are jokers!. Tara was also very effusive about Ros and what an awesome defensive player she is. She went through game by game, how Ros stopped the top scorers. The three seniors each spoke and I cried when Jayne talked--like at least half the room (BAWHAHA, please pass the tissues, C and R are bawling right now just imaging it).

This year they did not do individual awards because they felt it was a total team effort (Wow, cool!). But the team did vote for the famous and historic Lizard Lung award, which went to Hannah Donague, the first time it ever went to an upper classman. Sarah Boothe told about when they were getting ready to go to Italy, and they were all reminded what they needed to bring, including a passport, and Hannah was confused because she thought they needed a different passport for each country they were going to... And when they went to play in Washington, Hannah asked what time zone it was in... And, three months after the fact, Hannah had no idea what was going on with Tiger Woods... Sounded like there was a lot more to the award, actually, the team was clearly all in support of this...

And they showed a highlights video. It was nice. But kind of sad too. God, we'll miss Jayne. And Ros. But Jayne... (Jayne!) But Sarah will be back. And we're gonna have a great team. And lots of people will step up... Oh, well, back to the off season.

Hope you guys are well. Take care. See you in November at the first game.
Cheers. –SA
(NOF)

This weekend, we here from our junior bloggers how the awards ceremony went from their eighth-grade point of view. They first had to have a sleepover to write it, gosh, isn’t that cute!

Stanford’s Elite Eight Win

Zero Seconds After the Game Ended:
Are you kidding me?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!!

Ten Seconds After the Game Ended:
Jeanette Pohlen just wrote herself into the Stanford History Books!

Four Seconds Before the Game Ended:
C pulls out her automatic external defibrillator and shocks R’s heart back to working. Apparently it stopped when there were about 12 seconds left and C and R watched in horror as not one but two, two wide-open Xavier shots right under the basket missed their mark. Two shots, two lay up shots with the game tied 53-53 with about 12 seconds left missed by Stanford’s Sweet Sixteen’s opponent Xavier. Two shots missed by the same Xavier player, Dee Dee Jernigan, who was on the block wide open, for goodness sakes. The basketball gods were with Stanford and the medical gods were with R as she recovered to watch Jeanette Pohlen race the floor and make that incredible shot.

Twenty Seven Seconds Before the Game Ended:
Kayla Pedersen, with ice in her veins, hits a jumper at the top of the free throw line to TIE it at 53 each. Stanford was actually losing at that time. In fact, C and R can’t remember Stanford being down in the second half all season long, except for our one loss at UConn. All the stats about that game don’t apply. Stanford hadn’t played in a close game all season long. Stanford hadn’t lost by more than 8, the announcer said, all season long.

Time Out with Four Seconds Before the Game Ended:
After Xavier missed those two shots, Kayla Pedersen grabbed the rebound and called timeout. Kayla had been our stalwart all night. She scored 18 points, including the shot to tie it at 53, and grabbed 10 boards. None bigger than the one after TWO misses by Xavier that would have won the game. She was a huge presence on defense and made smart plays all game long. Kudos to JJ Hones for her help on defense against their big trees.

Four Seconds Before the Game Ended:
Kayla Pedersen inbounds the ball to Jeanette Pohlen. All other Stanford players stay in the backcourt so the Xavier defenders stay back there, too. No one is guarding the basket. The Xavier player on Jeanette is their small guard so there is a mismatch. Jeanette streaks up the sidelines and C and R are worried they can trap here there but the second Xavier defender plays off in case she passes. Jeannette keeps going for broke, C and R think she is going to pull up for a jumper and the Xavier player must have thought so too, so is not on her tightly. The Xavier defenders are starting to catch on she is not going to pass and are frantically trying to react to Pohlen now, but she is out in front of them. Jeannette keeps going all the way to the basket and is only one-on-one, her against the smaller guard, and scoops it with 0.1 seconds left. The ball kisses the glass and bounces around the rim before falling in to win the game with no time left! Stanford wins 55-53.

Are you kidding me?!

So in that time out, did head coach Tara VanDerveer draw up that incredible play or was it all Jeanette Pohlen’s idea? Inquiring minds want to know.

Fifteen Seconds After the Game Ended:
C and R tivo and re-tivo, to review the play. At first C was not sure Pohlen got it off in time, but upon further review, yes indeed she got it off. Incredible! That basket was her only one in the second half. She had one basket in the first half around the 16 and a half minute mark in the FIRST HALF! (C and R feel like screaming so we are typing all caps a lot! Sorry.)

Twenty Minutes Before the Game Ended:
(We know, the jerking around of time is making us a little nauseous, too. Bear with us.) Stanford just shot 25% in the first half, a season low. Stanford also made 24 points in the first half, which tied a season low (Stanford also had 24 against Utah and Fresno State). The reason? We think playing against two players 6’6 and 6’5 had a lot to do with it. They made us miss and even alter our shots, ala Britteny Griner (although they played better than Griner at 6’8-- the Baylor game was ugly to watch and Brittney is inconsistent.) They especially gave Nneka Ogwumike fits on her shot down low, although she would still finish with 16 points. Also, Xavier played a one-three-one half court defense against us, and C and R don’t remember that defense on us all year. It put their big, athletic center at the free throw line to stop things forward and back and really matched up well against our triangle offense.

Thirty-Seven Minutes Before the Game Ended:
ESPN finally tunes into the Stanford game with 3 minutes already gone because they had to stay with the other game and show Kim Mulky crying because her Baylor team knocked off Duke even though they played poorly and did not deserve to win that game. By the time we get to Stanford, the score is tied 4-4 and Nneka Ogwumike has all of Stanford’s points. Then she makes a free throw to have all 5 of Stanford’s points.

Seven and A Half Minutes Before the Game Ended:
Tara finally adjusts to the one-three-one half court defense and puts two trees down low instead of one, and Nneka and Kayla could work against their one player guarding the basket for a score. Tara is the best at making second half adjustments.

Six Minutes Before the Game Ended:
C refills the pretzel and salt and vinegar potato chip bowls. C and R in their anxiety have eaten every salty snack in the house.

Five minutes and 32 seconds Before the Game Ended:
Xavier center Ta’Shia Phillips fouls out. Good Call refs!

Five minutes Before the Game Ended:
How ‘bout that block by Ros Gold-Onwude?

Four Minutes Before the Game Ended:
Stanford center Jayne Appel fouls out. Bad Call ref! Well, at least the refs called the game consistently tight the whole 40 minutes. It was only Jayne’s second time fouling out all season. She would finish with eight points and for four excruciating minutes had to wonder if this was her last game in a Stanford uniform. And seriously, wasn’t that fifth call a bad call? She laid her hands on the other player’s back. Strange call.

One Minute and Ten Seconds Before the Game Ended:
Our Big Freshman, Joslyn Tinkle, makes the basket of her young life to tie it at 51. It would be the only points of the game for her. We shook the tinkle bells.

One Minute Before the Game Ended:
C pauses live TV to make a potty break. At first C and R were bummed they couldn’t be there live in Sacramento to see the game, but then they were able to show their own replays and dissect and discuss the game at great length by pausing and rewinding the game. Kinda cool. Plus both of us said a few swear words and the fans at Arco might not have liked to been around us, and maybe would have stuck their fingers in their ears and that of their children.

Four Seconds Before the Game Ended:
Jeannette Pohlen drives the length of the floor and lays the ball in to win the game… oh yeah, we already told you that. C and R’s adrenaline level is just now coming down. Stanford plays the winner of, oh we don’t know or care, we made it to the Final Four. See ya Easter Sunday!

More Stanford Final Four Madness at the original C and R's Stanford Women's Basketball Blog

Stanford’s Sweet Sixteen

Let’s recap C and R’s trip to Sacramento to see the Stanford Women’s Basketball team take on the Georgia Bulldogs at Arco Arena in the Sweet Sixteen.

Early Morning:
R calls C to tell her that her tire is flat. C asks how she got a flat tire. R says yesterday she ran over a curb. C and R have long debate about how that is even physically possible. R locates a tire store open on Saturday. C buys a can of “Fix A Flat,” an aerosol that magically pumps up the tire and has gummy stuff to stop any leaks and let’s you drive for an extra 2-4 miles. The tire store is exactly one mile from R’s house. C puts the aerosol into R’s tire and sees the leak. The gummy stuff seems to have stopped the leak but C is not convinced. She yells at R to start the car as time is of the essence. C and R argue about how best to go over speed bumps in a flat tire magically fixed by aerosol and mysterious gummy stuff. They survive the one-mile trip with out rolling the car or killing each other and in 40 minutes R has a new tire. After the stress of that, driving up the California Interstates to Sacramento going 70 miles an hour while trying to eat chicken pesto sandwiches with motorcycles cutting us off and semis trying to flatten us seem like a lark, except when C stepped in pesto.

Lunch Time:
C and R stop off at a family member’s house to help with various computer issues, rhymes with tissues, which is funny as C and R can barley turn theirs on. Always double your estimate when working on computers. C accidentally presses the wrong button and causes the computer used for work to lock up. R wisely decided go out to the patio and work on her tan. After much more stress, both computers in the house get fixed. C and R get the heck out of there before C touches something else and breaks it.

Mid Afternoon:
C and R drive to the appointed restaurant to meet a whole bunch of people. On the way, one group of friends texts and says they have already checked into the hotel and brought a blender and the ice machine was located before unpacking. They tell C and R margaritas have been made. C and R say they can’t stop and drink the free margaritas, as they are enroute to the Brew Pub to pay for beers. (Um, C and R hope they don’t get kicked out of any family-type blogs for the mention of adult beverages—and C and R hope they don’t get kicked out of any of the websites they report to, websites that wanted REAL coverage of women’s basketball, not this trivial recounting of C and R’s Saturday.)

C and R and friends and Cal fans try to order (Can C and R be friends with Cal fans? They say that with Cal out of the tournament they are rooting for Stanford, and they seem believable). The first waitress says she is too busy to take their order and has to go home. The second waitress says she is too sick to take their order and has to go home. The third times the charm, C and R think, as the third waitress actually writes down their order, however only half of the food show up. Cal fans tell waitress number three they will give her five bucks if she can make salad dressing appear in the next 60 seconds. C and R make plans with their group to drive to the nearest free parking lot next to Arco Arena to park there and save the $12 parking fee, all the more to spend on adult beverages. (Well, the quote was funnier at the restaurant; guess you had to be there.)

Going to the Game:
After much walking and notice of land marks and a trail of breadcrumbs so C and R and friends can find their car again, and a second trip back to the car for ID, we make it to Arco Arena with five minutes to spare. C and R notice a Stanford fan walking back to their car with their backpack. Didn’t they read our post about NO backpacks allowed in Arco Arena? The ushers are doing their job checking for tickets but are not so strict so that C and R can’t sneak into good seats. Our Cal friends have snuck in a sign that says “Hecka Nneka” and “Ogwumike is Okay!” C and R are impressed and the stock of the Cal friends immediately goes up. An usher says no signs are allowed in Arco Arena. C and R and Cal are crestfallen. C and R have their tinkle bells to fall back on.

Game Time:
The announcers makes the players introductions and a Georgia fan, sitting in front of C and R, sticks her fingers in her ears every time we cheer for a Stanford player. Oh, this is going to be fun, think C and R. We decide to cheer every great play by Stanford and see how many times we can make her stick her fingers in her ears. Our Cal friends are dismayed to see C and R’s sadistic side and start to move to seats far away from us.

Game Game Time:
C and R watch as Jayne Appel, so good around the basket for four years, uncharacteristically miss shot after shot. C and R think maybe they should stick their fingers in their ears. C and R watch as Stanford is down 4-8 at the 15-minute mark. C and R then watch Jayne feed Nneka Ogwumike instead. Cal fans hold up Nneka sign anyway. C and R see at the 10-minute mark we are now up 19-10. Stanford has done it with defense, shutting down Georgia on the perimeter, and inside. C and R watch JJ Hones make a three in the final seconds to put Stanford up 37-15 at the half.

Half Time:
A first in basketball history, C and R are too full to eat anything at half.

Second Half:
Jayne finds the basket again and has 17 points while the whole team of Georgia has only 19 points. Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer takes out Jayne at the 13-minute mark. C and R surmise it is not to embarrass Georgia by having Jayne out score them but our Cal friends wisely point out it is to save Jayne’s ankle for Monday. C and R and the rest of the team get a scare when Michelle Harrison goes down with an elbow to the nose. C and R hope it is not broken. Stanford wins easily, 73-36.

After the game:
C and R and friends find car, get to hotel room and blender and turn on Xavier and Gonzaga game in the background and start Texas hold ‘em game. Game disintegrates when card-peeking and chip-swiping happens, not that C and R are namin’ names but at least one of them was R. Okay, maybe C. C launches into long and boring story about growing up in Dayton, Ohio and how a tornado hit Xavier and we always refer to it as the place where the tornado hit. Xavier, that plucky town that survived the tornado, beats Gonzaga and will face Stanford in the Elite Eight on Monday. It’s not until an hour later that C realizes it was Xenia, Ohio, Xenia, not Xavier, where the tornado hit. Anyway, congrats to Xavier for the right to meet our three trees.

C and R get much needed sleep to have the strength to eat the free breakfast at the hotel and drive the dangerous interstates back to the Bay Area.

Junior Bloggers

Well now, to continue C and R’s vacation from blogging (SUCH hard work), we are opening up the spotlight on two junior bloggers, J and K (and their friends, L, M, N, O, P—sorry, just a little punchy, lack of sleep and all). No, these junior bloggers are, like, well, um, okay, like, see, dude, and, facebook and stuff.
No really, these two could be C and R incarnate with their stalking abilities, except they are waaaaay smarter and more articulate than C and R ever were, or shall be. And they make less typos. These two blogger/stalkers have lived in Palo Alto their while lives. Here, let them tell it… you could call us Palo Altans. We've both lived in Palo Alto our whole life, and we've both been playing ball as long as we can remember. But because we're from Palo Alto, which is home to Stanford grads, their families, and really high-achieving schools, we're both like Stanford academia-maniac JJ Hones and, as Nneka Ogwumike puts it, we both have to put the 'stud' in studious.

They come to every home game their schedule allows, provided they don’t have practice or homework or have to clean their rooms. As they like to say about each other, they are the two crazy fans on opposite sides of the stadium holding reversible posters and texting each other from across the stadium like all good teenagers ;)

See, they are always writing those texting symbols- we don’t even know what these symbols mean, and we can’t tilt our heads sideways or else some brain cells might fall out—C

So here is what J wrote about some recent “fan encounters”, with comments from K in Red and more comments from J in Blue, if C can program the text correctly. I think J gets extra credit at school for being a “published writer”. And we love that they fight/argue just like C and R! (At first C and R thought they should edit their account, but what the heck, no one edits us-so enjoy)

About those fan encounters: K and I were at the game on Senior Night and we were holding up posters. Mine said "Rosalyn #21" and K's said "Jeanette #23". Rosalyn was Pac-10 Player of the Week and they announced it during a time-out, so I dutifully held up my Ros poster. Much to my surprise, I got on camera! The JumboTron zoomed in on the poster :D After they'd finished, I pointed across the stadium towards K, and then K (and her poster) got on the JumboTron as well! Okay, okay, okay. Hold up. This whole first paragraph is about ROS. Hahaha. 'Cause she rocks. Hahaha. We need to be a little more diverse; maybe throw in a little Jeanette? Just sayin'. *Sigh* And then someone - maybe Ashley? or Hannah? Someone like that pretty much slapped Jeanette and pointed up to the JumboTron. She looked up and went BRIGHT red. It was very funny :) Before that, after the whole starting line-up thing, Ros was jogging back toward the bench and someone (Michelle or Ashley or someone) nudged her and said something. She looked up and grinned at me holding up the poster and beaming like I'd swallowed an LED or something! Then, with about 30 seconds left in the game, we went down to behind the players' bench and started screaming like crazy. When everyone jogged around with the victory balls, I was screaming "ROS! ROS! ROS! ROS!" and K was screaming for Jeanette. Ros was out of victory balls when she saw us, but she jogged over and high-fived me. Of course, that miracle shut both of us up for a minute... but only for a minute! We then commenced screaming for Jeanette so K could get a high five, but Jeanette didn't come over. She did, however, look at K, grin, and do the two-finger-guns salute. K was shaking, and then she started shaking me and yelling "She saw! She smiled! She saw! She smiled!" over and over and over... and over... and over.... LOL Jeanette TOTALLY did smile and wave (and blush I might add) and it was freaking AWESOME. Don't make fun of me :) Yeah, she looked pretty embarrassed. Good job, K! Embarrassing Stanford teammates like any good fan! Haha jk; I think you made her day ;)

We, overly emotional teenagers, nearly started crying during the Senior Tribute, and compromised by whispering "I'm gonna cry!" to each other when the seniors were talking and taking the pictures. After the big thing on court, we followed them down to Arrillaga Family Sports Center - Hahahaha remember when Jeanette walked in, me being me, I gasped really loud and everybody within a 5 foot radius turned around and looked - - Oh yeah, that was funny. And we were right near Kate Paye and Bobbie Kelsey and they looked at us and sorta fought back smiles - where the seniors talked for a while. They were telling really funny stories, so K and I kept whispering "That's a knee-slapper" and slapping each other's thighs and then howling with laughter [very quietly so we wouldn't be disruptive, ;) ;) ] And also during the speeches when Michelle went "and thanks to all my fans" she looked at us and smiled because she remembered us. :) Oh yeah, we had met her before after we won our championship game because one of our teammates goes to the same church as her. We love our perks, haha!

After, I dragged K to go get Ros' signature, and we waited as she talked to some people (I think she knew them... so we automatically demoted ourselves to last place in line). When she finally saw us (holding the posters) she smiled and said, "Thanks for the support, guys!" When I asked for her signature on the poster (and pulled out a classic red Sharpie), she grinned and said, "Of course! You know, I saw that poster right before the game. I looked up and smiled; did you see?" after she had signed it and we had pictures taken with her. I said "Yes!" and K muttered, "Of course she did. Why else would she have texted me the whole game???" Ros must have heard her, because she sort of smiled and was trying not to laugh when she was saved by some other people she knew. We actually kinda had a conversation with Ros. She asked our names and stuff. Jeanette not as much, but there's still hope. Yeah, she asked if we played, and we said yeah, and that we love her because she's proving that there can be fabulous players under 6 ft., haha :)

K and I wandered out of the Center, K annoyed she hadn't seen Jeanette and I mortified that K had said that to Rosalyn Gold-Onwude, whom K knows is my idol! J embarrassed me in front of Jeanette too....! K kept going, "You made me miss Jeanette! You made me miss Jeanette!" and I kept apologizing as we walked out. I then grabbed K's arm and said "Dude... we just walked past Jeanette!" K half-screamed "REALLY?!?!?!?" and ran back inside. Sure enough, she was there, and K stood - well, more 'bounced' really - in line and then asked Jeanette for her signature and a picture. She signed K's poster - I was too embarrassed to ask Jeanette to sign a Ros poster, and besides she's 6" and her height is intimidating - and we both got pictures with her. Okay, here's where I might have kinda-sorta-maybe gotten my revenge on K by embarrassing her... Jeanette: Where do you want me to sign it?? Me: Umm, yeah thats cool you can pick. Haha, anywhere? Jeanette: Oh, okay. Me: *bounces up and down* J: K's gonna take this home and hang it up on her wall forever. Okay, it was funny. Ros got a laugh at my expense and Jeanette got a laugh at your expense. We're even. Haha ;) When K and I finally did get out of the Sports Center, K screamed "SHE SIGNED MY POSTER!!!!" and commenced dancing wildly in front of tons of people. Oh yeah, and as I'm dancing Jayne runs out, looks at me weird, then runs to Maples. OH LORD. Hahahahahaha :) It was funny though! She dragged me along with her, so I danced, very embarrassed - I mean, what if Ros had run out or something??That would've been even more mortifying - and laughed at her ecstasy. It was definitely the highlight of our month.

Now, I know K's going to comment here, so I'll keep it short. The next day my parents and I went to a popular restaurant at about nine am because I figured 1) the players and their families would probably be there after Senior Night and 2) hopefully college students would be out and about by then. We sort of know the manager, so we asked him if he knew if any players were coming. He said yes, that Lindy, her mom, her dad, and her grandmother were coming for her grandmother's birthday, and asked if I was blind because Jeanette Pohlen was sitting right there. Trust me, if her face wasn't so defined, I would never have recognized her. I'm sure K would have - yes, I would've - but I nearly didn't!! I was too shy to ask for her autograph, since I had just seen her last night, so I just watched in awe as she walked past after she had finished breakfast with her parents on her way out of the restaurant. My parents and I sat down, and who should come (after I'd anxiously watched the door for ages!) but Lindy LaRocque.

After much anxiousness on my part I went and asked for her autograph, which she did graciously and talked for a minute or two. She's actually pretty witty! I stammered a "Thank you", told her that we loved her threes and her awesome slide-and-steal against Cal last year on Candice's birthday, and departed. I then forced my dad to switch places with me so I wouldn't be in Lindy's line of vision. (What? I was embarrassed!) When we were leaving, Lindy waved and said "I'll see you at the next game!" Apparently, I went a lovely shade of magenta, and I said, "Yeah, of course," and rushed out. I was starstruck. Hahaha!!! And then I get a text from K saying that I was awful for getting her autograph without her, which is hardly fair because I did ask K if she could come. Okay, that actually wasn't fair AT ALL that you got to meet Lindy. I had a semi-final basketball game. I'm sorry! Hahaha :) Yeah, you should be sorry. Haha jk, jk. But I was so shy! I'm never shy! If I had had a partner in crime it would have been so much easier ;) We are on the prowl for any more possible celebrity sightings, and are planning on invading the many nail salons in town sometime soon, because we always see Jayne and Jeanette with nail polish on. We are also planning to stalk that restaurant, and we'll be down behind the bench at the end of Saturday's game, hoping for a high five or a red victory ball!

~ J & K, junior bloggers

Round Two-Stanford vs. Iowa

KA-RAY-ZEE!

Just crazy. The game between the Stanford Women’s Basketball team and Iowa in the second round of the NCAA tournament was just plain crazy. Ros raining threes, back door plays to Jayne and Nneka, 40 points in the first ten minutes, 61 points by half …nazi usher trying to chase everyone away… it was just crazy!

So, C and R have noticed all year long Stanford has a habit of playing to the other teams…I don’t know, tempo, strength? When Oregon pushes the ball and scores quickly, we like the energy and push the ball and score even more quickly. Iowa was a three-point specialist team, hitting 10 threes to down Rutgers. So we nailed threes like there was no tomorrow, and for seniors Ros Gold-Onwude and Jayne Appel, there was no tomorrow, this being their last game on Maples court ever.

Ros opened the game hitting a three, then she made 2, 3, 4 and 5 in a row in the first 10 minutes. Gotta be some kinda record. Iowa started out making threes as well, but when we kept matching them they got deflated. It was 40-18 in ten minutes. Stanford made their first 9 three point attempts before JJ Hones missed with 3:21 left in the half. Speaking of end of the half, it was 61-34, Stanford.

Ros would go on to shoot 9 of 13, making 7 of 9 three pointers. She did set a personal record, scoring 26. C and R thought her previous high had been 21 points, but we read it had been 19. Nneka Ogwumike added 23 points, and 16 points from Jayne and we cruised to a 96-67 victory. We appreciate Tara VanDerveer left Ros in so long to get her points, finally taking her out with about 7 minutes in the second half. Our third tree,  Kayla Pedersen, "only" added 11 points and we still have not heard why she is wearing the sleeve on her shooting elbow.

We thought Ros would be high scorer of the game, but Kachine Alexander for Iowa looked impressive, slashing inside and scoring on lay ups, a few of them on the reverse. She would end up with 27 points, her career-high. Even though Iowa was down by as much as 38 points, we thought they would go to more threes, but they passed up some open looks. If they had Oregon’s philosophy of scoring within seven seconds, perhaps they could have dug themselves out a bit. C and R also noted they did not press us in any configuration. Haven’t they studied their game film? Perhaps they thought they were not quick or tall enough to press us, but they were plenty quick on offense.

The game was fun with all the Stanford scoring and over 5,000 in attendance, definitely not a sell out. So not every seat had been sold, and there were empty sections. When people moved out of the small general admission seats to the empty sections, right next door, not the ones way down below, one usher chased them out, even though no paying customers showed up for those seats the whole game. Really, Stanford? Also saw one man try to bring in his stainless steel water bottle and was asked to store it against the wall. He was mad. Must not have seen our post about the orphaned water bottles.

After the game we met with our friends (who snuck in behind the basket, their usher must have been asleep or at least kind) in a sports bar no less, and we saw women’s basketball on the big screen. Lo and behold, Gonzaga beat Texas A& M. Gonzaga! We lovzes ya! Texas was the only team that could have given us fits in this bracket. And we beat Gonzaga earlier this year by 30! What a great night of women’s basketball!
We caught the final minutes of the team that we will play in the Sacramento Regional semifinals. Georgia “upset” Oklahoma State. Although in C’s book, a number 5 seed beating a number 4 seed is not that much of an upset. Speaking of seeds, C’s women’s basketball bracket is all shot to heck, and guess who leads our mini bracket group? R. She is insufferable when she is right. Perhaps because it happens so infrequently!

So Stanford plays Georgia in Sacramento. C and R are up for the road trip!

Stanford Vs. Arizona in the PAC-10 Tourney

So the Stanford Women’s Basketball team takes the floor against Arizona for their first PAC-10 tournament game. No Jayne Appel, of course, still bum ankle, so Joslyn Tinkle starts. Then, we lose the jump ball. We NEVER lose the jump ball. So much so that C has a superstition if we lose the jump ball, we will lose the game. Not sure how scientific it is, but C is nervous.

For the first three minutes or so we offensively try to work it inside to Tinkle standing in Jayne Appel’s spot in the low post, but she is still a freshmen and is not able to drive aggressively to the basket as Jayne does so effortlessly. Tinkle does pass quickly and seems to be on par with Jayne’s court vision and ability to assist. Unfortunately, Stanford is cold, cold, cold and missing everything. Our top scorer, Nneka Ogwumike, is especially missing everything. Is she too tight?

At the first media time out, they announce they will show senior tributes to the seniors playing in their last games. Stanford goes first and of course they lead off with Jayne, who is not playing this game. She mentioned it was neat to travel to the PAC-10 schools and loved the history of playing on their courts. Then they show Ros Gold-Onwude. RGO was aware how as a student-athlete kids looked up to her and was always amazed little kids wanted her autograph. Well, that was C and R’s little girl’s basketball team most of this year!

Back to live action, Tinkle sets a nice screen to free Jeanette Pohlen for her second three and we go up 10-5. Now Michelle Harrison comes in for Tinkle and C and R like having the fifth year veteran in there. JJ Hones comes in at 11-minute mark, in what is still a low scoring game. Stanford is up 12-7. Lindy LaRoque gets into the game, too, and C and R are glad to see  Head Coach Tara Van Derveer using her bench to give rest to the veterans and experience to her second string. Lindy gets to experience fouling Arizona, too. Mel Murphy gets in as well and we almost didn’t recognize her, as she does not have her black tights.

Arizona’s Ify Ibekwe and Nneka are guarding each other, each being the other’s dopple ganger. Then it looks like our Nneka is going top take over the game like she did with Cal but it is their Nneka, Iky Ibekwe, who takes over.

Then our Nneka says, “Oh not you don’t” and tries to match her baskets. But Kayla Pedersen says, “Don’t forget about me, ladies,” and gets a hot hand. Those three will score most of the points in the first half.

At the half, Nneka has 15, and their Nneka has 15 points. Kayla has 6 and Jeanette Pohlen says, “Don’t discount the three”, going 4-6 from behind the line and she has 9. So with the score 34-24 at the half, oh, don’t make me do math… Those four players have combined for 45 of the 58 points scored.

When the second half starts, Nneka gets her second personal foul at the 16:45 mark but credit to Tara for leaving her in the game instead of yanking her out. She knows how important she is to us offensively. Nneka later drains 2 free throws and Nneka is 100% from the free throw line, 7-7 with just under 15 minutes left. The PAC-10 tournament record is 11 made, attempts are 13 and Nicole Powell has the free throw percentage record of 100% (8-8).

As we are contemplating records, Arizona gets a three and are within 3 with 13:27 left. The score is 43-40. What the heck happened? Must have been losing that jump ball in the beginning of the game.

OMG then Tara must be nervous because Jayne Appel comes in the game! We have been told all week long she would not play in this game, or practically any game in this tournament, yet one little scare and there she is. Tara needn’t have worried as we drain 2 three-pointers and are back to up by 9. Tara would say later in the post-game press conference that having Jayne relaxed us (and her). No doubt, Jayne is our emotional leader.

Their Nneka scores a basket around the 6 and a half minute mark and C and R realize it is her first points in the second half. Wow, great D on her, Stanford. She would end up with 18 for the game, after 15 in the first, with no one else from her team getting into double digits. Hard to win if you don’t have a supporting cast.

Our Nneka is fouled at the 5:02 mark. Oh goodie! With Stanford firmly in control of the score again (58-46), we can concentrate on her record, or attempt of being a perfect 8-8 from the line to tie Nicole Powell’s record. She is now 7-7. She was fouled as she made her basket, so she gets one attempt to tie. She lets go… She misses! Arrgh!

Jayne looks ragged, not jumping much for rebounds or a lay-up. She would get fouled several times going to the basket. She would score 7 points and comes out after 10 minutes when we have a 13-point lead. She did give us the confidence we needed, though.

Nneka makes two more free throws now that the record is no longer there. She would end up 9-10 on free throws. The tournament record is 11 made. Maybe next game. Nneka did end up with 25 points for the game, than Jeanette with 15 and Kayla with 11.

Our subs come in and we go on to win 72-52. But the game was closer than it needed to be. Tara said her the post game press conference that we need to play better if we want win in the PAC-10 Championship. She’s not one to sugarcoat things, is she?

Next up is a repeat with Cal. This time Jayne Appel will be in the mix!

More Stanford Goodies at the original C and R's Stanford Women's Basketball Blog

Stanford at Arizona, Second to last PAC-10 Game

Well, C and R are afraid this will not be a very good run down of the Stanford Women’s Basketball game against Arizona. It wasn’t on TV, of course, and Gametracker was down for every game, at least on our computer. We got KZSU live on the Internet, but it was hard for us to follow the action. But then luck of all luck, a fan who was there courtside sent us a first-person account of the game! Stick around for the end of this post to get an eye-witness view.

We did hear JJ Hones was a starter for Ros. We found out later that Ros Gold-Onwude was in the “black sweat suit of injury” because she took a blow to the head in the win over Arizona State two days ago. They wouldn’t’ come out and say it was a concession, but rather they were being cautious. Well, with all the uproar about t concussions in the news lately, we are glad they are being cautious.

And we did hear when Jayne Appel grabbed her fifth rebound of the game for a total of 1,215. When she did that around the 4-minute mark in the first half, she broke Lisa Leslie’s PAC-10 career rebounding record. Jayne would end up with 8 rebounds and 11 points it the game.

Arizona kept it close in the first and got within 3 in the closing minutes. Stanford had the ball last and Jayne got a lay-up in the closing seconds so we took a shaky 32-27 lead into the locker room.

Then C’s computer asked if I wanted to install updates. C absentmindedly clicked “yes”. Normally her computer installs updates in the background and she can keep working. This time the update was for stupid Windows Media Player, the device that was letting her listen to KZSU. Media Player shut down while it installed 11 updates. Several minutes later, the computer was still on one of 11 updates. (Apple computer fans, no need to write in).

Ten minutes later, C gets KZSU back online and the score is 48-37. Still relatively close. Then Kayla Pedersen hits a three. Then she hits another and now its 54-37 and it doesn’t sound so close anymore Kayla would finish with 26 points and 8 rebounds. Love hearing that Kayla is shooting and scoring, especially in front of friends and family as Kayla is from Arizona. Maybe we should fly them out to every game. Then all of a sudden it’s 64-38 us, with five minutes left and it seems we have really limited their scoring. With about two minutes left and the subs come in. The final score was Stanford 75-48

Next is our Johnny-on-the-spot reporter, who we shall call MA, with his eyewitness account. The remarks in parentheses are C and R’s.

>>>>>>
I'm back home from the game, a 75-48 win over Arizona, and ready to give my report. I'm going to try this bullet-point style, since my memory doesn't seem to operate well in linear fashion...

• I have to note first that player of the game goes to Kayla Pedersen. She was, as always, everywhere on the court, and with Nneka not too involved-more on that later, Kayla couldn't have been more clutch. She was hitting three-pointers, putting in a couple of key put backs, and just generally seemed to be where she needed to be throughout the game. I don't have the box score, but she accounted for at least a third of the team's points.
• Nneka Ogwumike didn't end up being a factor at all during the first half, primarily because of foul trouble. The trouble all started with a phantom foul call within the first minute or so of the game. One of the Arizona players was coming up the court with the basketball and tripped over her own legs on her way to half-court. Nneka happened to be in the neighborhood, and even though the replay confirmed that Nneka didn't even come close to the other player, she got called for a tripping foul. Tara yanked her right away and put Joslyn Tinkle in -and our bells got to tinkling!. When Nneka went back in somewhere around the 12-minute mark, she got called for another foul pretty quickly -this one legitimate after Nneka didn't get position on a rebound- and came right back out.
• The upside of Nneka's absence was a good deal of playing time for Joslyn during the first half -not so much during the second, when Nneka stayed in the game for most of the half. We started our bells ringing, and even had an extra set to pass to the Stanford-clad family sitting next to us. They asked whether we had started the whole bells tradition, and we of course deferred credit to the C and R blog. As it turned out, the nice folks sitting next to us were none other than the Tinkle family! Joslyn's grandmother apparently lives nearby, and her mom was there for the game, too. Mama Tinkle reads your blog, you will be happy to know, and loves the whole tinkle bell concept (Yes, C and R did know and a big shout out to Mrs. Tinkle and Family! And Grandma Tinkle, too! We gave a genuine Tinkle bell to Mr. Tinkle when he was at Stanford). I, of course, turned into a gushing fan upon learning who the family was and went on and on about how great we think Joslyn will be for our team. (Oh, aren’t we all just gushing fans?!) Joslyn, for her part, had a quiet but solid performance, getting just a few points but really playing good, active defense.
• I can't believe I've gone this long without mentioning Jayne, who got her Pac-10-record-setting 1215th rebound during the first half. They played on for a little bit, and during the final media timeout of the first half, the stadium announcer recognized Appel for having broken Lisa Leslie's old record. That's a heck of an accomplishment, and she's not done yet. Any idea what the NCAA record is? (Career NCAA Div 1 record 2,034—Courtney Paris, Oklahoma) Appel wasn't scoring a lot of points today as she got fronted and doubled all game long, but she was still a big presence, getting attention on the offensive end and doing her usual shot-blocking and rebound-gobbling on the defensive end. And I only saw her get beat down the court once during the game, just over halfway through the first half, at which point I told my wife that Jayne was looking a little tired, and Tara apparently overheard me because she promptly subbed Jayne out for a breather.
• My wife, E, pointed out an amusing thing during the game. One of Arizona's players, who was on Appel most of the game, would frequently supplement her defense by yelling/stuttering "B-b-b-b-b-b!" I couldn't tell whether she was trying to communicate to her teammates-if she was, complete words might have been better or just trying to distract the ball-handler. It was certainly amusing to listen to. (She was probably trying to say “ball”, and then yell “dead” if the player stopped dribbling, a common tactic to unnerve a player, but we are sure wouldn’t bother Jayne)
• It should be noted that Ros was in pants and a t-shirt for the game today. She got knocked in the head pretty hard while scrambling for a ball Thursday at ASU, and was taken out of the game in what appeared to be a very appropriate precautionary move (we agree!). The Tinkle family told us that Ros suffered a concussion from the incident-not sure of their source, but it was a reasonable inference, so she must have been kept out of today's game to make sure that she recovers. I hope that she's feeling okay and that she's able to come back, but her health is top priority, and I'm glad to see that the team is protecting her. We'll be glad to have her back when she's ready.
• My last note is a question: what happened to Lindy LaRocque? I haven't noticed her getting much playing time this season, but she did see a fair amount of court time in today's game, probably because of Ros's absence. Lindy used to have more of a swagger, and would shoot the ball anytime she had a little bit of space -and sometimes when she didn't. I don't think she shot the ball once in today's game, even though she had some open looks. Maybe the coaches told her to cut back on her fire-away approach and she took it too much to heart? I, for one, loved her fearlessness, and it just wasn't there today--I hope that's a fluke and not a trend.

OK, I think that about covers what stands out to me. As for the Arizona fans, they weren't a problem because they mostly weren't there. Attendance was barely over 2,000, and there were a sizeable number of Stanford fans accounting for a chunk of that total. Arizona, for their part, didn't get a whole lot done to energize their fans. They did hang around for much of the first half, but this was yet another game in the apparent pattern of Stanford starting slow and allowing teams to stay close until the second half march towards a big win. Ibekwe, their best player-I think you all called her Arizona's version of Nneka- (yes, also baby Nneka and Nneka’s twin) was pretty quiet throughout the first, and didn't start making good-looking plays until it was already too late for them to mean much to the outcome (although we did hear Ibekwe wrapped her arms around Jayne at one point and Jayne got called for the foul). But E and I had a lot of fun. And I hope that you will give a big shout-out on our behalf to the Tinkle family, who were kind enough to lend us their Joslyn's talent for a few more years to come.

Cheers,
MA

More Stanford Goodies at the original C and R's Stanford Women's Basketball Blog

Stanford Seniors

Sorry for posting this story so late but C and R finally stopped crying. It was senior night and Jayne Appel’s last game at Maples in the regular season. (There’s a chance she and Stanford could play the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament at Maples).

Four other seniors were also honored, although three of them could come back. Strange, I know. The true seniors are Jayne and Ros Gold-Onwude. The other “seniors”, JJ Hones, Michelle Harrison and Melanie Murphy, each have a year of eligibility left, although only JJ hinted she would be back.

Stanford Head Coach Tara VanDerveer finally figured out after Jayne’s freshmen year that the seniors get too emotional to do the tribute before the game and don’t play as well, so they have wisely moved the senior tribute to after the game on the Maples floor. Then the real fun begins as a smaller party moves a building over to sit down with the families and listen to them tell funny and embarrassing stories about the seniors. Last night most of the stories involved golf carts and Jayne’s flip-flops.

But first there was a game to be played against Oregon State. So, remember how C and R said when the Stanford Women’s Basketball team played Oregon and Oregon pushed the ball up court and played a quick game, we enjoyed it and responded with a lot of energy and baskets? ‘Member? Well, Oregon State came out slower and more plodding and we did too, missing Oregon’s energy. We took an 11-1 lead with five minutes gone in the game and with 10 minutes gone it was 21-7 Stanford. We know, we know, we are spoiled and we should be happy for the lead, but it just seemed so…routine. Every time we spotted Jayne one-on-one, we gave it to her and she scored. Nneka Ogwumike couldn’t be stopped or even held to the ground, except when she was all alone on a fast break, and we mean ALL alone, no one from Oregon State even in the front court with her and she did a stutter step without dribbling to get the traveling call. Who was she trying to fake out? The cheerleaders?

Jayne ONLY scored 12 and got 10 rebounds, a double-double, but around the 8 minute mark she got her 2,000th point. That, coupled with her over 1,000 rebounds puts her as only the third Stanford women’s basketball player to get to the 2,000-1,000 club. The other two are Val Whiting and Nicole Powell. What’s more astounding to C and R is the fact she is 13 rebounds shy of Lisa Leslie’s PAC-10 career record. Jayne has 3 road games left, so we are confident she can do it. Wow, to pass Lisa Leslie is fantastic!

Oh, the win in the game (you didn’t doubt the outcome, did you? Final score 82-48, Stanford) gave us a tie for the PAC-10 regular season title, and a win in any of our next three road games will clinch it outright. But as we said, our opponent was lacking in energy and made us feel slow, too. In the first half Oregon State could only muster 26% shooting percentage for 21 points. Contrast that with 70% shooting percentage for Stanford and 46 first half points and you can see why we won.

It was interesting when they did the senior tribute on the big video screen. They showed still pictures and video of the women in action. The song playing in the background had the lyrics “Here comes the rest of our lives”. Basketball has been a big part of these players’ lives for so long. Will they be able to walk away from it? Jayne Appel has a good chance to be drafted by the WNBA. We wonder if she really wants to go? She has mentioned she would love to go to law school and give back to the community by being an advocate for the mentally and physically challenged. Maybe she should get on with “the rest of her life” and go to law school. Then again, a few years in the WNBA might enable her to build up tuition for law school. With her eligibility used up, she can’t keep attending Stanford for free, ya know. Still, it’s nice to know she has options.

We’ll get to see Stanford again at Cal’s senior night in two weeks!

Impressions against Oregon

C and R are impressed, and that is not an easy thing to do. We are impressed with the Oregon Ducks Women’s basketball team, the game they played on Saturday and the turn around in one short season, really just in six short months.

First year Oregon coach Paul Westhead installed a philosophy of shooting the ball within the first 7 seconds on the shot clock. And that they will live and die by the three (more on that later). Simple philosophy yes, but for it to work, you have to have the right personnel to do this, mainly all your players must be shooters, and accurate ones at that, not an easy feat in women’s college basketball. And oh, if you play Stanford, press the heck out of them (more on THAT later, too)

C and R were also impressed with the way Stanford shot their threes. Some of them were three or four feet beyond the arc. And every time we scored a basket, we were impressed with how well Oregon quickly brought the ball up and scored as well. We kept trading the lead in the first half, and we could not relax for a second with their relentless scoring drive and their defense.

We were impressed the game was on cable TV, and also thankful. We watched the first half and then had to tape the second so we could coach our little girl’s game, which was a nail biter as well, with us winning by one basket and our center doing her best Jayne Appel impersonation. To leave in the middle of the Stanford game, a nail biter, witness another nail biter and come back to watch the second half of the Stanford game was almost too much for C and R to take. We thought one or both of us might have a heart attack before the day is through, and C hoped it would be R because she knows CPR and R does not and her insurance is not the best!

Oh, BTW (texting lingo), did you see that last play of the first half? As C and R are preparing to leave, we see Stanford has the ball in the final seconds. Who will they go to for the last shot? Who is their “go-to” player, and since getting the ball inside is not working, who is going to take the three? Will it be one of our guards, Ros Gold-Onwude or Jeanette Pohlen, even gimpy JJ Hones, or maybe three-point specialist Lindy La Roque. Why, it’s Joslyn Tinkle, our big 6-4 freshmen who has taken, I think, three in her short career. Yes, Tinkle shoots the three and it goes in. A good omen for Stanford and tinkle bells all around.

We were NOT impressed, however, with Stanford’s ability to handle a full court press. We turned the ball over so many times in the frontcourt! There were times we couldn’t get it out of the front court, and times we couldn’t even inbound it! How did we turn it over? Let us count the ways. We threw it inbounds and had it stolen. As we dribbled, we had it stolen. We inbounded the ball, then threw a pass and had it stolen. We threw it out of bounds. And C and R’s personal favorite, we got a five second count because we couldn’t find anyone open to throw it to! The announcers said Stanford worked for a week on full court pressure and how to handle it all week. Oregon forced 10 turnovers in the front court, seven in the first half. Think what would have happened if we HADN’T worked on it!

But C and R were MOST impressed by Stanford’s Nneka Ogwumike! She scored a career high 30 points. She was everywhere on the boards. She got 23 boards and set Stanford’s single-game rebounding record, which was 21 by Nicole Powell, ex Sacramento Monarch. Nneka also scored 30 points. And her boards and points were very impressive. She skied, she caught and shot in traffic she had fast breaks, and she played strong under the basket.

OMG (more texting lingo), her best play of the day? Her catch and shoot on the two-second inbounds play. And thank goodness the play was on TV, because in the final highlights they showed not one, but two different camera angles on that spectacular play. Stanford had the ball out of bounds under their basket with two seconds left. Followers of Cal will remember that the rules state it must be a catch and release without landing, a stupid rule that makes sense in the men’s game but hard to do in the women’s game (Cal had a similar play but with 1 second left in the whole game, and they caught, landed then shot and made the basket in the final second of an NCAA playoff game, only to have it disqualified and they lost the game). Back to live action, C immediately yells “Give it to Nneka.” Now if C knows this is coming, shouldn’t Oregon put a body on Nneka? No, they are business as usual in a zone. JJ Hones lobs the ball to the middle of the key where Nneka jumps, catches and shoots straight in the basket. It was amazing! Not many women’s basketball players can do that. Oregon, how did you not see that coming!

It was funny, watching the game, it seemed like Oregon was just bombing threes like crazy. Two of them were step back threes! But the stats say Oregon only made 9-28. Stanford, in contrast, made 13-35, the most attempts we have ever tried! So Oregon, live by the three and die by the three, as Stanford out shot you at your own game.

When C and R finally got back to watching the second half, we couldn’t relax until the last nine minutes, in a game that seemed to go on forever! We finally got a ten point lead with our crazy threes and Nneka’s rebounding and Jayne Appel. Jayne had a good second half and scored 17 points for the game. We finally broke 100 and the subs got to come in with under a minute left. The final score was 100-80. It felt like we outlasted them rather than out-played them.

R got the best line of the night when she said, “I would like to see Oregon play UConn!”

Notes from Corvallis

It is so frustrating either listening to the Stanford games on the radio, or trying to follow the action on the internet with stats and or game pieces running around. It is hard to get a real flavor for the game. This lackluster game against Oregon State was no exception.

Here to help us out is C and R’s home away from home correspondent, TG, who was there at the game in Corvallis last night and here are his observations, with C and R’s in parentheses.

- Our kids look a lot bigger in person than on TV. (We know, don't our players seem tall when you stand next to them or see them up close and personal or stalk them?)

- Sarah Boothe looked lonely in black passing the ball in warmp-ups. 14 players suiting up is probably a record for the year. (We asked Sarah if she has officially red-shirted this year and she said it’s not official yet, but since she has not suited up for a game this season, it’s a foregone conclusion. We wish her a speedy recovery and hope she is in the line up for next year. We noticed how hard she worked in the off-season this year to lose weight and get in “basketball shape”. We know she is dedicated.)

- Jeanette and JJ are definitely a step slow with their respective injuries. Good to see them in action, though. (okay, we need them to heal, and heal NOW!)

- We score on the first six possessions, looks like the start of a rout, then no field goals for the next 10 minutes. (Yes, this inconsistency is driving us crazy. Our top two guards being hurt haven’t helped, but we should not be this schizophrenic! Nneka is the only consistent one, and then coach Tara VanDerveer took her out for most of the first half!)

- Really needed a tinkle bell for tonight. Joslyn was all over the court - blocking shots, crashing the offensive glass, even draining a three. Easily her best game of the year - she is really starting to mature. (Six blocks, nine points, and it sounds like you had to be there to really appreciate her performance)

- Talisa Rhea is the best pure shooter in the Pac-10. Also does a great job of creating off the dribble. Ros was in her face for most of the game and she still scored something like 26. OSU a bit one-dimensional, though. (We did hear Talisa Rhea's name a lot and she shot the lights out. We didn't know that Ros Gold-Onwude was in her face and contesting her, making her performance all the more spectacular. Interesting to hear you say OSU is one-dimensional. That can separate okay teams from great teams by having a consistent supporting cast, and Stanford used to have that in the first half of the year. I am begin to think that little "mini-NCAA" tournament, with games at Duke, Tenn. and UConn wore us out. It was our focus, and we did it well, and now we have let up emotionally and psychically.)

- Free-throw shooting down the stretch was sensational - I think 12 in a row from Kayla, Jayne and Nekka. Kayla hit both ends of three straight 1-and-1's. (Right, this ain’t high school! And every point counts!)

- Crowd was disappointing for a good Pac-10 team playing the #2 team in the country. Had to be less than 1,000. They\'re offering a "fill the seats" day for Cal on Saturday - general admission for $1. 2,000, maybe? (yes, disappointing turn-out. OSU, did you promote this game?)

- Overall, a good game to watch though definitely not our best. Will see the Cardinal again in Eugene on Saturday. (Yes, what a game that will be. At least we get to see it on TV. Send us your personal observations, TG!)

Stanford vs. Oregon State

C and R open up their computers to get to that stupid Gametracker going when we suddenly remember KZSU streams their radio feed of the game live on the Internet. We tune that in and like the interplay of the two announcers.

They warn Stanford not to look ahead to Saturday’s game against high-flyin’ and high-scorin’ Oregon. Good advice. They tell us Jeanette Pohlen is in hose and good to go. Must be the black tights we saw Melanie Murphy wearing to keep her legs warm and avoid injury. Pohlen is listed as day to day with her ankle sprain. Lindy LaRocque will start in her place, her second start of the year. The last thing we learn is that Stanford is wearing their black road uniforms C and R love so much.

Nneka wins the jump and then does everything else for the next 8 minutes or so, scoring 6 points until she picks up first foul. Head Coach Tara VanDerveer pulls her and C and R groan. She’s our go-to offensive player, our steady hand. The announcers say Ros Gold-Onwude is playing aggressively on offense, driving in and not backing down, but she is not consistent enough in her shooting to make up for Nneka being gone.

Pohlen comes into the game and later, JJ Hones, so it is good to see our injured point guards are able to play. Joslyn Tinkle comes in and we shake our imaginary tinkle bells. The announcers tell us that Tinkle, a former two-time Montana Gatorade Player of the Year, is guarding another former Montana Gatorade player of the year, Oregon State’s Kirsten Tilleman. Wonder if they ever played against each other? I mean, Montana’s a big state…hee hee, just a little dig to Joslyn and our head coach of our little girls team!

With all this subbing and Nneka on the bench, Stanford stays stuck on 13 points. Oregon shoots a rainbow three and by the crowd’s reaction, we know before the announcers tell us that Oregon is up now 13-14 with about 8:45 left in the game.

Then Stanford hits their own three, shot by bench player Michelle Harrison of all people, to put us up 16-14. The teams trade points until they are tied at 19 and the announcers say not the kind of play you expect from the number two team in the country. Ouch, that hurts. Then one announcer says how can a team like Oregon state that doesn’t have a player over 6’1 contain Stanford’s tall trees? He backs it up with stats, saying Oregon State has 17 rebounds to Stanford’s 8 with 3:38 left. And Oregon State’s Talisa Rhea has 17 points!

Stanford gets the last shot, and Kayla makes it plus the foul. She is a good enough shooter to make the bonus shot and Stanford takes a 29-27 lead (barely) into the locker room. Ohhh, wonder what Tara is going to say?

One bright spot is that our Miss Montana Joslyn Tinkle has four blocks.

The half starts with Jayne Appel scoring over their Miss Montana, and then not wanting to be out shown by our Miss Montana, makes a block of her own on the other end. Jayne follows that with another score over Montana Tilleman. The third time is not the charm, as Jayne tries to go over her again, and instead gets called for the offensive charge. Jayne was not happy getting bested by Montana.

So Stanford puts in Montana Tinkle, their Montana misses and our Montana scores over their Montana. Then our Montana blocks her fifth shot of the game. Our Montana misses but Nneka puts it back in and then on a fast break, our Montana hits a three! The score is 40-32 with about 15 minutes to go, to give Stanford their largest lead of the second half. Is anyone else on the floor? The announcers seem to be calling nothin’ but Joslyn’s name.

During a time out, the announcers struggle for something to say so they concentrate on the game of music chairs being played on the court. They mention it is funny, but no one is there to see it, estimating there is only about 750 fans. Only 750 people came out to see the number two team in the country? I blame marketing. When Stanford came to Gonzaga this year, the school advertised this was the highest seed to come to their gym and they filled the place. Did Oregon State publicize this match-up? Oregon State took the lead, imagine if they had a bigger home crowd to cheer them on and help them gain momentum?

Tinkle is fouled and she makes both. Good, then C and R do not have to remind the rookie that “this ain’t high school” and every point counts. The score is 42-34 with 12:39 left in the game. Joslyn has 9 points so far, which is good as Jayne Appel is in foul trouble and on the bench.

JJ comes in and when she inbounds the ball, she throws it right to Oregon State. JJ fouls, and then fouls again as they are shooting and she is just not in the rhythm of the game. VanDerveer pulls her.

Rhea makes herself know again, already having 24 points and stealing from Tinkle as she is shooting. How do you steal the ball when someone is shooting? The score is 42-39 and our lead is only three. Tinkle comes out and Jayne come in. Jayne gets the next rebound and is fouled. Come on, Jayne, we need you to take up the slack.

We get four-for-four free throw shooting from Kayla and Jayne. Then they call Jayne for a charge and that is her fourth foul. She goes out but Tinkle comes in for her so let’s hope there is not a drop off. Nneka makes both of her free throws and we are up 54-45 with about five minutes left.

Stanford solves their rebounding problem and is in control for the last five minutes. The subs come in with 40 seconds left. KSZU gets pulled off the air but we see Stanford wins 63-47. Yes, we also turned on GameTracker to get the stats. Funny, Kayla Pederson is listed as having 23 points. When did she score? We were so obsesses with Tinkle we must have missed her points. Tinkle did end up with 6 blocks, which we are sure is a career high and matches Jayne Appel’s career high for blocks.

KZSU comes back online and announce they are going to talk to Tinkle. They also say the official stats only credited Tinkle with 2 blocks, and we are not sure if they mean for the second half. GameTracker had her at 6.

A win is a win, no matter how ugly, but we have to do better against Oregon on Saturday. Hey, the powers that be is actually broadcasting the game on TV at 11AM. Look for it on your local cable channels. Should be an interesting game!

Stanford vs. Washington

Forgive C and R for not writing sooner, but we had SUCH a busy day yesterday. First, our little girl’s team had a game at 1 PM, then we rushed to Maples Pavilion for the Stanford vs. Washington Huskies game at 2 PM, then had to get to our friend’s house to watch Peyton Manning destroy the Ravens for a playoff party. And a special shout out to our All Star MVP Rock Band teammates. (Get it? we used your initials to spell out MVP!)

First, our little girls had their second game in 24 hours, a strange scheduling quirk, and they were tired. We had the lead with 2 minutes left and at this age, we do not have a shot clock, so we told our two girls to stall and they executed perfectly. Then we jumped in the car, as our game ended at 2 PM, and Nneka Ogwumike was just winning the jump ball at the same time and we were still half an hour away!

We were able to get KZSU on the car radio and we hear Lindy LaRoque got her first start this year and of her career. We are excited for her, but we also know without the announcer later confirming that Jeanette Pohlen is not able to play on her sprained ankle. We later find out that is the first game Pohlen has missed in her career, having played in 92 straight games, including 53 consecutive starts. JJ Hones is also not able to play in this game. Due to Stanford Head Coach Tara VanDerveer’s propensity to use the same 6-8 players in most game, we have some configurations in the game that are not used to playing together, and it will show later.

We hear Kayla Pederson make 2 three-pointers in quick succession and we are glad her shot is “fixed” Her last two games have been marred by low shooting percentages. We hear the announcer call Joslyn Tinkle’s name, doing a spin move no less, and we shake our tinkle bells, which we are lucky to have remembered to bring, what with all on our plates today, including remembering to bring bubble gum to bribe/reward our little girls when they make their free throws or a great play.

Still driving up Interstate 280, we hear on the radio that our Jayne, Stanford center Jayne Appel, gets blocked. C and R look at each other and C reminds R to keep her eyes on the road. It is not every day 6 foot 4 inch Jayne Appel gets blocked. Then the announcer says someone from Washington team gives Jayne a vicious elbow and the crowd is booing lustily, and oh, what C and R wouldn’t give to be there booing right along with them.

By the time we get to our seats (Stanford, you really need to do something about your parking situation), there is only a few minutes left in the first half. Just in time to see Tinkle hit a three! And the T-shirt woman is actually on our side of the court today and we get to watch her throw T-shirts to everyone in our section but us.

We also see Washington’s Regina Rogers, the one who has drawn the defensive job of guarding Jayne Appel and the one who threw an elbow at Jayne as well. She is 6-3, and a big girl. Normally C and R don’t like to mention weight of any player, but in this case, Rogers is clearly out of shape, carrying a lot of extra weight, looking winded, and not able to give Washington many minutes. She also has a hard time moving quickly and bangs around inside, whether by design or not being able to move quickly, and is very physical against the Cardinal. The crowd voices their displeasure often. C noticed when she shot; she shot the ball with two hands on either side of the ball, much like our little girls do because they are not strong enough to shot one handed. But to see a women’s division one college basketball player not be able to shoot a fundamentally sound shot was disconcerting to say the least.

The half ends 35-21, but at the beginning of the second half, Washington scores 7 points to our zero, and it is 35-28 near the 17-minute mark. Not again, Stanford, why are we not able to put teams away in the second half? For this game, though, Stanford has a built in excuse. As we mentioned earlier, players were not used to playing with each other and it showed. We made several unforced turnovers, with players simply throwing the ball where they thought the other player was going to be. They weren’t there.

Jayne Appel got her third foul around the 18 minute mark in the second half and went to the bench, and her fourth with 4 minutes left. Jayne being in foul trouble also hurt us - when Jayne is on the bench she can’t score or rebound. Yet when Tara allowed her to stay in with the fourth foul, it still hurt us. Around the time she got her fourth foul, Washington started a full court press on defense. Stanford had a hard time getting the ball in, or if they did, they had a hard time getting it up court. Then Stanford curiously went to a man-to-man defense and Washington spread their offense, drove down the middle right at Jayne Appel, who was all alone. She could not risk another foul so she just had to watch them pull up for an easy jumper or even a lay up. That was distressing to watch, and I am sure all the teams Stanford has left to play will be breaking down this film.

We hang on to win 66-51, and Tara will say later that her team was “lackluster” and did not push the ball up in transitions. Well, that’s because your best player who runs your transition was sitting glumly at the end of your bench. Not having Pohlen available has left Stanford feeling a bit rudderless. Not good with high scoring Oregon coming up.

On a happier note, the whole Stanford basketball team is coming out for autographs after the game. We get a place in the long line with our little girl’s team. As we are waiting (and waiting) Coach N’s daughter who met Mr. Tinkle on Thursday, asks if she can go back and say hi to him. All the other girls decide they want to say hi to Joslyn Tinkle’s dad, too. We find him surrounded by well wishers and he sees our girls. He breaks off with the adults to say hi to the girls. Really, he couldn’t have been more gracious to the girls and was very good with them, giving them lots of attention. They tell him all about their win today and how they stalled in the last 2 minutes. He told them to stay in school and that school is the most important thing, a great message. C, who also wanted to say hi to Joslyn Tinkle’s dad, too, tells him these are Silicon Valley girls and these girls excel at school. In fact, we almost had to cancel practice one time this year because half the team chose to skip practice to study for an important test the next day. Wayne Tinkle says we’ll have to come back and meet his wife and Joslyn’s mom when she comes to Stanford, and I am sure that is the mighty Montana hospitality talking!

We get back in line and finally get to the table for autographs. Oh, we could bore you with all the details of what the players said, but I am sure you don’t want to hear all that! Hee hee. No, it was really great. The players also couldn’t have been more gracious to all. Our girls were prepped by R to ask questions so they had a great interaction with the players and for a few minutes, anyway, our girls thought about coming to Stanford to play basketball so that other little girls like them could look up to them with stars in their eyes. It was a sweet moment, and we feel lucky that Stanford has made their team so accessible and gracious to their fans. Oh, and, Coach N had Joslyn sign her strip of tinkle bells!

Stanford vs. Washington State

Well, the Washington State game went pretty much as expected and C and R could write a boring post about how we dominated, which I am sure we will do anyway, but don’t stop reading until the end because the most exciting thing happened after the game.

C and R got to meet Mr. Tinkle.

Really! No lie! And yes, he is an actual person who does exist. And so nice! Okay, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Slog though the details and then stick around to the end.

When C and R get inside Maples Pavilion for the Stanford Women’s Basketball Team vs. Washington State, the first thing C notices is Hannah Donaghe is out of the “black sweat suit of injury” and suited up for the game. Yay! She has been out with a torn ACL for almost a year now. And there’s Mel in tights. Guard Melanie Murphy, who has been fighting off a knee injury, is in black tights, probably to keep her muscles warm. We know all about that from the time R had torn her calf muscle playing basketball and she had to wear similar gear to keep her muscles warm and avoid reinjury. But oh no, other guard JJ Hones is wearing the black sweats. Her knee is giving her trouble again. Not good.

Nneka Ogwumike wins the jump and we are off to the races. It starts out being a Nneka highlight show. She is everywhere, scoring at will. A pull up 15-foot jumper, because no one expects it, driving in and leaping practically to the rim over smaller players. Center Jayne Appel, playing at the high post to give Nneka room to create these incredible drives passes up a chance to score and feeds it to Nneka coming closer to the basket for a rebound. The next two times Nneka tries to return the favor to Jayne by passing up shots to pass it back to her, but she is forcing it and both times it leads to turnovers. R loves the unselfishness of Nneka’s play, not caring to just pad her stats against a smaller team.

Then we see Nneka holding her right elbow and grimacing in pain. She keeps her elbow limp at her side for two offensive series. We want to rush onto the court and call timeout, as protective of her as we are the little girls we coach. She finally does get subbed out and her elbow taped, comes in, then has to go out again to put a protective sleeve on it. Will this be a problem? For Nneka, no. She goes back to being a one-woman highlight show, jumping so high for rebounds and shooting at the top of her leap and making just about everything. And this one steal where she jumped through the air, breathtaking.

Joslyn Tinkle comes in around the 15-minute mark and C and R defiantly shake their tinkle bells. Well, it is hard to look defiant shaking cute little tinkle bells, but we reported in our last post that a fan wrote in saying noise makers are banned from basketball games and now C’s grand experiment is to see how long it will be before she is kicked out of a game for a tinkle bell. No one really seems to notice or care and C is disappointed.

Okay, you know when you go to the Opera or the Symphony or a play…what, why yes, C and R are cultured, we don’t just eat, sleep and play basketball… well okay, we do the eating and sleeping part... a lot… wait, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, so if you come late to the Opera, Symphony or a play, they won’t seat you until there is a break in the action, like the fifth movement, the second act, or the fat lady sings, and C and R would love it if those rules applied to basketball. People always come to the game late, always next to our section and stand for five minutes with tickets in hand asking, “Is that our seat, is that our seat?” blocking our view of the action on the floor. Then C and R look like that classic bobbing bird toy leaning forward and back to try and keep up with the action.

It happens once again to us, and then a few minutes later, two more latecomers stand right in front of our row! C rolls her eyes and R says isn’t that our friend, the one you play basketball with on Wednesdays? Yes, it is our friend, we will call her N, so we now feel compelled to shout, “Down in front,” and “You are not allowed to sit here, you bum!”

Yes kids, being friends gives you license to be cruel. N looks up and smiles at the cruelty and says, “What are the odds of us seeing you guys here? And sitting in the same row?” N and her friend A are sitting in the same row as we are, but four seats away. In between us is another long-term season ticket holder, here without her family this time, and we are rude all night shouting down the row at each other. Apologies to her!

C asks N if she brought any tinkle bells with her and N answers no, C reaches into her bag of extras and passes down two. C tells her to ring them whenever Tinkle touches the ball. Tinkle is, in fact, in the game at this moment and dives on the ground for a loose ball. She lands hard, but C and R love her hustle. C shouts down to N to shake her tinkle bell for that play. N shouts back, “Which one is Tinkle?”

C apologizes again to our fellow ticket holder that N is really not much of a basketball fan and we don’t know why she bothers coming to the games… N would punch C if she were closer, but if we can’t tease our friends, who can we tease? N pantomimes drinking and mouths, “Wanna go out after the game?”

It is a school night for C and R, but we mouth back okay because N is about the funniest person we know and could probably write this blog ten times better! We shout different locations back and forth at each other, not hearing a word either of us says and then guard Melanie Murphy comes in and is driving to the hoop! We love to see such aggressive guard play and hope she can stay uninjured in her tights.

Half time is 42-19 and the Stanford band shout “2X plus 4, where X is your score!” If C had known there was going to be algebra problem-solving she would have brought a calculator, the one her son “forgot” to bring to Algebra II all last year.

The second half opens with Washington State scoring the first 6 points and us going scoreless for the first three minutes. Oh no, we hope this is not a repeat of the last two games where we are up by a lot at half and let them back in the second half. Not to worry. Nneka keeps scoring and Jayne keeps blocking. Jayne would end up with 6 blocks, matching her career high.

Then, at about the 17 and a half-minute mark, a pile of players goes down, with Jeanette Pohlen at the bottom. She is down for a long time and C thinks it might be a concussion. She sits up and it is clear she is in pain. When she does stand up, she puts no weight on her ankle. Oh no, she sprained the same ankle against Cal as well, and we hope this is not serious. She makes her way to the locker room and we don’t see her the rest of the night. Injuries never come at an opportune time, but with almost all our guards banged up, this could be very hurtful.

The subs come in a little earlier than usual and we are glad to see our starters get some rest. One distressing thing was Kayla Pederson’s shot. She uncharacteristically missed a lot. She was 4-12 from the field, including missing all 4 of her three-point shots. Hmmm, that’s two games in a row she has not shot well. Let’s hope that gets corrected. She did end up with 13 points and 10 boards, always a contributor.

We win easily 80-43. Nneka was high scorer with 22 points and 13 rebounds, another double double. Jayne had 14 points and 9 rebounds, just missing a double double.

We tell N and A to spread out for the red victory balls and tell them to knock down anyone who gets in your way, much like N plays basketball! None get thrown to C and R, bummer, but C sees a red ball hit the empty seat right in front of N and she doesn’t get her hands on it. It falls to the floor and someone else scoops it up. OMG, she had a chance and she missed! Just like she plays basketball! No, really, C can kid N because one, she is her friend and two, N admitted she NEVER HAS READ OUR BLOG! So now we can really say whatever we want about her!

C and R make our way down to the stands opposite the Stanford bench, where our other friend, N is seated. Let’s call her Coach N, because she is the head coach of our little girl’s basketball team. She was at the game with her daughter, sister, and nieces. C and R did notice they were throwing shirts every time we made a three-pointer to the same section, the one where they were sitting, and we hoped our girls would be the recipients of this bounty. Sure enough they had shirts! Atta girls.

Then Coach N said to a very tall man, “This is the one that started the tinkle bells!”

The very tall man stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Wayne Tinkle, Joslyn’s dad.” C and R shook his hands and were in heaven. Wayne was so nice and warm and friendly. He also is the head coach of the men’s basketball team at Montana, and he had such an easy rapport with us, with the kids, we can bet he is great with his team. His team is playing Sacramento State this weekend and he flew here to see this game, coach his team Friday, then see another of Joslyn’s game Saturday. Cool!

We told him we just heard it is illegal to bring noisemakers to the game so we would be honored to be the first ones thrown out for tinkle bells. He appreciated our rebel spirit. We tell him that someone heard the bells and instead of saying Tinkle, she said Jingle and he likes that nickname, too. We gave him his very own tinkle bell, because what good Stanford basketball fan doesn’t carry around a plastic bag full of bells, and he promised to ring it Saturday, and ain’t nobody throwing out Tinkle’s dad!

Then he said his wife reads our blogs and so we want to give a warm California shout out to Mrs. Tinkle, a former DI basketball player herself. Your daughter is enjoying her stay in our fair state and she really didn’t land that hard on the floor like we said in the beginning of this loooong post. She was fine, absolutely fine. Bounced right back up, don’t you worry. Everything’s fine! Boy, she can shoot a mean three!

Anyway, bring your banned tinkle bells to honor Joslyn and Mr. Tinkle to the Washington game on Saturday. C’s got extra if you need them. Kids get in for a buck with a paid adult admission. We are bringing most of our little girl’s team after our game. See ya there!