Stanford in the Elite Eight

By now, everyone has heard the story of the Penn state coaches hanging out with Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer in the offseason to pick her brain on the triangle offense. Guess Tara forgot to show them the back door option.

Stanford played their best ball in a long, long time. Perhaps the long season wore on them, but the last quarter of the Pac-12 season was a little lackluster. Not today. And not when playing in Maples.

Penn State and the Stanford Women’s Basketball team were playing in the Sweet Sixteen, held on Stanford’s home court. Much has been written about having neutral sites, but the truth is fans don’t come out if their home team is not playing, the site loses a lot of money, and a lot of empty seats happen. So while this is an inelegant solution, the powers that be are still scratching their heads on how to make this better.

Penn State came out powerful and athletic, and kept it close for about half of the first half. Then Stanford got hot, All-Everything Chiney Ogwumike got going, and Stanford played shutdown defense. Stanford outscored Penn State 25-7 to end the half and held Penn State without a field goal for nearly six and a half minutes.

Bonnie Samuelson, Mikaela Ruef and Lili Thompson play good D on Lucas (Photo Courtesy of Kelley L Cox )

Stanford’s Lili Thompson got the assignment to guard Penn State’s great scorer, Maggie Lucus. She averages about 21 points a game. Lili held her to 6 points in the fist half. And for the game? Six points. That’s right they shut her down in the second half. Lucas was scoreless. Tied her career low, too. She was 3-for-14 from the floor, including 0-for-5 on 3-pointers. Her last points were nine and a half minutes left in the first. Wowsa! 

Penn State set screens, and even double screens, to try to free up their outside shooter Lucas, but nobody prepares for a game like Tara Vanderveer. Stanford knew the screens were coming and either got over them or switched personal on her so she never got an open look.

Shout out to Mikeala Ruef. Ruefie helped on a lot of those switches on Lucas and played intense defense. She also contributed 11 points, 13 rebounds, five assists and two steals. She was one of two Stanford players that got a double-double. The other was that beast Chiney Ogwumike. She had 29 points and 15 rebounds. That marked her 25th double-double of the season, and 83 for her career. Double Wowsa! Amber Orrrrange was second in scoring for Stanford with 18 points.  Lili Thompson and Mikaela Ruef both finished the game with 11 points. That’s four, count-em, four in double figures. Stanford will need that kind of effort from everyone from now on.

Shout out to former Stanford alums Nneka Ogwumike, Jayne Appel, Kayla Pedersen, Lindy Larocque and Sarah Boothe in the house. Noticed Toni Kokenis was sitting in the stands with them. Wonder if it was a NCAA rule she couldn’t be on the bench?

Come back to Maples Tuesday night at 6PM Stanford time when they take on North Carolina (Oh yeah, number one seed South Carolina didn’t even make it to the elite eight, go figure).

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Saturday in the City Watching Some Basketball

So C and R got to see some Stanford basketball this weekend. We went to the SF ProAm women's basketball summer league and met up with Twitter buddy S and her buddy K. It was nice to see they were real people and not automatons just typing away on a keypad!

The Stanford players and alumni were on the South Bay team. The other team didn’t have enough players so four of the South Bay team went over to play. Boy C and R were impressed with Markisha Coleman, an old Stanford alum. She was one of the players who went over to the other team, but man was she fast and fearless and often popped the ball from many a freshman’s hands.

The remaining players on South Bay were four healthy freshmen and veteran Joslyn Tinkle, plus a couple others we did not know.  So wait a minute, C and R wanted to know, was this a forfeit? Results were inconclusive. Well, we asked two people and one said yes and one said they didn’t know, so that is the extent of our reporting skills.

But we did get the scoop about the injured freshmen from a real reporter, Judy Richter of the Fast Break Club, who said two of the freshmen are hurt, Alex Green tore her ACL in November and Erica Payne had a sprained ankle. Chiney Ogwumike is not playing this summer to save herself for the World University Games in China coming up in about a month. Read more of Judy’s report on the day for the Fast Break Club.

So when the game started, we, C and R and Twitter Buddies, noticed Tinkle had two things in mind to work on that day. One was to shoot some threes (Kayla Pedersen is now gone). She shot three three-pointers in her first three touches on the ball. All missed, unfortunately, but stay tuned for the second half. Then she worked on point number two, drive to the basket and finish strong, which she did well. Freshies were a little intimidated to start the game and their team was down by 11 points at half.

Then the second half became the Tinkle Show (and here C and R were without their Tinkle Bells). She worked the ball inside again and could not be stopped. She finished with her right hand, she finished with her left hand. She threw a hook. She stepped back and shot some threes (this time they went in and soon her team were ahead by 1 with two minutes to go). It went down to the wire and South Bay pulled out the win, and Tinkle had 37 points. She was on fire, as R said.

We all were impressed with Stanford freshmen guards Amber Orrange (not typo, double "r" is correct, will give C fits) and Jasmine Camp. They pushed the ball quickly. Especially Amber, and both drove to the basket aggressively in the second half, something Stanford will need in the upcoming season.

All in all it was a fast paced game and fun to watch. It definitely had the feel of a pick up game, albeit one played at an extremely high level. Man, the young ones were fast. And oh, we actually got to see Britney Spears in person. She is the baller that played for the University of Colorado and shares the same name as the pop star. She played on the other team. She was chosen in the second round of the WNBA but didn’t make the Mercury. She is listed to play in Spain this coming year. She was good on Saturday, and we wish her the best of luck. While at Colorado, Britney also played with Whitney Houston. Small world.

Come out next Saturday if you missed all the fun. South Bay plays July 2 at 12 PM again.

(Stanford) Draft Day Dreaming

The 2011 WNBA draft will be televised live Monday, April 11th on ESPN at 3:00 PM West Coast time.

Chris Hansen of HoopGurlz online has Stanford Women’s Basketball Player Kayla Pedersen projected as a number five draft pick. He says she could have gotten her numbers up but unselfishly did whatever the team needed rather than worry about statistics. Always praises her “good decisions on the floor and should have a long career.”

BTW, Minnesota Lynx have the first pick and everyone and their brother says to take Maya Moore. We spoke informally to our girl Candice Wiggins and she said she is excited to get a chance to play with Maya. However, what we really wanted to point out is the Los Angeles Sparks have the fifth pick, so wouldn’t it be cool if Kayla went to LA (Where we could take a road trip and see her) and play with Candice Parker?

Chris Hansen has another Stanford player, Jeanette Pohlen, listed as number 16. He recommends she go to a team that will put her back in her “natural” positions of off-guard instead of point.

Now Frank Della Femina of WNBA.com ran a mock draft and has Kayla Pedersen going eighth to the Atlanta Dream, and Jeanette Pohlen going 12^th to the Seattle Storm, so you just never know how these things are going to go.

Now we checked out the WNBA official mock draft and they have Kayla going fourth to… Minnesota! To be reunited with Candice Wiggins and play with Maya Moore. Oh to dream! They have Jeanette going ninth to Indiana, and that is a heck of a road trip for C and R!

Okay, Ben York of Slam Online has Kayla going sixth to the San Antonio Silver Stars, where she would be reunited with Jayne Appel! Unfortunately, he doesn’t’ have Jeanette Pohlen in his top twelve. C and R think they should quit dreaming while they are ahead and just tune in Monday.

Other notables, Gonzaga point guard Courtney Vandersloot is in the top ten of most mock drafts, and C and R were amazed by her, and wish her luck. Playing for a “smaller in stature” team then a traditional powerhouse, she received a lot of exposure in Gonzaga’s  NCAA run, and most notably when her team was trying to knock off Stanford.

So Texas A&M’s Danielle Adams is in the top twenty. She led her team to its first National Title, knocking off Stanford in the Final Four along the way…ungrind teeth and keep typing… and C and R are going to make a bold prediction. A bold prediction that is in no way fueled by bitterness and supported by the Courtney Paris model. We believe Adams will get drafted but will not make the team’s starting day roster.

Courtney Paris, you’ll recall, had a stellar college career, setting rebounding records and “double-double” records, points coupled with rebounding records, etc. She also battled weight issues her whole college career, and her weight caused her to be out of shape and have trouble keeping up with the pace and flow of the game. Sound familiar? She was drafted but couldn’t lose enough weight to enable her to keep up with the WNBA players and was cut. She has since been signed again by the LA Sparks and it remains to be seen if she will make this year’s team.

Danielle Adams had similar problems with weight and with making it up and down the court in both the Final Four games we saw her in. In fact, her team would have to walk the ball up the court to allow her to get up the court. If she cannot keep up with the pace of play in the WNBA, she will not make her team, and perhaps teams might remember how Courtney didn’t pan out and might not want to waste a valuable draft position on her. With only 11 roster spots on the 12 WNBA teams in the league, jobs are at a premium. Even if you are drafted, there is no guarantee you will make a team.

One last notable, they have Brittany Spears getting drafted! Oh baby, baby…hee hee...Hit me baby, one more time...

Stanford Survives Arizona State

Geez, here C and R were all raggin’ and braggin’, ragging on Duke not looking like a number three team and bragging on Stanford looking like a number three team that is, and then Stanford has a bit of a clunker game at Arizona State. Stanford let Arizona State hang around for much of the first half before Ogwumike squared and Kayla Pedersen muscled it inside in the second half to win 72-54.

Let’s back up a bit, first of all, it was a minor miracle C and R could see this away game as it was not televised (rant number 762 about Stanford not being on TV). The local Arizona Fox Sports affiliate “broadcast” the game on the web and after opening five hundred windows, we finally got the video player to play (technology is not C and R’s strong suit, although, C did get out her phalanx of cables the cats play with and found the correct one to hook up to her fancy HDTV so C and R could watch it on the big screen without having to travel to Mike’s Sports Bar). Cool, and we didn’t have to pay the $14.95 internet access fee yet. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks (emphasis on old).

Anyhoo, we tuned in just in time to see Stanford’s Toni Kokenis dribbling (and love the black away uniforms). Glad to see she was back after missing games with a head injury. Speaking of which, Arizona State’s lead scorer Dymond Simon missed the game because of a concussion she suffered against USC. Wow, there is so much awareness and caution around concussions these days across the sports board, not just football. Unfortunately, Toni didn’t stay in long and did not return for the rest of the game. The official stats say she only played a minute. Hope she is okay. (PSsst, to our spies in Arizona, did you find out what’s up with Toni?).

This was Kayla’s last collegiate women’s basketball game in her home state of Arizona (And our spies reported her parents are also tall trees!), and although she got a double double of 15 points and ten timely rebounds to pass Nicole Powell on the career rebound list, she also made a lot of bad passes, which is uncharacteristic of her. To Arizona State’s credit, they jumped in passing lanes and got steals and attacked Stanford players when they picked up their dribble and C and R have never seen so many balls ripped from Stanford player’s arms. Stanford also let Arizona State get offensive rebounds and put-backs (Trees gotta play like trees). And when Stanford was in man to man in the first half, Arizona State got quite a few lay-ups by driving to the basket and no help coming, although coach Tara VanDerveer did adjust by going to a zone defense. Stanford just seemed to have an energy let down in this game, not taking care of the ball well, not rebounding or boxing out well and giving up easy baskets. At half time, it was 32-27 Stanford. We are sure Tara did and will continue to address those issues.

Of course our feed went down (internet!) and when it came back on we saw Jeanette Pohlen pick up her fourth foul about 5 minutes into the second half and we saw her sit. And sit and sit. Until about 5 minutes left in the game, and when she did come back, she was on fire, driving and scoring. She wants it, she wants a national championship, that’s for sure. Her energy and drive were welcome and must have felt good for her after sitting on the bench for 10 minutes.

We also enjoyed watching Jeanette post up down low and score in the first half. It was annoying to have to listen to the regional broadcasters because to C and R’s ears, they seemed so biased (and C and R never get like that!) and kept using the same obscure terminology. We mean, call it the half court line, not the time line, as in “Pohlen just crossed the time line” and quit saying the right angle and the left angle to mean the left and right side of the court! However, the woman announcer made an excellent observation when Jeanette posted up her smaller guard when Arizona State was in man to man by saying most guards do not know how to defend a post player as they don’t often practice that. So not only does Jeanette use her size advantage, she is forcing the other guard to be uncomfortable and play out of position.

Next up is Arizona (not Arizona State as we originally reported!) and let’s hope Stanford looks a little sharper as befitting a number three-ranked team.

Stanford Undefeated in PAC-10 Play

Saw the Stanford Women’s basketball team beat Oregon State today. It’s hard to get excited if C and R don’t see the game live and in person or on TV. Needless to say we did neither for this game. Reading the news, C and R saw Kayla Pedersen had another step up in her game, scoring a season high 21 points and going three for three from three point land! Oregon is 0-8 in the PAC-10 coming into this contest and they gave Stanford a little game, going on a 9-2 run after Stanford jumped to a 12-0 start. Again, we wonder if Stanford let their guard down playing an uninspiring team. Of course, when the score got to be 14-9 Stanford, Jeanette Pohlen made four straight three pointers. Jeanette would finish with 15 points, all on three-point baskets. Stanford seems to be saying, we match how you play and then we do it better.

Noticed freshmen guard Toni Kokenis was kept out of the line up, although the news sites did not say why. She has been kept out of the previous two games because she got hit in the head in the UCLA game. Hope the headaches have stopped.

Speaking of the news, Tara was quoted as saying:
"Jeanette is having an All-American year," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. "Then our inside game with Chiney and (Nneka Ogwumike). Kayla Pedersen has just been our steady-rock player. Those four, and then whoever we put with them."

Ouch. R felt the comment minimized the hard work Lindy has put in to get the last starting position. It was funny, we looked up the minutes played per player and Lindy got the third most minutes this game, second to Kayla and Jeanette. Is there no one else who can play the off-guard position or is Lindy building trust with Tara?

Final score was 74-44, and Oregon State was only the second conference opponent to hold Stanford to fewer than 78 points, yet we blow out other, better teams by larger margins even when distracted by fancy floors with trees….

Next two games are out of town in Washington and not on TV again, boo hoo.

Kayla Pedersen Has Breakout Week

First Jeanette, then Nneka, now Kayla. Of course, C and R are talking about Stanford Women’s Basketball player Kayla Pedersen being named the PAC-10 player of the week for Jan 24th. Kayla helped Stanford destroy a ranked UCLA team and a good USC team. She averaged 17 points and 7.5 rebounds in those two games, and it was good to see the old Kayla back after a mini-scoring slump.

Noteworthy is her shot at breaking two Stanford records. She needs just eight minutes of playing time to beat Virginia Sourlis' (1982-86) 25-year old Stanford record of 4,148 minutes played. Harder yet, she is 141 rebounds away from Jayne Appel’s record of 1,263 career rebounds. Totally doable.

Oh, good news, the Stanford-Oregon game on Thursday is slated to be televised live on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area at 7 PM. Yay! C and R can hold off paying the $14.95 to the internet All Access site one more week!

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Stanford Dominates UCLA for PAC-10 Lead

“I thought you said UCLA was good!” said C and R’s good friend and basketball teammate, S. Well, you can’t blame her for the statement as it was half time of the Stanford-UCLA game and Stanford was winning 31-15. And that was before she saw the second half where Stanford lead most of the game 30 or more points before winning 64-38. Thirty plus points against number eight ranked UCLA! Wow, they blew them out!

Stanford was just dominating them with their defense, too. UCLA tried setting screens to free up their guards but Stanford was too quick and often switched players for seamlessly coverage and the taller player did not roll towards the basket. C and R were a little surprised at that as one of the Arizona teams analyzed Stanford’s tendency to switch on screens and when the smaller Stanford guard switched to a taller forward, they moved toward the basket and tried to work it inside over the guard. UCLA did not try to work the mismatch or throw it inside. In fact, UCLA had problems getting off a good shot and didn’t score until 5 minutes had gone by in the game and by then it was 8-2. UCLA’s leading scorer Jasmine Dixon did not score until 10 minutes into the contest.

AS C and R have been saying for the last two years, Stanford rises to their opponent’s intensity level, so Stanford should really thank UCLA for the fast start. UCLA did come out fired up and tried some full court press. Coach Nikki Caldwell said they were doing a full court press after UCLA scored, but if you don’t score, then you can’t press. Hmm., good point and maybe you might want to rethink that one, coach!

Speaking of Nikki Caldwell, did you see those shoes? I mean C and R have seen coaches wear some high heels on Maples floor (Hello Kim Mulkey), but I think she needed a ladder just to get in them! (Speaking of Kim Mulkey, special shout out to our Cal friends who are Kim fans and who drove down from Sacto to see the game. They are impressive in all the women’s basketball knowledge they have. C and R have tunnel vision on Stanford and it was great to get the 411 on other teams for a change—although they lost street cred for leaving early when the Stanford lead hit 30!).

It was great to see Kayla Pedersen have a break out game offensively. She scored 18 points and had 10 boards. It was also great to see how she scored. When Stanford was in their half court game, she was calling for the ball, working hard inside, posting up, and cutting back door. C and R haven’t seen her work so hard for the ball in a long time. And then there was the second half Show Time fast break game. Where did that come from? Stanford had 18 fast break points, and Kayla was leading a lot of them. Not their usual way of scoring, and UCLA is fast.

Mel Murphy played in her first game sense off-season surgery and she had a steal and a fast break lay up at the other end, although she was fouled when shooting and it wasn’t called.

In fact, the officiating was just horrible. The game was rough and they simply missed making calls, or when they did blow the whistle the call was late or two plays ago. Poor Nneka Ogwumike got beat up. She was hit in the nose when shooting and fell down and no call. She set a screen and the UCLA player did not see her and totally bowled her over and they both went crashing to the floor and no call. Players often were knocked to the floor when shooting and NO CALL! Sarah Boothe got called for an intentional foul and the replay did not show that at all. Then a few plays later a UCLA player went to stop a fast break basket and it was intentional as she just hit the other player’s hands and body and was not going for the ball. Where is the “intentional” call on that one? To make matters worse, there would be an obvious foul, such as a player knocked to the floor and ignored, and then the next contact made by the team that made the previous foul would draw a whistle, never mind the contact was minimal at best. Yes, make up calls. Which means the officials were aware they “blew” one and were making it up. It happened very obviously three separate times. We have heard from other teams that PCA-10 officials are the worst, but that game was especially called poorly. Does anyone review the officials’ work?

We mentioned UCLA player Jasmine Dixon, and she continues to impress as when we saw her last year in the PAC-10 tournament in LA. She “only’ scored 12, below her average, but lead all UCLA scorers. She is impressive in her ability to create her own shots near the basket. She has as quick as we have ever seen explosive first step to the basket and then can elongate her stride to beat her player to the basket, as well as squeeze out of the double team Stanford put on her. Someone to keep our eye on.

Off to see Stanford take on USC Saturday!

Who's Number One?

The Women’s Basketball Rankings came out for this week and frankly, C and R are surprised. One, the powers that be (TPB) dropped UConn to number two after their loss to Stanford. Everyone (well, all our friends) thought TPB would still keep UConn number one, and are still arguably the number one team in basketball and the one to beat in the  NCAA tournament. So who is number one, you ask? Baylor!
Baylor over UConn? Wait, didn’t UConn beat Baylor? C and R don’t understand that one. Duke is number three, and everyone is going to be looking at the match up of UConn and Duke at the end of January. Number four on both the AP Top 25 and the ESPN Coaches poll is Stanford. Actually, both polls agreed on numbers 1-4 and differ with Tennessee being number five on AP and Texas A and M five and Tennessee’s sixth on the coaches poll. So wait, didn’t Tennessee beat Stanford? C has to give a special shout out to R because she predicted Stanford would be 3 or 4 but above Tennessee and C was all, no, Tennessee beat Stanford, Stanford can’t be placed above Tennessee! But R had teh faith. Well, it’s good to know that TPB are looking at how the teams are playing that week and not the strict record.

TH writes in to ask how we think Stanford would match up with Baylor as they might meet in the NCAA tourney. We think you have to beat Baylor with lots and lots of threes and getting Baylor’s Brittney Griner in foul trouble. She can’t hurt you from the bench! Stanford could easily follow UConn’s game plan from last year’s NCAA tourney win over Baylor, which involved having their center, Tina Charles, drive inside and up and in against Brittney so she would collide with Brittney in the air and although BG might get the block, she would get the foul. Plus I think Maya Moore made was dead-on from outside. We think Kayla Pedersen could be the Stanford player to try and get Brittney in the air and foul with her body. Stanford also has a good supporting cast and if hot can hit outside, too, as well as provide stifling defense. Lastly, if Jeanette Pohlen is still red hot and firing up threes and driving in to the lane with Brittney on the bench, we think Stanford could pull it out.

First Stanford has to get past the Arizona schools this weekend.

Cal Q and A, Part I

Happy New Year to you (And it is indeed a happy one, as we are still basking in the glow of Stanford beating UConn). The folks over at California Golden Blogs sent us some Stanford Women’s basketball questions in honor of Stanford traveling to Cal to start PAC-10 play. Here are their questions and our long and rambling answers. At the end are our questions back to them, which we will post in part II.

1. Jeanette Pohen has always been a good player, but after averaging about 10 points per game over the last two years, she's suddenly averaging over 15 per game and shooting around 45% from 3. Is this just an isolated hot streak, or has her game taken a big step forward?

That is a good question. A great question. My what a handsome question… Any questions? Next question.
No, we were modeling a cartoon TV show’s smarmy politician to avoid answering that question because… we don’t know either. After the UConn game, you can say the new and improved Jeanette Pohlen is here to stay, with her career 31 points and her determined game face. She wants a championship, and has improved her game. But can she sustain it? Only time will tell. However, stats don’t lie (although you CAN manipulate the heck out of them) and she is averaging 17 points a game, which does show some consistency. C and R hope if it is a hot streak., it lasts until the championship game.

2. Chiney Ogwumike: talk about her strengths and weaknesses 11 games into her career.

C and R, in particular C, had such high, high hopes riding on Chiney. She thought for sure she would lead the world in scoring by now! In retrospect, perhaps they were unrealistic. Her sister did not have a break out year until her sophomore year, and Chiney is about where Nneka was her freshmen year. It is a big adjustment to the college game. We saw her play in the SF summer league before she got any Tara tutelage, and she was still playing as a high school player, the best athlete on the floor which could let her gamble on defense and usually recover quickly. In man-to-man coverage in the games we saw, she often left her man and went for the steal. She would often miss, probably a new experience, and the other players with college experience found her wide-open man. We thought that was a weakness and coach Tara VanDerveer would “beat it out of her”. Lo and behold, to our surprise, Tara took Chiney’s weakness and turned it into a strength and unveiled a new 1-3-1 defense, with Chiney on the point. Her job was to run around like crazy chasing the ball and use her long arms and leaping ability and go for a steal. If she missed, then there were 4 Stanford veterans behind her to make sure it did not result in a basket. Did we mention we think Tara is a genius? Weaknesses, how many games has Chiney fouled out of? UConn was no exception. She has to corral that instinct to reach out and touch someone. We think her biggest contribution to a disciplined Stanford team though, is her ability to create her own shot. Once Tara gave her sister Nneka the green light her sophomore year, even moving out established senior post Jayne Appel to give her room to create, she flourished. We believe next year Tara will do the same for Chiney and she will be incredible on offense.

PS sometimes big sis Nneka looks for Chiney and forces the ball to her inside where it is stolen, just trying to be all nice and sisterly and everything.

3. A 20 point loss to DePaul was shocking to see, particularly that Stanford allowed DePaul to go for 91 points. But they bounced back by routing Xavier. Was DePaul a fluke? How much did missing Kayla Pedersen impact things?

Geez, you ask good questions! If you strictly compare the DePaul game to Xavier and UConn, you can easily vote fluke. But in context, having one player go down, in this case Kayla Pedersen being out of the DePaul game and not 100% for Tennessee, Stafnord is just not the same team emotionally. She is their security blanket because she can rebound on both ends of the floor, make a big defensive stop, create a shot or handle the ball. Last year when teams pressed us because our guards were suspect on ball handling and were running for their lives in the back court, if they got a pass into Kayla’s hands, no matter where Stanford was on the court, you could see them visibly relax. Oh good, Kayla has the ball, we’re okay. That is a huge dependency to take away. And we didn’t count on the team feeling the same way about Jeanette this year. When she fouled out of the Tennessee game early in overtime, the team just deflated. So we rely on one or two people, much like UConn relies on Maya Moore. If you can stop or limit a team, any team’s “security” you have a shot in beating them (Witness the UConn victory).

4. How has Stanford been coping with the losses of Jayne Appel and Rosalyn Gold-Onwude, particularly from a defensive perspective?

Well, we were going to say it’s hard to replace PAC-10 defender of the year in losing Ros Gold-Onwude, but after the Uconn game, our defense is juuuuuuust fine. What that says is Tara has great defensive schemes, teaches the fundamentals well, and can tailor a game plan to any individual team like no body’s business. And smaller Nneka was on tall tall Xavier’s post players, and gave up about 3-6 inches, yet her quickness allowed her to play deny defense and her leaping ability took away the back door pass. Tinkle (Jayne Appel’s doppelganger) also looked really good in her defense at the UConn game.

5. Predictions for Sunday?

Oh, let’s not spoil our friendship with a little thing like picking sides, now shall we?
However, a different question would be who will win the rebounding battle? We are picking the Stanford Trees.

C and R’s Questions for California Golden Blogs

1. How much does this team miss Alexis Gray Lawson? Who has stepped up to fill her scoring shoes?

2. How do the incoming freshmen look? And why did Joanne Boyle only recruit guards?

3. Cal beat Illinois for their first road win. Why is it hard for this team to win on the road?

4. Compare and contrast centers DeNesha Stallworth and Talia Caldwell. Which one will give Stanford fits more?

5 One of Stanford’s new interns this year is Cal’s Lauren Greif, who was a senior on the basketball team last year.
Do you think:
A: She gave up all of Cal’s secrets to Tara VanDerveer and crew freely and easily?
B: She gave up all of Cal’s secrets to Tara VanDerveer and crew only after being tortured by being shown those Stanford Women’s Basketball videos wherein they had supernatural powers of no use on continuous loop?
C: She gave up all of Cal’s secrets to Tara VanDerveer and crew but made them all up. (And for their out of bounds play, they like to inbound it off the backside of the opposing player… and oh, in man to man coverage, they plan to have all five players guard Lindy, even if she is sitting on the bench, because, you know, she can really bomb some threes!)

6. Predictions for the amount of available parking spots in Berkeley on Sunday?

Too Tall for Texas

Ice, Ice, Baby!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Head in the Polls

Well, preseason polls have come out, and although each one is a little different, C and R are seeing a trend; UConn number one, Baylor number 2 and Stanford number 3, or something like that, we are just happy when we place higher than Tennessee, hee hee… And blaspheme to the polls that have us below the top three, what, we are sixth in some of them! Who is better than us? Who?

Yes, UConn is the preseason favorite, since they won the championship and have that 50 gazillion game winning streak going on, but wake up pollsters, they lost Tina Charles and some other people to graduation and injury, (we don’t know if the people they lost were any good, we don’t follow UConn basketball), and they are not the same team. And Stanford, we added recruit of the year Chiney Ogwumike, sister of Nneka, and have Kalya Pedersen who can play all five positions at once, and the X-factor of red-shirted, rehabilitated, and rebuilt 6-5 Sarah Boothe. Pollsters don’t know about her yet, but C and R believe they will soon.
Now take Baylor, please. No, just kidding, Baylor is an interesting case. They have Brittney Griner, the… well, the TALLEST player in women’s basketball. And some pollsters are impressed with that. Yes she can dunk, and she can block shots, but C and R were NOT impressed with how she was coached last year. She was lazy on rebounds, did not box out, and would often run out to the three-point line to block a shot, miss the block, then be out position to get the rebound. And on offense all she had to do is stand on the block and put her hands up and have the guards throw it to her. No one could intercept the pass and no one could block her. And she can dunk, for goodness sakes, give her the ball on the block and let her dunk! But she would disappear, scoring wise, during the game. And who is in her supporting cast? Can you name one ontehr player that supports here? Or was in any of the preseason trophy watches? UConn deposed of Baylor easily in the play-offs, and Brittney did not look good in that game. C and R blame the coaching. So if she was not well used or well-coached last year, what makes the pollsters think she will be well used or well coached this year? We think Baylor is going to crash and burn.
Well, it will be an interesting year for all!

Stanford BBall (Sorta)

So R and I decide to head up to cool San Francisco to see some championship basketball. We are still waiting¦ no, no, no, that wasn’t nice, was it? This is C here, one half of C and R, and let’s start over shall we?

Out of the goodness of our hearts, R and I decided to head up to see the best two out of three games in a championship series in the SF Summer Pro-Am league. Well okay, it was not really out of the goodness of our heart, it was for purely selfish reasons, we wanted to see the baby Stanford incoming freshmen play and maybe catch a glimpse of the seasoned Stanford veterans who show up to cheer them on. We are talking about watching the play of future Stanford players Sara James, Toni Kokenis, and already our fave, Chiney Ogwumike, plus, yes dear readers (reader) plus current Stanford players Mikaela Ruef and Sarah Boothe. (Try saying those last two names really fast, it’s fun! Roof and Booth.)

So anyhow, we find ourselves in R’s car heading in the general direction of San Francisco guided by my fancy GPS thingie. Now I love my GPS but it usually gets in a fight with R. Well, that’s not true, it guided us through the lakes of Kirkwood and South Lake Tahoe just fine, but for some reason, we have messed up twice now on our way to see the Stanford women. Well, part of it might be operator error on C’s, meaning me, or my part. Or whatever. The first time we missed our exit, so R reminded me NOT to do what we did last time and wouldn’t you know it I guided us right to the wrong exit again. After negotiating the CRAZY drivers of SF, we arrive at our destination. Which is a big track stadium. Oops, I have successfully guided us to Kezar Stadium. The Stanford women play basketball in Kezar Pavilion! After a joy ride around the park including going the wrong way on a one-way street and just a little sidewalk driving, we find Kezar Pavilion and park.

(R is rolling her eyes and waving her hands to get on with it, so I shall)

So we walk into Kezar PAVILION and C spots a cute-cute little dog like the one on the TV show “Frasier” and bends down and R stays upright and whispers under her breathe, “That’s Sara James right in front of us.” So C, uh, meaning me, geez I hate this third person thing, so I stand up and sure ’nuf I was petting Sara James’s dog, who was on a leash with what we can only assume was her dad. (She’s a local product, so we think both her dad and mom were there at the game. Hi Mrs. and Mr. James, we are excited about your daughter coming to Stanford!). Because we are staring, I take the plunge and say, “You’re Sara James, hello, nice to meet you,” and shake her hand. R, wearing all her Stanford gear, sounds more intelligence and says, “Hello, nice to meet you we are Stanford season ticket holders for almost 20 years, and good luck today.” I want to say, well, technically R has been the season ticket holder and I just ride her coattails and really only jumped on board the Stanford band wagon about 5 years ago and… but Sara has already run down the ramp and jumped and touched the support bar holding the basket, so R shoves me out of my stupid self indulgent reverie and we take our seats.

We sit on the “Stanford Side”, which is really the whole other side of the gym opposite the team benches. There are probably about 100 people, mostly the Stanford faithful. The Stanford players are on the Golden State team and they are playing the Mission Rec team. Mission Rec has 2 subs and we have 4500. Seriously, I think we have 10 players to choose from. We notice Sarah Boothe, Sara James and Chiney Ogwumike are starters. Will this be a foretelling of the Stanford year to come? We can only hope.

Finally the game starts (and finally R can stop poking me to get to the basketball part). We also notice Sarah Boothe has 6 inches over the tallest member of the other team. This should be a cake walk…And yet…

The first time we watched the Stanford players, the game plan was to get it into Boothe and she scored. A lot. This time that game plan flies out the window. Well, the other team, full of small, fast, quick, aggressive guards, pressure our guards and we cannot get it into Boothe. Plus the other team is taking advantage of the fact the refs are not very good and let a lot of contact and slapping go uncalled. A lot of slapping. So we cannot get it in to Boothe and when we do shoot, we take rushed shots.

Then the coach of the other team starts yelling at the refs for his version of non-calls. He gets T’d up. Then the refs feel so bad for giving him a technical foul that they give him back two quick fouls that are hardly fouls, especially compared to what was allowed moments ago. Sarah Boothe goes to the bench with 2 fouls and stays for a long time. We can’t buy a basket.

Ever eagle-eyed, R spots Stanford veterans Kayla Pedersen and Nneka Ogumike coming in the gym and taking position up high opposite the Stanford faithful. We make a mental note to switch seats at half time. Shortly, we see more Stanford veterans enter. First, Lindy La Roque and then Jeanette Pohlen, IN A DRESS! Not often you see such fancy duds at a basketball game.

Chiney looks more aggressive on the boards and even Toni Kokenis is looking much improved. In fact, around the 7:22 mark, all five Stanford players go in. Cool. And boy does the guard Sara James have a nose for rebounds.

But the Stanford team is so rattled by the slapping, missed shots, non-calls and shouting of the other coach, plus the pressure on their guards, that by half time it is only 15-22. Our Stanford team has only scored 15 points? This is not good. Will this be a foretelling of the year to come? We can only hope not.

It was neat to see Mikaela Ruef so animated talking with the rest of the players at the half. Chiney and Sarah Boothe also chimed in and everyone listened raptly. Plus big sis Nneka came over to add in her two coaching cents. Jeanette Pohlen went out to her car and brought back a water bottle for Tony. So nice to see the Stanford players taking care of each other.

The second half starts and it is more of the same, intense defensive pressure, but this time the other team is bombing threes. Sarah Boothe fouls again and the coach takes her out. We hear someone in the gym yell, “Keep her in!” And turn to see it was Lindy. You go, girl! A few minutes alter she yelled, “Put in your high scorer!” as Sarah was still on the bench and obviously had the most points for their team. Chiney starts to get aggressive and made an athletic steal but cannot corral the ball from going out of bounds. Then she fiercely grabbed a rebound, dribbled down court and went coast to coast for the rare basket. All the way Chiney.! (T-Shirt rights patented and copyrighted by C and R, thank you very much). The other team counters by raining more threes.

Sarah Boothe finally goes in and she is posting up strong but the other coach is now yelling “Three seconds in the key!” so loudly that Sarah hears him and instinctively leaves the key, as a good player will do when listening to coach. Problem was, it was not her coach, he was for the other team and he intimidated her to stay out of the key. Then the other team’s speedy little guards start faking the three and driving in. They usually lose their guard defense and make it to the second line of bigger players, where they are fouled while leaping in the air. Sarah Boothe goes back to the bench, then Chiney joins her with her foul trouble and then the other team is so confident they launch threes or drive at will. It is now a 20-point game.

In the closing minutes, everyone on the Golden State team looks tired and there is no sense of urgency. Yes, they are down by 20 with a few minutes left and probably can’t catch up, but they aren’t even trying. That was disheartening to see. This is a championship game, for cryin’ out loud. The final score is 61-77. We go to Chevy’s to drown our sorrows in salty chips and the cute waiter gets points for listening to our sob story and being interested in our blog about women’s sports (unless he was just pretending to be interested and fishing for a big tip, which in case it worked because we gave him one, we are such softies sometimes).

The Stanford women play again tomorrow, but with a performance like that, getting beat by a smaller team was hard to watch. We should have wailed on them. Oh well, basketball Sunday, same time, same place (can C and R find the gym on the third try? Tune in tomorrow and find out).

(Belated) Stanford End of the Year Banquet

And now, back by popular demand, J and K, the Junior Bloggers! This is actually a promised piece on the end of the year awards banquet that they are JUST SUBMITTING to C and R. Guess they can’t use the excuse, “The dog ate my homework.” Maybe they can use “a computer viruses ate my paper” excuse. J and K said to look at it as a “summer treat” to tide you over until college basketball starts up again. J would write some of the report and send it to K who would add her comments. K is in RED and J is in Blue (we think). They both write in black and the blue is NOT a hyper link. Got it? All typos, texting lingo, emoticons and bad grammer stuff are theirs, unless they are caused by C's fat fingers typing. C and R love that they argue almost as much as we do.

Oh, some back story info, J and K have brought signs to various games and have been recognized by the various players. They also have stalked the players so well and so much (like good junior stalkers) that the players recognize them. Way to go, they are well on their way to making the C and R Stalking Hall of Fame. Oh, here are some visuals to go with the descriptions in the story compliments of the Stanford Fast Break Club, the group that always seems to have their cameras handy.

Junior Blogger Report on the End of theYear Banquet

K and I got to the banquet as fast as we could – which, granted, was not very fast. Not only are we unable to drive – so we had to put up with our parents going the speed limit – but we had to put up with damp hair, broken blow-dryers, fashion crises and butterflies in our stomachs.  Hey I went really fast considering I had softball right before, literally. Yah well I was the one who hadn't had time to blow-dry her hair because the blow-dryer I was trying to use was... um... not fully functional :) We arrived at about 6:00, half an hour before the dinner was scheduled to start and halfway through the ‘mingle’ time. We stepped in the door after making each other laugh in an effort to rid ourselves of those pesky butterflies. First thing we see - Nneka, very pretty in a grey top and a black skirt, wearing silver necklaces (Nnek-laces?) that we complimented. She laughed and said thanks. She was very nice, dubbing me the girl from the plane and K the girl from the restaurant. Lovely. It was funny though! She definitely has a good sense of humor. My mom kind of started that one.. "Wow, you're so pretty!!!" "Thanks.. hey! You're those girls...." Haha :) Oh ya. Happened many times that night. "Hi! You're pretty!/ Cool/ So good!!!" "Thanks...." then their eyes light up and they go, as K said, "Hey! You're those girls..." LOL

After talking to Kayla and getting our name tags, we meandered a little bit, sneaking looks at players’ name tags to try and see what table number they were at. K had paid extra to sit at a player table, #19, and we had quite a time of it trying to figure out whose table she was at. I gave her a huge scare when I mistakenly read Jeanette’s #13 as #19, so K started freaking out and hyperventilating until I said, “No! Sorry! Sorry! Not her number! She’s 13!” And K glared at me. You killed me on that one. I definitely had my hopes up and you just CRUSHED them. DUDE give me a break I seriously thought it said nineteen! The three looked like a nine okay?! Then we both started freaking out about whose table she was out. Then we saw Sarah Boothe looking at us and trying not to laugh. I guess we were acting pretty nutty. Nothing unusual. And guess whose table K (and later me) wound up sitting at? Yep. Sarah’s. Oh boy. She was a good sport, though, and didn’t mention how insane she must have found us. She didn't even talk to us! One picture and a hello. Okay, awesome. Thanks a lot. Haha. K! Come on. It's not her fault that she was being distracted like for the WHOLE NIGHT by this person who kept talking to her. Geez. Stop hogging the players!! Goodness.

We then went over to assistant coach Bobbie Kelsey and talked to her. We told her that we thought she was very funny and that we loved her and Amy Tucker’s Superhoopsters episode. She must have though we were insane as well, quoting the videos and giggling nervously. She was very nice, though, laughing with us and only shooing us away when she had to – I guess we still come after all those older fans. Hmph. Some things never change! However, we think we come first in the players’ eyes. When we went over and talked to Jeanette, she was very nice and talked to us multiple times. Of course, I had to drag K over to see her, because she’s just a little shy around her idol… hahaha (emoticon thingie that doesn't translate to the blog)  No. I was not shy. I talked to her. I am definitely not shy. Dude! I had to literally DRAG you over there! And I kept saying "Let's go talk to Jeanette!" and you're like "No. That's okay. Let's get sodas." "Nope, let's wait." "But there are people near her!" "But maybe it'll seem too forward this early..." Luckily, to the last one I remembered my sense of humor and said "Goodness, K! You're saying she's cool, not asking her out!!" But no, we were very nice and complimentary and told her we loved her outfit (a pretty floral top and a grey band-aid skirt). She blushed a little – she seems very modest – but returned the compliment and talked to us for what seemed like forever because we were so scared of saying something really stupid in front of her – but was only about five minutes. And she told me she had something for me, which actually made my whole entire life.  And then you go and tear your quadricep and so you can't go to camp and get it. Smart, K. Smart. And YES I know I promised to get it from her. And take her that stupid poster. So I'm gonna look like a total obsessed kid before they even realize it's ME!!! Still. Five minutes with a player – that’s definitely worth $60. And then… we saw Ros.

And let me explain before K jumps in with her annoying comments. Ros was rocking a really pretty red, black, and white cheetah-patterned dress. And I saw her, got something very close to stage fright, went ‘Oh shoot!’ and proceeded to duck behind K. And K, supportive friend that she is, got an evil grin on her face, grabbed my arm, and said “Let’s go talk to her!” Need I say that we did? She was very nice too. She said, “Hey, poster girls!” and we said, “Hi!”. And engaged her in very witty (we thought) conversation. We’ve learned that throw in a lot of compliments and they start to like you. Ros was very nice, laughing with – at? – us and telling me to keep bringing my “ROSALYN” poster to the games so she has a lasting legacy or something. What was I to do? I agreed! So if you see a Ros poster next year, that would be why. I won't even comment here. I wasn't that bad. So, don't sass me. OK what am I supposed to do? Say "Ya, that'd be cool, but you're not cool enough for me to even PRETEND to want to do that." Ya right. Like that'd happen. So shut your mouth and DON'T SASS ME!!

We then talked to Kayla – wow, they didn’t call it ‘social hour’ for nothing – who was looking great in a skirt and pink top. She smiled at us, said “Hey, the poster girls!” and talked to us for a little bit. We left her in peace pleased, flattered, and totally and completely in awe. And then we looked at each other quizzically. For hadn’t Ros just called us the Poster Girls? We think we may have a team name. Oh great. And now we can’t figure out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

After talking to Kayla we entered the dining room. Wow. Fancy. K and I were suitably impressed. We ducked out of JJ’s way – who had decked out her crutches in fuschia and black tape that matched her outfit, very classy – and split up to our respective tables. We looked at our booklets for a while – not only did they say our names on them, but they had little notes from all the players to the seniors, which was a very nice and personal touch – and then paid full attention to Tara as she started to talk. We thing she summed up the evening pretty well when she said that “It’s a bittersweet evening.” And it was.

She introduced all the classes together. Freshmen first, and then sophomores, etc. She said something nice and something encouraging about every player. K and I were looking at each other and mouthing “So true! Aw! Awwww!” at each other until K’s mom very kindly switched with me so I was sitting with K at Sarah’s table. So then we didn’t just have to mouth it – we could say it! And the best part of the evening (in my opinion) was when Tara introduced Jeanette. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Judging from that laugh I think K remembers what's coming. Not that she could forget, of course. Just pay attention to the story :) Now, before I say what happened, bear in mind that we were both sort of punch-drunk and excited and were, as we always are, a little bit insane. So Tara introduces Jeanette and says, “Jeanette’s biggest fan is here tonight…” and K rises halfway out of her seat and yells “THAT’S ME!” Everyone turns and stares at her, and Tara finishes her sentence. “Tonight… (That’s me!)… her mom.”. Jeanette starts laughing up on stage along with the rest of the Juniors, and so does the audience. To be fair I don't think Jeanette was really laughing on purpose. It was just not very easy not to laugh. Hahaha :D K sinks very low in her seat and tries to not look at anyone but me – especially not at Sarah, who’s trying very hard not to laugh at K but who’s failing miserably. That was horrible. Oh god. And also Tara looks at me as she says that.. What am I supposed to think? Well maybe Tara was trying to secretly tell you in her head "Keep quiet weird poster girl I'm not talking about you." Oh. Funny. Very witty, J. Hahaha, but that definitely gave you quite the laugh. Of course it did!! The entire ROOM was laughing at you! Thanks, J. Thanks again. Did I say at? I meant with! The whole room was laughing with you! Haha :) The rest of the evening passed fairly uneventfully, with speeches from the seniors – Jayne gained much admiration in our eyes for toughing out the speech even though she cried a little bit multiple times. Add that to our admiration of her for toughing out the game against the School-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named with a stress fracture in her foot and she’s got two pretty big fans!

Editors note-
Did either of you ever go to the Stanford Basketball Camp and get the “thing Jeanette had for you???? Inquiring minds (and our fans) want to know.

Chiney Ogwumike is A-Okay and Wins Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year!

This just in, Stanford recruit Chiney Ogwumike (and current Stanford player Nneka Ogwumike’s sister) won the Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year. Yes, we know she was already honored as the Gatorade Player of the Year in Basketball out of 50 states, but now she is the top female athlete according to Gatorade (she was picked among the 12 Women Gatorade National Players of the Year). In addition to athletic excellence, the award recognizes academic achievement and exemplary character on and off the field. She got to meet Lisa Leslie and Brandi Chastain at an ESPN sponsored luncheon and walk the red carpet at the ESPN ESPY’s and be on TV! Cool. Hope it increases interest and coverage in women’s basketball, says C and R.

Wait, when did she find time to go to the awards ceremony? First she lead the USA Women's U18 National Team to a Gold Medal in the 2010 FIBA Americas U18 Championship in June, dominating in scoring and  praised for her leadership skills, and also competing in the San Francisco Pro-Am league on weekends. Does the girl sleep?

So speaking of Chiney and the SF Pro-Am League, and we were, C and R haven’t been able to get to San Francisco to watch the Chiney and the Stanford freshmen and almost freshmen play in the SF Pro-Am League, but that doesn’t mean our intrepid readers haven’t gone. MM reports that “Chiney’s length is incredible” and “even quicker off the floor than Nneka and gets higher than almost any Div 1 player”. He also had great things to say about Sara James and her long outside shooting (good, we need that). “She set and released in a split second - high arching shots that all hit the back of the net the same way. She made some successful forays into the paint”. SJ, Shooter and slasher, love it. We have to get up there.

Ms. MC reports that in her game she got to see Mikaela Ruef (The Roof is on Fire), Sarah Boothe (Booooo-th), Sara James (SJ), Toni Kokenis (nickname pending), and Chiney Ogumike (is A-Okay) play for Golden State. She also reports the pro-am games featuring the Stanford gang are well attended by Stanford alums. And last weekend, about 10 minutes in, who should walk in to the stands but current Stanford team members Jeanette Pohlen, Kayla Pederson and Nneka Ogwumike, giving some sister love. She also said she was impressed by the former and current Cal players (very diplomatic of you, MC). She said Alexis Gray-Lawson was very fan-friendly. She also invited us and everyone else to come on out.

Well, we just might take you to heart, as it is on our calendar to go this Saturday, unless we play golf… ahhh! Tough Choice!

Jennifer Azzi Announces Katy Steding As Assistant Coach at USF

Busy week, C had a birthday, many trips to the beach were planned then abandoned much to C's dismay, Kayla Pedersen threw out the first pitch at a Giants game, one of the junior bloggers got grounded we think, R had the best quarter at work ever, C and R saw "Wicked" in SF and voted it the best musical they had ever seen, C's son has league finals for swimming, Jennifer Azzi hired her old pal Katy Steding to help coach…

Okay, we could write volumes about all those things mentioned, but let's stick to basketball (and boy is it hard not to gush about Wicked, we cried and gave those two witches a standing ovation and C's new favorite color is now green). So basketball, yes, smart move, hiring Katy Steding. C and R got very worried when Jenn took over the USF head coaching job without having any formal coaching experience at any level, but it looks like she is surrounding herself with people who have the skills she needs/lacks and can get along with. Katy Stediing brings a ton of coaching and recruiting experience and had success wherever she went, typically raising an also-ran program into something higher.

Here, read from the press release from our good friends at USF.

During her stint in Portland, Oregon, as the head women’s basketball coach at Warner Pacific College, Steding recorded two 20-plus win seasons, leading the Knights to the NAIA Division II National Tournaments in 2004 and 2006. The 2004 selection to the national tournament was the first postseason appearance in school history for men’s or women’s basketball. In 2005-06, the Knights won their first ever Cascade Collegiate Conference title with a 22-9 record, as Steding was named CCC Coach of the Year. On the recruiting trail, Steding recruited 11 all-conference performers and four Academic All-Americans to Warner Pacific.

In 2008-09, Steding served as an assistant coach for the Atlanta Dream, helping the expansion franchise reach the WNBA playoffs in its inaugural season.

After a year of coaching in the WNBA, Steding returned to the collegiate scene last season, leading Columbia to its best finish in Ivy League and school history. She also played an integral role in landing three of the most highly lauded recruits in program history. Steding’s responsibilities included overseeing student-athlete development, scouting opponents and recruiting in the Western US.

Let’s hope she concentrates on recruiting. Jennifer also added Blair Hardiek, who coached at San Francisco state and is knowledgeable about recruiting out west. C and R are smelling road trip soon to see the Lady Dons (is that what they are called?).

Happy Cinco De Mayo, and on a confidential note, we hope to golf with our good friend, P, soon!

You've Got Mail

Hi, C of the basketball duo C and R here, and I am so excited because a fan letter just came pouring in today. Let me read it to you.
Ahem:
Dear C and R,
I cannot find the junior bloggers.  Are they still blogging?
Love and Kisses,
AR

Sigh. Even our fan mail is not about us. Such is the life of a blogger who blogs about women’s sports, I guess! (okay, I did add the “love and kisses” part and I was jk-- in text speak, just kidding, AR), But in the interest of answering your question, our Palo Alto Junior Bloggers J and K are still with us, just enmeshed in homework and facebook. Well, although, I think if was spring break for them, so probably more of the latter than the former.

Hey wait, here is junior blogger J with an update (all typos are hers, unless I created them):
Quote
I was on a plane from O'Hare Airport in Chicago coming home to San Francisco Airport, and guess who were sitting three rows behind me but... Kayla, Jayne and Nneka!!! No, I'm not even kidding!! They were coming home from the Team USA practices. I said "Hi," Dad said we had season tickets, I said we were going to the banquet, they said great, see you there. And then Dad was calling Mom after we came off the plane and the three of them walked out and they all smiled and Jayne said, "See you on Thursday!" I didn't know what to say. I sort of stared at her for a minute and then came to my senses and said, "Oh! Yeah! Definitely!" It was amazing. Haha :)
Endquote

Okay, even I think I make this stuff up!

The Kayla, Jayne and Nneka she is talking about are the trio of trees, Stanford’s very own Kayla Pedersen, Jayne Appel and Nneka Ogwumike. And I am about ready to induct them into C and R’s Stanford Women’s Basketball Stalking Hall of Fame, which I just invented on teh spot. Can you believe it? Of all the planes…. I would have gotten 50 million autographs and then talked IN-DEPTH about that UConn game and what, oh what, if Jayne had been healthy and what they gleaned from their practices with Geno until they made the stewardess throw me off the plane at 50,000 feet.

For those of you not ITK (in the know-texting lingo), Thursday, April 21 is the end of the year awards banquet for the Stanford Women’s Basketball players. Let’s hope our junior bloggers send us an update on the evening. With their great luck/stalking abilities, I am sure they will have some inside scoop!

C and R can’t go because R has a job and C has jury duty! Yes really. I have been contacted about three other times over the years and have never been called down. So dear reader(s), can you imagine justice and jurisprudence meted out by my razor sharp mind, the fate of the free world resting on my head, the thin line between society and anarchy held in check by me, denizen of details, typer of typos,… uh, forgot what I was saying. Anyway, I can’ t go to the awards ceremony because I am on call with the superheroes at the hall of justice and could be called ANY SECOND. Get off the phone. Now!

My other basketball buddy actually got her group number called a few weeks ago and went to the court house to be screened by the lawyers for a trial case. She was not looking forward to serving on a long trial. We all made up radical excuses for her to tell the lawyers to get herself dismissed from the case, such as she was a Satan worshipper or hated all men or was looking forward to the trial to silence the voices in her head...  I know, we are bad, helping our friend shirk her civic and patriotic duty and NOT being good role models for our junior bloggers, are we? We should be inducted in to C and R’s Hall of Shame.

Anyhoo, when it was her turn, they asked her one question: where did you grow up? She said Utah and they dismissed her without another word. So we think they assumed she most be Mormon and republican and how dare they stereotype and type cast people without getting to know the real person inside and we were so outraged that we almost forgot she really was Mormon and republican, but they didn’t KNOW that for reals. Geez. Hmm, I don’t know if being from Ohio will be enough to get me excused so I might have to go with the devil worshiping thing or else say I am a CAL fan…ahh, I am so bad, go to the corner of the hall of shame, right now, young lady.

Anyway, keep those fan letters coming, and maybe ask about us or something. If you do go to the awards ceremony on Thursday, drop us a line and let us know what you saw, thought, felt. (or, you know, do our job for us and we will give you half our salary… -half of zero is still zero, isn't it? I am not too good with the math skills, either). Looking forward to hearing from all of you!

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

Life After Basketball--Includes a lot of Basketball

So how’s your life now that Stanford Women’s Basketball is over? C and R’s is awful, or maybe it’s the rain that is depressing us. It’s April, we don’t get rain in Northern CA in April!

Not only are we depressed; we are lethargic and lazy, too. So skipping back to last week, R wanted to point this out

Did you notice the only other pac-10 player drafted (besides our Jaynie-Jayne) was Alexis Gray-Lawson - in the 3rd round? Also, the only other West coast team that had anybody drafted was San Diego State (Oops-don't forget Gonzaga) - okay, the West gets NO respect…

Good Point. No Rodney Dangerfield Respect.

More depressing, JJ Hones has microfracture surgery on her knee (and Mel Murphy will soon). The surgery creates tiny fractures in the bone and, in theory, new cartilage forms and will strengthen the bone. She will know in six months if she can play basketball for Stanford again.

In other basketball news, Team USA, the National Team that plays in all our international tournaments, including the Olympics, has no international tournaments scheduled for a long while, so Team USA head coach Geno Auriemma (you know, that pompous guy that gave NO credit to Stanford for holding his UConn team to 12 points, the worst performance in school history in a half, that guy?), um, lost my train of thought. Oh yeah, Geno has no competition for the National Team to play against so he came up with the idea of a Team USA “Select Team” to play against this week. Think of it as the junior varsity to the varsity team. Anyway, Stanford’s Kayla Pedersen has been invited to play for the select team. Yay! Nneka Ogwumike is already on the select team, and we thought she was asked to the varsity team, so what do we know? And we are glad to find out that although Jayne Appel is too injured to play (stress fracture) she is at camp to watch and learn for when she is better. And we think she is slated for the National Varsity Team.

Oh, they listed Kayla’s National Team accomplishments as a 2010 All-Final Four selection and three-time USA Basketball gold medallist. Kayla has USA Basketball experience with the “Age Groups” teams, meaning she played on the U18, U19 Teams, and at the USA Basketball World University Games Team in July, 2009. She won gold medals all three times.

C and R fully expect to see Kayla on the big girl team someday.

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

Game Hangover

Hi, C here, and sorry to be so absent, but I was working with the little kiddies in the past two days and not near a computer. Besides, what more needs to be said about the Stanford Women’s Basketball team losing the National Title game to UConn that has not been said?

I was going to play good stat/bad stat, but it just depressed me too much. (You hold the number one team to 17% shooting and 12 first half points, they only have scored 31 points with 10 minutes left in the game, you think you are going to win….but no, you end up shooting 26 % for the game yourself and set a record for futility. What hurts the most about this is we lost the game, beat ourselves, a few more points and we win…but wait, I wasn't going to torture myself and the C and R fans still out there by reliving this game…)

Here, you can look up the good stats/bad stats yourself. Also, check out these records set or broken, courtesy of the Stanford Fast Break Club (wow, Nneka set the Stanford single season record for rebounds).

On to happier thoughts, stepping back from that April game, this truly was an amazing team and fun to watch, too. Both Kayla Pedersen and Nneka Ogwumike said this was their favorite team of all time. To make it to the championship game, to stay focused on the prize since October, to commit to that mission while taking challenging college coursework, that was very hard to do. The 2009-2010 Stanford Women’s Basketball team has our utmost respect and admiration.

Kayla Pedersen and Nneka Ogwumike did make the Final Four all-tournament team. Nneka also got invited to work out with Team USA under UConn coach Geno Auriemma. Jayne Appel was supposed to go, too, but now that it has been revealed that Jayne had a painful stress facture in her foot for about a month now, she is not going (not sure if that was Geno’s decision or Jayne’s).

Jayne Appel was drafted in the WNBA. She didn’t go second as predicted, which would have landed her in Minnesota with former Stanford player Candice Wiggins. She did go fifth to San Antonio. We can only wonder if her poor performance the last few weeks due to injury played a part in that. She will make about $49,000 a year. Maybe she can play two-three years and get enough money for law school and get on with the rest of her life. Jayne was a warrior with the injury and is putting a good face on where she ended up in the WNBA. C and R wish her nothing but the best.

Sorry this is so somber. Even the players were hard pressed to be cheerful when a number of fans showed up at the Stanford campus to welcome them back. One comment of note, head coach Tara VanDerveer said (the crowd today) was more than the fans in her first two years at Stanford. And isn’t that what it should be about? Supporting this incredible women’s sports team, no matter what their record?

Sigh. WNBA starts May 15th.

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

Stanford's Final Four Win

Stanford, after that scare with Xavier, did you have to make this one so close? This, of course, being the Stanford Women’s basketball team’s Final Four win over Oklahoma to advance to the National Championship game. We looked in large and in charge, thanks to Nneka Ogwumike’s fourteen first half points and nine rebounds. Stanford center Jayne Appel is still bothered by her sore ankle, and it hindered her movements around the basket on offense.

Then, in the second half Stanford bogged down. They missed their threes, making one, one out of fifteen tries! (And what was Nneka doing taking a three? And the box score says she took two three-point attempts). They missed their free throws, nine of them, which is very uncharacteristic of us (although Nneka went 12-13 from the line, tying a final four record for FTs made). And they let the two speedy Oklahoma guards slash in for points and left some shooters open for threes. And that let Oklahoma get within three with 46 seconds left. But Nneka to the rescue to lead Stanford to a 73-66 victory.

All though it Nneka kept shooting. She would score a career-high 38 points. However, she was 13 for 25 from the field. Her 38 points broke an NCAA record for a National Semifinal game, also second most in a final four (The first? None other then the 47 by Sheryl Swoopes of Texas Tech in the 1993 National Championship Game.). Nneka would score 24 in the second half, setting an NCAA record for most in a half in a National Semifinal game and tied for most in a half in a final four (tying the same said Sheryl Swoopes).

Yes, Nneka had a record performing night, including that soccer throw-in to Jayne Appel for the lay up, and that break away lay up fed by Kayla Pedersen’s baseball pass from the baseline with, what, 15 seconds left. But one could argue she didn’t get much help from her supporting cast. Jayne had 13 and Kayla had 12 points. Although Kayla does so many intangibles, including being the go to person when they pressure us. The rest of the team had 10 points, We will have to score more to beat our next opponent…

Scary moment when Nneka elevated in the air and the Oklahoma player started to box her out and stick her back side into her, not realizing Nneka was still elevating in the air. The Oklahoma players’s backside totally undercut her and Nneka went down face first to the hard wood. She landed mostly on her shoulder and face. She sat out a minute or two to ice her hip (?) but came back in to score more points. The refs looked at the tape to see if it was a flagrant undercutting. They correctly ruled it wasn’t, but that goes to show you women’s players don’t expect other players to elevate as much as Nneka does. Glad she was okay and C and R hope she will be ready for the National Title Game with the opponent who shall not be named.

And how ‘bout that officiating? As in it was horrible. So many hands hit while shooting and not called. Last game you so much as touched a person and got a foul called. Heck, Jayne’s fifth foul to put her out of the game, she rested her hands on another player’s back. Now, you could hit, hit, hit, and not get a call.

For those of you who saw the game on the TV, didn’t you love Ros, not once, but twice, admitting she was a total diva? (And C and R are sure that was Jeanette’s bucket o’ nail polish, not Ros’). And what about the fancy dressed young ladies who would whirlwind into basketball players? Kinda cute!

In the second game, Baylor faced off against UConn. When Baylor followed C’s plan and got it to Brittney Griner, they did well. But they didn’t do it often enough. Granted Baylor got within five in the second half before losing by 20. Okay, so C and R are totally impressed with UConn’s Maya Moore. She is something else. Okalahoma did not have an answer for Nneka Ogwumike tonight, but no one has an answer for Maya Moore on any night.

Stanford’s reward for winning the semifinal game is playing UConn.

More Stanford Stuff (but not UConn) at the original C and R's Stanford Women's Basketball Blog

THE Play!

Okay, now that C and R’s heart rate have gone back done and the adrenaline rush is finally starting to wear off over the Stanford Women’s Basketball Team’s Elite Eight win over Xavier, let’s review and analyze THE play, over and over and over again! (BTW, C's Wednesday Basketball group took turns reenacting the missed lay-ups and racing down the court in 4 seconds. And we are grown women. Everyone is still giddy!)

Yes, they did draw up that play in the timeout; mostly it was Stanford Associate Head Coach’s Amy Tucker’s plan. It was funny, in the timeout, C and R were thinking, don’t throw a long baseball pass like Notre Dame did when they needed a basket in the final seconds and threw it into a crowd and lost the ball without touching it. And Stanford Head Coach Tara VanDerveer thought the same thing, only a day earlier (great minds think alike, except Tara thinks much more quickly and at a higher level then C and R!). Tara had watched that game and asked her assistants what they would do in that situation, playing “what if,” like we all do, except we play, “what if we won the lottery?” (C and R’s answer: buy the Sacramento Monarchs and have them play at Santa Clara’s Levy Center). Anyhoo, in the Stanford coaches make-believe game, they decided they would give it to a fast guard, not knowing they would need this advice the next day. Isn’t that like Stanford, already having the answer without being yet asked the question? Chance favors a prepared mind, says Louis Pasteur. Fate is on their side, say C and R.

So, in that timeout with 4.4 seconds to go, Stanford coaches could afford to be calm and collected because they had thought of what to do already. (Nothing like turning to your coaches and saying, "What the tinkle bells do we do now?" with the look of a deer in the headlights to inspire confidence in your players). The assistant coaches kept telling Jeanette, “Four seconds is a long time.”

When the ball was inbounded, JJ Hones, an unsung hero on defense, set the screen to free Pohlen and she raced up the sidelines, always risky if you get trapped. In fact, Xavier’s Amber Harris was going to the sideline to do just that and stopped, unbelievably, letting Pohlen go right by her. She had four fouls and said she couldn’t risk fouling her. Stanford’s Nneka Ogumike even tried to set a screen for Pohlen and missed and... stopped at half court. Nneka said, “I was paralyzed just watching what was going to happen.”

As Jeanette was off to the races, C and R wondered where was everybody? Said Pohlen, "Everybody was behind me. Once I crossed half court, I think there was someone to my left and [Xavier forward] April [Phillips] was right there, and all I could do was really just go at her. I didn't really have anything else to do. I don't even think anyone from my team was even down there (they weren't, say C and R). So it wasn't even like I could dish it to somebody.”

As a coach, do you yell at everyone else from Stanford for standing around and watching or praise everyone for keeping their defender back and move on. C and R think in this case you say congratulations everybody and move on. Hopefully your team won’t play so poorly next time to be put in that situation where they need a last second basket.

Now for some awards:
Jayne Appel and Kayla Pedersen were named to the Sacramento Regional All-Tournament team. Stanford’s Nneka Ogwumike was named the regional’s “Most Outstanding Player.” Congrats, Jayne, Kayla and Nneka, our three trees.

The Associated Press named their All-American Teams today. Stanford did not have a player on the first team, which C and R find surprising. The first team was Maya Moore and UConn teammate Tina Charles (deservedly so), Nebraska's Kelsey Griffin, Virginia's Monica Wright and Ohio State's Jantel Lavender. Jayne and Nneka did make the second team. The second team consisted of Oklahoma State senior Andrea Riley, Stanford senior Jayne Appel and sophomore Nneka Ogwumike, Middle Tennessee State senior Alysha Clark and Baylor freshman Brittney Griner.

Ohio State’s Lavender better than Jayne or Nneka? Not from where C and R are sitting. And Jayne and Nneka are head and shoulders above Brittney Griner, in terms of over-all skills and a more complete game. Brittney is a shot blocking machine, but inconsistent in both her offense and defensive skills, often disappearing for long stretches of the game on both ends of the court. Although she is our last great hope to defeat UConn before Stanford has to meet them.

One announcer said UConn’s Tina Charles and Brittney Griner will cancel each other out and it will come down to the supporting cast, and UConn has the better supporting cast by far. More on BG later.