So, Stanford finally got around to actually hiring a coach.
Not, mind you, a coach with a day of head coaching experience, or one who is likely to be loyal to the school (not that I'm implying that blind loyalty is a virtue, but you know that if the guy is good, Duke's going to snag him when Krzyzewski retires), but a coach nonetheless. And for what it's worth, at least he's a total unknown rather than a known mediocrity like Doug Oliver. To slip into baseball prospect-speak, he's got the tools and he's got the upside-- he just doesn't have any kind of track record.
Unfortunately, the process took so long that the team's highest-rated recruit, Miles Plumlee, has asked out of his commitment to attend the school. I honestly can't blame him a bit. The team next year is unlikely to be a strong one. He'd be likely to see a lot of playing time, but that's about all that one can say on behalf of the '08-09 Cardinal. It's not impossible that Dawkins can talk him back, particularly because-- as a Duke assistant who undoubtedly ran into his brother Mason during Duke's recruitment of the latter-- he probably knows the guy and the family somewhat. As I joked to my dad, maybe he can get Coach K to give him a call and tell him to take the education. But it's no sure thing, and if he ends up going elsewhere, it will be a major loss and one that could very probably have been avoided.
Others have already done a better job than I ever could of critiquing this bestiality of a coaching process from the journalist's perspective. I encourage any of my, optimistically, two readers to check the link-- it's almost like reading The Decline and Fall of a Major Program. Despite a pretty solid record of success in the Johnson years, the program's prestige has collapsed to the level of a third-tier BCS program, where your choices in coaching hires (and, I fear, recruiting) are between raw guys with theoretical upside and known quantities with none. Bob Bowlsby, the Stanford Athletic Director, now gets to contend with the notions that the school is
a. cheap (not willing to pay market rates for a BCS school, not willing to extend Johnson and risk the possibility of having to buy him out, not willing to pay for an experienced coach) and
b. stupid (letting the Coach of the Year walk, having no apparent backup plan, not realizing that prevaricating would make recruits question their commitments).
So the program is facing a total rebuilding job in more ways than just on the court. The team's prestige has also vanished. I've never been one to complain about arrogance-- that would be part of the Lectures On Hypocrisy Series in my own case, I have to admit-- but when arrogance leads to decisions that don't make sense (like playing margin games with your coach and hoping he'll take it like a good boy) it turns into hubris. The Icarus-like flight path of the Stanford program over the past 5 months and change would be a fitting subject for any Greek tragedy, if it wasn't for the sizable amount of sheer incompetence involved (Daedalus, whatever his faults, was never accused of incompetence).
More on the Plumlee situation as soon as things shake out. I'll presage my upcoming preview (to be appearing around mid-June) of the forthcoming season by saying this: Where Stanford was a solid #3 in my "early hunch" thoughts, which assumed that both Robin Lopez and Miles Plumlee would be playing for the program, it's currently sitting at #8, and I think I might be overly homer-istic to even put it that high. 10 scholarship players? No height whatsoever? Lawrence Hill playing the 5?
Ugh. That's my take on the entire situation.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Johnson leaves Stanford for smelly swamp
...er, excuse me, bayou.
Link.
My initial shock at seeing this dissipated once I learned that the LSU job pays twice as much. That knowledge, however, begs the question: why does LSU pay twice as much?
Let's face it, LSU is not a basketball powerhouse. They did make a run to the Final Four two years ago, to be sure. But that was the first real sign of life in the program since the Shaq years, and even the Shaq teams were not particularly good at anything other than blocking shots (incidentally, Jarvis Varnado of Mississippi State somehow ended up exactly tied with Shaq for the single-season block record in the SEC, which must be a little frustrating since he didn't get credit for a single block after about the 6 minute mark of the first half of MSU's last game against Memphis and thus had about 26 minutes to break it-- and wow, did that tangent end up being longer than I expected). Stanford won 4 titles in a major conference during the last 10 years. I couldn't even tell you the last time LSU won a title.
So from a prestige standpoint, there's little question that Stanford is the superior job. And yet, it pays less. This is not logical from a market standpoint. High-prestige jobs should land high-value coaches, who should earn the best salaries and obtain the best returns in terms of ticket sales.
Of course, anyone who's read anything I've ever written about economics knows that I'm a frequent mocker of the "everyone is rational" school of economic theory. People act like idiots all the time, and right now it appears that one or both of Bob Bowlsby and Stanford's budgetary committee are idiots. If Bowlsby had the chance to extend Johnson at competitive rates and didn't, he's an idiot. If he wanted to and the committee wouldn't pony up, they're idiots. Johnson is a good coach who earned conference-wide recognition this season, and losing him to a literal backwater of college basketball (man, those Louisiana puns are flying thick and fast today) reflects really badly on Stanford as a program.
Now we enter the "rampant speculation" phase of things, so let me state from the outset which horse I'm backing: Mark Fox. As a former Johnson assistant, he helped recruit a lot of the players which were involved in Nevada's 2004-2007 run of tourney appearances. He's familiar with Johnson's style and offers a semblance of continuity. He's not particularly tied down in Nevada, as most of his best players are leaving. And he's, you know, good. His record has actually been better than Johnson's since he took over the program, although we all know that raw W/L record is oft-misleading in college hoops.
We'll see what happens. The new coach is going to have his hands full, that's for sure. He has to recruit 5 new players for 2009, rerecruit the incoming commits, and convince the current players not to transfer. That is one hell of a rebuilding job. The athletic department had better make a hire quickly, because there's a lot of work to be done.
Link.
My initial shock at seeing this dissipated once I learned that the LSU job pays twice as much. That knowledge, however, begs the question: why does LSU pay twice as much?
Let's face it, LSU is not a basketball powerhouse. They did make a run to the Final Four two years ago, to be sure. But that was the first real sign of life in the program since the Shaq years, and even the Shaq teams were not particularly good at anything other than blocking shots (incidentally, Jarvis Varnado of Mississippi State somehow ended up exactly tied with Shaq for the single-season block record in the SEC, which must be a little frustrating since he didn't get credit for a single block after about the 6 minute mark of the first half of MSU's last game against Memphis and thus had about 26 minutes to break it-- and wow, did that tangent end up being longer than I expected). Stanford won 4 titles in a major conference during the last 10 years. I couldn't even tell you the last time LSU won a title.
So from a prestige standpoint, there's little question that Stanford is the superior job. And yet, it pays less. This is not logical from a market standpoint. High-prestige jobs should land high-value coaches, who should earn the best salaries and obtain the best returns in terms of ticket sales.
Of course, anyone who's read anything I've ever written about economics knows that I'm a frequent mocker of the "everyone is rational" school of economic theory. People act like idiots all the time, and right now it appears that one or both of Bob Bowlsby and Stanford's budgetary committee are idiots. If Bowlsby had the chance to extend Johnson at competitive rates and didn't, he's an idiot. If he wanted to and the committee wouldn't pony up, they're idiots. Johnson is a good coach who earned conference-wide recognition this season, and losing him to a literal backwater of college basketball (man, those Louisiana puns are flying thick and fast today) reflects really badly on Stanford as a program.
Now we enter the "rampant speculation" phase of things, so let me state from the outset which horse I'm backing: Mark Fox. As a former Johnson assistant, he helped recruit a lot of the players which were involved in Nevada's 2004-2007 run of tourney appearances. He's familiar with Johnson's style and offers a semblance of continuity. He's not particularly tied down in Nevada, as most of his best players are leaving. And he's, you know, good. His record has actually been better than Johnson's since he took over the program, although we all know that raw W/L record is oft-misleading in college hoops.
We'll see what happens. The new coach is going to have his hands full, that's for sure. He has to recruit 5 new players for 2009, rerecruit the incoming commits, and convince the current players not to transfer. That is one hell of a rebuilding job. The athletic department had better make a hire quickly, because there's a lot of work to be done.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Man, that was quick
Friday morning, I'm writing confidently about the Cardinal's chances to win against Texas.
Monday evening, or about 80 hours later if you're keeping score, the Trees have been embarrassed by Texas, which was in turn embarrassed by Memphis, and the season is over. Oh, and the best two players, not to mention collectively over half the team's offense, are skipping town.
That, friends, is a crummy weekend.
Although my disciplined failure to pick Stanford over Texas in that game might end up earning me the big bucks in the office pool if Kansas wins the whole thing. I actually aced that region, which is nice since I blew five picks in each of the other three, for a solidly mediocre 75% prediction rate. From this point on, I promise that I will not refer to anything office-pool-related until next spring, because rule #1 of office pools is that absolutely no one but you cares about your success or failure in them.
Looking back at the Texas game, I'm wondering where my analysis broke down. I'm not sure it did, other than that Texas shot a whole lot better than Stanford did. The Cardinal were, trying to remember here, something like 10 of 55 on the game on jump shots, which is utterly horrific. Virtually all of their points came on layups and tip-ins. Good teams simply won't give you enough of those to win a game in which you give up more than about 50 points (I include the caveat so as not to be disproven by the UCLA-Texas A&M game from last weekend).
One thing I definitely remember-- both teams had an identical number of shots from the field. Texas made 10 more of them. That's really bad, particularly when you consider that Texas is not a particularly hot-shooting team in its own right. For one night, anyway, Stanford was just ice cold. Brook Lopez tried to carry the team, but he fatigued down the stretch under the pressure of designated fatso Dexter Pittman, and no one, his brother included (Robin was a -20 in points for this game when he was on the floor) picked him up.
Now comes the news that Robin Lopez is declaring for the NBA along with his brother. The loss of Brook was as much of a lock as anything in college ball, so I can't really be despondent about it, but I feel like Robin is making a mistake here. His stats for this year are significantly depressed by the fact that Brook played so many minutes and took up such a high percentage of the team's offense. His offensive rating was actually not much lower than his brother's, although ratings do tend to go down with greater possession usage, so take that with a grain of salt.
But imagine the kinds of numbers he could put up playing 30 minutes a game as the primary inside scorer, rebounder and shot-blocker. Probably not equal to Brook's this year on the offensive end, but it's hardly a stretch to envision 15 points, 10 boards and 4 blocks a game from Robin at this level, and those are absolutely lottery-pick numbers from a 7-footer who's only 21. As it is, his much less impressive stat line from this season will not impress NBA GMs, most of whom probably have not absorbed the full range of analysis that Mssrs. Pomeroy et al have developed over the last couple of years. To be sure, he had a good NCAA tournament (and looked good on semi-national TV) and can still impress people in workouts (and he will), but I don't see him rising higher than a late first-round pick... although that does create the odd potential scenario of both him and Brook being drafted by the same height-challenged lottery team. Perhaps that's the notion they have, but I don't think it's terribly likely.
In any event, I suspect that by declaring early, he's cost himself somewhere around $3-4 million in guaranteed money when all is said and done (obviously a rough estimate, and we'll see how much it turns out to be when the draft actually rolls around). He can still play his way into the NBA-- but it's a lot easier for him to play his way out of it.
I watched the Stanford women's game tonight, which was pretty fun-- they were insanely hot shooting the ball (what, 67 percent from 3?), and Candace Wiggins, who I've decided is pretty much the most awesome athlete ever, dropped 41 points on a very good Maryland team. The team as a whole scored 98, which is near-ridiculous for a high-level women's game (for perspective, the other regional today was 56-50). It's going to take a near-repeat effort AND better defense to beat UConn, which already beat the Stanford women on a neutral court earlier in the year. So, uh, go Rutgers, I guess.
Still, it's nice to see her break through to the Final Four. She deserves the chance to be honored on that kind of stage. I might post a wrap of that game once it's over, or perhaps a mixed Final Four Saturday/Stanford women wrapup on Sunday. I'd better write as much as I can in the next 8 days, because after that it's a prolonged college hoops wasteland until next fall (and given how the roster looks right now, probably more like fall of 2009... although perhaps that's a good thing considering that I'll be in law school next fall and probably pretty busy). We'll see whether the muse takes me.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Breaking Down the Horns
Let's go position by position to analyze this matchup.
PG: D.J. Augustin-- Alright, if you care at all about college basketball, you know who this guy is. Close to 20 points a game, deadly range, and great passing ability. An underrated part of his game, and of Texas's game in general, is that on offense they virtually never turn the ball over. (This is actually true in reverse for them defensively-- they don't turn people over much. I'd expect a pretty clean game tonight.) He's not an excessively efficient scorer (1.34 points per shot) but Texas's strong offensive rebounding game helps this out somewhat. He's unquestionably a great assist man-- 5.8 assists a game. Texas clearly has the edge here matchup-wise, and I'd expect to see Anthony Goods given Augustin as a defensive assignment.
SG: A.J. Abrams-- For a guy with as pure a stroke as this guy, you would expect him to post better than 1.20 points per shot. That's efficient enough, I guess, but it doesn't really seem to warrant the hype around him. He's not a slasher (60% of his field goal attempts are 3s) which will make him much easier for Stanford to defend than Jerel McNeal. Still, they can't give him open looks. This position is an edge for Texas, but not as much of one as one might think. Johnson, who lacks quickness but is otherwise a good defender, will probably man up with him.
SF/Wing: Damion James-- Justin Mason typically plays most of the minutes as the #3 guard. I don't think he'll be seeing a lot of action today, though, because Texas will have to put bigs on the floor to stop the Lopez twins. James is a dynamic rebounder, averaging a double-double. He's also a knockdown 3-point threat, making it the more odd that he can't shoot free throws. He's just 56% on the season. At 6-7, he'll have a height edge over Fred Washington, meaning that Fred's goal will be to push him to the perimeter rather than allow him to post up and collect misses. Definite edge to Texas here.
PF: Connor Atchley-- A guy who kind of came out of nowhere this year, Atchley is an efficient big who doesn't score or rebound a ton (9 points, 5 rebounds a game) but avoids turning the ball over. He's an excellent spot-up jump shooter, so he can probably pull one Lopez out of the paint if Augustin needs to drive the ball. Nonetheless, he doesn't have remotely close to Brook Lopez's scoring power and ability to take over the game. Huge edge for Stanford here.
C: By committee-- A group of guys including the big, big, big Dexter Pittman, the lanky but undersized Alexis Wangmene, and Gary Johnson (OK, some of these are not literally going to be playing the 5, but it's the best way to conceptualize the group). It's hard to characterize this bunch-- let's just say that they combine for about 10 points and 8 rebounds, which is decent, but are undersized. Big edge to Robin Lopez, who's developed his offensive game to go along with what should be a major defensive edge at this position.
Overall I actually like this game better from a matchup standpoint for Stanford than I did Marquette. Texas plays a lot of zone defense and doesn't force turnovers, meaning that Stanford should be able to get post entries to the Lopezes and rack up offensive rebounds, not to mention move the ball on the perimeter so that they can get open shots there. Texas is good at challenging shots but not particularly great at other aspects of defense, and since Stanford can't shoot anyway, their offense may not be overly affected by this.
On the defensive end, Texas has a lot more spot-up shooting than Marquette does-- Augustin is a great guard in all respects, of course, but Abrams is an outside guy and Justin Mason, their usual third guard, probably won't play as much as usual due to matchup issues. Atchley is hugely outclassed athletically by the Lopezes, so most of their frontcourt production is going to have to come from James. Overall I think the smaller number of threats enables Stanford to create pseudo-double teams (a guard and a Lopez) on inside shots without as much fear of Texas exploiting a mismatch somewhere else. Texas is not an up-tempo team, which really plays into Stanford's hands-- while not as slow as Stanford, Texas was below average in possessions per game this year.
However, let's not kid ourselves. Texas is a very good team and they're playing a semi-home game. The latter, plus the generally higher quality of Texas's players, certainly makes this game no easier to win than the Marquette game and probably a bit harder. Stanford is the underdog here, but not by as much, perhaps, as one might think.
Pac-10 note: Washington State fell yesterday; they were simply outclassed by North Carolina's scoring ability. I'd like to recognize just how good their senior class was this year. That program had nothing-- but nothing-- when Low, Weaver and Cowgill showed up. Their steady improvement and the great coaching of the Bennetts turned that program completely around. My hat is off to them.
PG: D.J. Augustin-- Alright, if you care at all about college basketball, you know who this guy is. Close to 20 points a game, deadly range, and great passing ability. An underrated part of his game, and of Texas's game in general, is that on offense they virtually never turn the ball over. (This is actually true in reverse for them defensively-- they don't turn people over much. I'd expect a pretty clean game tonight.) He's not an excessively efficient scorer (1.34 points per shot) but Texas's strong offensive rebounding game helps this out somewhat. He's unquestionably a great assist man-- 5.8 assists a game. Texas clearly has the edge here matchup-wise, and I'd expect to see Anthony Goods given Augustin as a defensive assignment.
SG: A.J. Abrams-- For a guy with as pure a stroke as this guy, you would expect him to post better than 1.20 points per shot. That's efficient enough, I guess, but it doesn't really seem to warrant the hype around him. He's not a slasher (60% of his field goal attempts are 3s) which will make him much easier for Stanford to defend than Jerel McNeal. Still, they can't give him open looks. This position is an edge for Texas, but not as much of one as one might think. Johnson, who lacks quickness but is otherwise a good defender, will probably man up with him.
SF/Wing: Damion James-- Justin Mason typically plays most of the minutes as the #3 guard. I don't think he'll be seeing a lot of action today, though, because Texas will have to put bigs on the floor to stop the Lopez twins. James is a dynamic rebounder, averaging a double-double. He's also a knockdown 3-point threat, making it the more odd that he can't shoot free throws. He's just 56% on the season. At 6-7, he'll have a height edge over Fred Washington, meaning that Fred's goal will be to push him to the perimeter rather than allow him to post up and collect misses. Definite edge to Texas here.
PF: Connor Atchley-- A guy who kind of came out of nowhere this year, Atchley is an efficient big who doesn't score or rebound a ton (9 points, 5 rebounds a game) but avoids turning the ball over. He's an excellent spot-up jump shooter, so he can probably pull one Lopez out of the paint if Augustin needs to drive the ball. Nonetheless, he doesn't have remotely close to Brook Lopez's scoring power and ability to take over the game. Huge edge for Stanford here.
C: By committee-- A group of guys including the big, big, big Dexter Pittman, the lanky but undersized Alexis Wangmene, and Gary Johnson (OK, some of these are not literally going to be playing the 5, but it's the best way to conceptualize the group). It's hard to characterize this bunch-- let's just say that they combine for about 10 points and 8 rebounds, which is decent, but are undersized. Big edge to Robin Lopez, who's developed his offensive game to go along with what should be a major defensive edge at this position.
Overall I actually like this game better from a matchup standpoint for Stanford than I did Marquette. Texas plays a lot of zone defense and doesn't force turnovers, meaning that Stanford should be able to get post entries to the Lopezes and rack up offensive rebounds, not to mention move the ball on the perimeter so that they can get open shots there. Texas is good at challenging shots but not particularly great at other aspects of defense, and since Stanford can't shoot anyway, their offense may not be overly affected by this.
On the defensive end, Texas has a lot more spot-up shooting than Marquette does-- Augustin is a great guard in all respects, of course, but Abrams is an outside guy and Justin Mason, their usual third guard, probably won't play as much as usual due to matchup issues. Atchley is hugely outclassed athletically by the Lopezes, so most of their frontcourt production is going to have to come from James. Overall I think the smaller number of threats enables Stanford to create pseudo-double teams (a guard and a Lopez) on inside shots without as much fear of Texas exploiting a mismatch somewhere else. Texas is not an up-tempo team, which really plays into Stanford's hands-- while not as slow as Stanford, Texas was below average in possessions per game this year.
However, let's not kid ourselves. Texas is a very good team and they're playing a semi-home game. The latter, plus the generally higher quality of Texas's players, certainly makes this game no easier to win than the Marquette game and probably a bit harder. Stanford is the underdog here, but not by as much, perhaps, as one might think.
Pac-10 note: Washington State fell yesterday; they were simply outclassed by North Carolina's scoring ability. I'd like to recognize just how good their senior class was this year. That program had nothing-- but nothing-- when Low, Weaver and Cowgill showed up. Their steady improvement and the great coaching of the Bennetts turned that program completely around. My hat is off to them.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Match Point
Meaning:
1. The final point in a tennis, volleyball, or other volley sport which, if won by the leading side, will result in a victory for that side,
2. A somewhat clever and ironically appropriate Woody Allen film which includes Scarlett Johannsen (who I still cannot believe is not at least 30 years old by now, and no, that's not a comment on her looks, obviously) and several musings on the role of luck in human affairs, viewed by the author a week or so ago,
3. The new Official March Madness Certified Greatest Shot in Stanford History (eclipsing the absurd Nick Robinson runner to beat Arizona and keep the unbeaten season alive in February 2004).
Stanford 82, Marquette 81 (OT)
I don't know how much more there is to say about the game. Obviously, I was both right (that these teams were a razor's edge apart talent-wise) and wrong (in thinking mid-game that the game would fall on the other side of said razor's edge). Perhaps if I keep at the writing thing long enough, I can learn to contain my neuroses a bit better-- or perhaps not; it may be unavoidable. I still have no idea whatsoever who would win a seven game series between the two teams. I do know that there's no possible way such a series could have been this gut-wrenching, thrilling and historic unless it went to game seven, which is why March Madness is unbelievably awesome and the NBA playoffs, frankly, suck.
I'm sure there will be more pseudo-mystical musings on the nature of luck and its long-term effects once the season is over, but right now there are still more games to play. I'll be back in the next day or two with a full breakdown of Texas and a matchup analysis. My first glance take is that Texas may actually be a better matchup, because they're more dependent on stationary shooters than penetrators, and because their depth sucks, particularly in the frontcourt. Augustin is still a huge problem, though.
Incidentally, the Pomeroy Ratings see this game as a literal coin flip-- 50% for each team. It's going to be mighty fun, and unlike the agonizing runup to last Saturday, at this point the Cardinal are playing with house money-- they've gotten over the second-round hump, they've gotten as far as their seed indicates they ought to and they're playing a higher-seeded opponent. There's nothing to lose-- and no talking head can ever take away the glorious reality of Saturday's finish.
1. The final point in a tennis, volleyball, or other volley sport which, if won by the leading side, will result in a victory for that side,
2. A somewhat clever and ironically appropriate Woody Allen film which includes Scarlett Johannsen (who I still cannot believe is not at least 30 years old by now, and no, that's not a comment on her looks, obviously) and several musings on the role of luck in human affairs, viewed by the author a week or so ago,
3. The new Official March Madness Certified Greatest Shot in Stanford History (eclipsing the absurd Nick Robinson runner to beat Arizona and keep the unbeaten season alive in February 2004).
Stanford 82, Marquette 81 (OT)
I don't know how much more there is to say about the game. Obviously, I was both right (that these teams were a razor's edge apart talent-wise) and wrong (in thinking mid-game that the game would fall on the other side of said razor's edge). Perhaps if I keep at the writing thing long enough, I can learn to contain my neuroses a bit better-- or perhaps not; it may be unavoidable. I still have no idea whatsoever who would win a seven game series between the two teams. I do know that there's no possible way such a series could have been this gut-wrenching, thrilling and historic unless it went to game seven, which is why March Madness is unbelievably awesome and the NBA playoffs, frankly, suck.
I'm sure there will be more pseudo-mystical musings on the nature of luck and its long-term effects once the season is over, but right now there are still more games to play. I'll be back in the next day or two with a full breakdown of Texas and a matchup analysis. My first glance take is that Texas may actually be a better matchup, because they're more dependent on stationary shooters than penetrators, and because their depth sucks, particularly in the frontcourt. Augustin is still a huge problem, though.
Incidentally, the Pomeroy Ratings see this game as a literal coin flip-- 50% for each team. It's going to be mighty fun, and unlike the agonizing runup to last Saturday, at this point the Cardinal are playing with house money-- they've gotten over the second-round hump, they've gotten as far as their seed indicates they ought to and they're playing a higher-seeded opponent. There's nothing to lose-- and no talking head can ever take away the glorious reality of Saturday's finish.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
What was that about the nightmare scenario again?
Halftime, Marquette up by 6 points. Stanford can't hit outside shots (Anthony Goods had, I think, one point in the half), Brook Lopez is in foul trouble, and the defense has completely fallen apart over the last 10 minutes or so, as Marquette scores at will on penetration and kickouts.
Oh, and Trent Johnson, who had been changing up defenses on the fly to try to keep Marquette contained, just got tossed from the game on consecutive technicals (following, I might add, a truly atrocious call in which a Marquette player who tripped trying to split a double team inexplicably received a foul against Lawrence Hill). This handed Marquette four points, by the way, and they promptly proceeded to reel off a bunch more before Stanford finally got things under control to end the half down only six.
This is one of those "Cassandra moments" where you predict the worst, no one else apparently seems to notice, and then it happens exactly like you expected it to. At least it will probably all be over in an hour. Unfortunately, so will the college career of Brook Lopez, and quite possibly that of his brother as well. What a shitty way to go out.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Feel free to panic now
Yes, the nightmare scenario for Cardinal fans has come to pass-- despite getting a 3-seed in the Tournament, the team is matched up in the second round with an opponent which is a. guard-dominated, creating a mismatch (upsets happen far more in mismatches than in situations where teams play similar styles), b. faster and press-happy (we saw how well that worked out last season), and c. severely underseeded (Marquette ranks 12th in the Pomeroy rankings at last count).
Stanford 77, Cornell 53
Some quick thoughts on this game before I move on to the real heart of the matter, the Marquette breakdown/panic attack:
Ivy League quick is nothing like Pac-10 quick. Stanford's players were sticking like glue to virtually every Cornell player, with the result that until the scrubs came in at about the 30-minute mark, Cornell barely got off an open shot of any kind. Louis Dale, the Ivy League player of the year, went approximately 0-for-50 in the first half, and their other shooters weren't doing a heck of a lot better.
If Stanford can bottle some of their outside shooting from this game and sprinkle it over the court before Saturday's throwdown, they should win easily. It's been a while since the team looked like a genuinely good shooting club from beyond about 10 feet, but all three of the major outside threats (Anthony Goods, Landry Fields, and Kenny Brown) knocked down a couple of 3s.
The team continues to suffer some rebounding lapses at times on the defensive end, which I find kind of inexplicable. For the first, eh, 10 minutes or so, Cornell was hanging around on the glass. Eventually the team exerted themselves, but given how well Marquette rebounded against Kentucky, they're going to need to avoid lapses like that or risk finding themselves on the short end of scoring runs. Both of the last two losses (UCLA in the Pac-10 tourney, USC the week before) were at least partly the result of being severely outworked in rebounding by smaller teams.
Now, the panic-mongering:
Granted, Stanford has played and beaten guard-happy pressing teams before, but none of this caliber. Dominic James is healthy and looks as explosive as ever, on top of which he's shooting well from outside. Jerel McNeal is like a sped-up arcade version of Louis Dale, the guy Stanford disposed of yesterday. And while none of their players is very tall, they have some Joevan Catron-type long-armed guys to at least confuse the issue on the glass and allow for gang-rebounding.
The keys to the game are very simple-- shoot well, avoid turnovers against what will inevitably be a strong press, and find a way to stop guard penetration. These are the three things that this Stanford team, otherwise an extremely strong squad, is the absolute worst at doing. They'll get some easy buckets for the Lopez twins, but I'm not even sure they're going to be able to put both of them on the floor at once. Perhaps a station-to-station approach could beat the press, using the Lopezes as "bases" for the smaller guys to work around to move the ball upcourt? As far as I know, this has never really been tried.
In the halfcourt defense, I think the team is going to have to use a zone. It sucks that Marquette is going to get open 3s off of it, but the alternative-- tons of layups and fouls on the Lopez twins-- is that much worse.
Let me put this in as blunt of terms as possible. I think Marquette is the favorite in this game. Not by a huge amount, mind you-- it's basically a coin flip. But the favorite nonetheless. It's hard to believe that Stanford could have the bad luck to be paired with what's not only the most underseeded team in the entire tournament, but also a stylistic nightmare. Then again, bad luck-- in one form or another-- is pretty much the story of the NCAA tournament for Stanford since the last Elite 8 run in 2001. It's going to take real skill to play around this. Let's hope the Cards exhibit it, because I don't think I can bear to see another round of we-told-you-so finger-wagging from self-righteous media types who don't bother to look under the surface and realize that Marquette is, you know, actually frigging good at basketball.
Stanford 77, Cornell 53
Some quick thoughts on this game before I move on to the real heart of the matter, the Marquette breakdown/panic attack:
Ivy League quick is nothing like Pac-10 quick. Stanford's players were sticking like glue to virtually every Cornell player, with the result that until the scrubs came in at about the 30-minute mark, Cornell barely got off an open shot of any kind. Louis Dale, the Ivy League player of the year, went approximately 0-for-50 in the first half, and their other shooters weren't doing a heck of a lot better.
If Stanford can bottle some of their outside shooting from this game and sprinkle it over the court before Saturday's throwdown, they should win easily. It's been a while since the team looked like a genuinely good shooting club from beyond about 10 feet, but all three of the major outside threats (Anthony Goods, Landry Fields, and Kenny Brown) knocked down a couple of 3s.
The team continues to suffer some rebounding lapses at times on the defensive end, which I find kind of inexplicable. For the first, eh, 10 minutes or so, Cornell was hanging around on the glass. Eventually the team exerted themselves, but given how well Marquette rebounded against Kentucky, they're going to need to avoid lapses like that or risk finding themselves on the short end of scoring runs. Both of the last two losses (UCLA in the Pac-10 tourney, USC the week before) were at least partly the result of being severely outworked in rebounding by smaller teams.
Now, the panic-mongering:
Granted, Stanford has played and beaten guard-happy pressing teams before, but none of this caliber. Dominic James is healthy and looks as explosive as ever, on top of which he's shooting well from outside. Jerel McNeal is like a sped-up arcade version of Louis Dale, the guy Stanford disposed of yesterday. And while none of their players is very tall, they have some Joevan Catron-type long-armed guys to at least confuse the issue on the glass and allow for gang-rebounding.
The keys to the game are very simple-- shoot well, avoid turnovers against what will inevitably be a strong press, and find a way to stop guard penetration. These are the three things that this Stanford team, otherwise an extremely strong squad, is the absolute worst at doing. They'll get some easy buckets for the Lopez twins, but I'm not even sure they're going to be able to put both of them on the floor at once. Perhaps a station-to-station approach could beat the press, using the Lopezes as "bases" for the smaller guys to work around to move the ball upcourt? As far as I know, this has never really been tried.
In the halfcourt defense, I think the team is going to have to use a zone. It sucks that Marquette is going to get open 3s off of it, but the alternative-- tons of layups and fouls on the Lopez twins-- is that much worse.
Let me put this in as blunt of terms as possible. I think Marquette is the favorite in this game. Not by a huge amount, mind you-- it's basically a coin flip. But the favorite nonetheless. It's hard to believe that Stanford could have the bad luck to be paired with what's not only the most underseeded team in the entire tournament, but also a stylistic nightmare. Then again, bad luck-- in one form or another-- is pretty much the story of the NCAA tournament for Stanford since the last Elite 8 run in 2001. It's going to take real skill to play around this. Let's hope the Cards exhibit it, because I don't think I can bear to see another round of we-told-you-so finger-wagging from self-righteous media types who don't bother to look under the surface and realize that Marquette is, you know, actually frigging good at basketball.
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