Stanford 84, Sacramento State 58
Since Sacramento State figures to be one of the very worst teams in all of Division I basketball, this is not a surprise. I don't normally look at these things, but if I had to guess I'd figure Stanford didn't even cover the spread.
Only one more game (and two weeks off and an inexplicable midseason exhibition scrimmage, in which I fervently hope no starters will play, because my innate pessimism tells me that if they do, someone will end up injured) worth of wandering in the wilderness before the team actually starts playing interesting opponents on TV channels that someone other than Dan Marino subscribes to.
In the meantime, let me observe that Ryan Anderson is a Norse demigod. I can't believe how little pub this guy is getting in the mainstream media. He was better-- not "the same," mind you, better, than Chase Budinger last season. (Why? Similar counting stats, but fewer possessions because Cal's injury-riddled team had to play at a glacial pace.) Apparently he's decided that being the best freshman in a loaded class in the Pac-10 was not sufficient, because he's now averaging 24 points and 10 rebounds a game this season.
I guess college players don't have press secretaries, but Anderson could sure use one.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Self-Scheduling Day
At my high school, it was a privilege. In major conference college basketball, it's a right-- maybe even a weapon.
Stanford 73, Colorado State 53
One of the things that I find continually irritating about college sports is the number of noncompetitive games that fans have to wade through in order to get to the gems. Let's face it-- we really don't need a game to tell us that Stanford is better than Colorado State, or that Washington State is in a slightly higher class than Mississippi Valley State.
This is, I will freely admit, more of an issue in football than basketball. In football, eligibility for bowl games (and the program-sustaining revenues thereof) is explicitly linked to number of victories, with no reference paid to strength of schedule. And thanks to the way the polls work (basically, the only motivating factor in the polls is losses-- once you're in the top 10, even if you beat the #1 team, you're unlikely to move upward unless someone else loses) there's basically a loss quota for the BCS (2 losses) and the national title game (1 loss). Your strength of schedule is theoretically factored into some of the various computer formulas which comprise 1/3 of the BCS ranking system, and even more theoretically factored into the minds of the various cranks and coaching subalterns who comprise the poll respondants, but in practice it's almost always better to not lose than to win a big game (but risk losing it).
So we see a ton of crap like Michigan State scheduling Appalachian State. Granted, it's wonderful that App State was able to pull off a huge upset. But the excitement of that game was created by the non-excitement of all the various blowouts of lousy 1-AA teams over the last 10 years or so, in exactly the same manner as the individually stupid decisions by millions of people to buy Super Lotto tickets eventually create a huge jackpot.
Basketball is a different kettle of fish. In part, this is because teams are selected for the championship tournament by a group of people who mostly know what they're doing (unlike the college polls, which are just as screwy and stupid as the football polls), and in part it's because teams play enough games that at some point, you kind of have to play someone good or no one will ever notice you exist. And best of all, basketball is a lot more prone to upsets than football, at least in the context of a single game. You'll get a number of Siena-over-Stanford results in any given week. Unfortunately, it's still not immune to the cupcake phenomenon.
This year, we see a lot of Pac-10 teams playing extremely soft non-conference schedules. There's a really simple explanation for this: everyone expects the conference to be brutally difficult. The best teams in-league are likely to limp out with 4 or 5 losses, which is already around the lower bound for a #1 seed. Most teams will not come out of conference play with more than 10 wins. To even reach the 20 wins which are traditionally a benchmark for reaching the Tourney, you need to win 10 out of 11 or 12 non-conference games (13 for lucky duckies Washington and UCLA).
This naturally leads to a lot of cupcakes scheduled, which is a frank shame. Tonight's Arizona-Kansas game was excellent. I respect Lute Olsen for choosing not to dilute his team's schedule with too many Northern Colorados and UC Davises. But I think it hurts his team. Oftentimes good Arizona teams come out of the season with 18 or 19 wins and get poor seeds in the NCAA tournament despite playing a tougher schedule than any other major conference team. The committee is only human. They can't help but be affected by the number in the Wins column to a greater degree than any other number.
As long as you have a certain quota of "tough games" and potential "statement wins," a quota which has basically been filled by the Pac-10 conference this season simply by virtue of existing, there's not much advantage to scheduling more of them.
I've got a bunch more to say on scheduling, but the rest of it has to do with the RPI, which will probably take up another one of these "vaguely topical essay" posts. There's just not much to be said about the actual game here-- Stanford played well, Anthony Goods broke out of his shooting slump to post another solid game, the team took care of the ball well, and the game wasn't on TV.
Next up... more of the same, as the Cardinal takes on bottom-feeder Sacramento State Tuesday in an untelevised game.
Stanford 73, Colorado State 53
One of the things that I find continually irritating about college sports is the number of noncompetitive games that fans have to wade through in order to get to the gems. Let's face it-- we really don't need a game to tell us that Stanford is better than Colorado State, or that Washington State is in a slightly higher class than Mississippi Valley State.
This is, I will freely admit, more of an issue in football than basketball. In football, eligibility for bowl games (and the program-sustaining revenues thereof) is explicitly linked to number of victories, with no reference paid to strength of schedule. And thanks to the way the polls work (basically, the only motivating factor in the polls is losses-- once you're in the top 10, even if you beat the #1 team, you're unlikely to move upward unless someone else loses) there's basically a loss quota for the BCS (2 losses) and the national title game (1 loss). Your strength of schedule is theoretically factored into some of the various computer formulas which comprise 1/3 of the BCS ranking system, and even more theoretically factored into the minds of the various cranks and coaching subalterns who comprise the poll respondants, but in practice it's almost always better to not lose than to win a big game (but risk losing it).
So we see a ton of crap like Michigan State scheduling Appalachian State. Granted, it's wonderful that App State was able to pull off a huge upset. But the excitement of that game was created by the non-excitement of all the various blowouts of lousy 1-AA teams over the last 10 years or so, in exactly the same manner as the individually stupid decisions by millions of people to buy Super Lotto tickets eventually create a huge jackpot.
Basketball is a different kettle of fish. In part, this is because teams are selected for the championship tournament by a group of people who mostly know what they're doing (unlike the college polls, which are just as screwy and stupid as the football polls), and in part it's because teams play enough games that at some point, you kind of have to play someone good or no one will ever notice you exist. And best of all, basketball is a lot more prone to upsets than football, at least in the context of a single game. You'll get a number of Siena-over-Stanford results in any given week. Unfortunately, it's still not immune to the cupcake phenomenon.
This year, we see a lot of Pac-10 teams playing extremely soft non-conference schedules. There's a really simple explanation for this: everyone expects the conference to be brutally difficult. The best teams in-league are likely to limp out with 4 or 5 losses, which is already around the lower bound for a #1 seed. Most teams will not come out of conference play with more than 10 wins. To even reach the 20 wins which are traditionally a benchmark for reaching the Tourney, you need to win 10 out of 11 or 12 non-conference games (13 for lucky duckies Washington and UCLA).
This naturally leads to a lot of cupcakes scheduled, which is a frank shame. Tonight's Arizona-Kansas game was excellent. I respect Lute Olsen for choosing not to dilute his team's schedule with too many Northern Colorados and UC Davises. But I think it hurts his team. Oftentimes good Arizona teams come out of the season with 18 or 19 wins and get poor seeds in the NCAA tournament despite playing a tougher schedule than any other major conference team. The committee is only human. They can't help but be affected by the number in the Wins column to a greater degree than any other number.
As long as you have a certain quota of "tough games" and potential "statement wins," a quota which has basically been filled by the Pac-10 conference this season simply by virtue of existing, there's not much advantage to scheduling more of them.
I've got a bunch more to say on scheduling, but the rest of it has to do with the RPI, which will probably take up another one of these "vaguely topical essay" posts. There's just not much to be said about the actual game here-- Stanford played well, Anthony Goods broke out of his shooting slump to post another solid game, the team took care of the ball well, and the game wasn't on TV.
Next up... more of the same, as the Cardinal takes on bottom-feeder Sacramento State Tuesday in an untelevised game.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Loud, Annoying Beeps
I'm assuming everyone's familiar with the noises that large vehicles make when backing up.
Although in Japan, many vehicles might actually say "vehicle is backing up" when backing up. I certainly recall the buses there had computerized voices which would say "the bus is turning right," or whatever happened to be appropriate. It was one of many weird aspects to the whole robotics culture over there.
One thing you may find, reading what I write, is frequent asides which are basically irrelevant to the main thrust of an issue. I'm a very stream-of-consciousness guy.
Backups
Landry Fields
17.6 pts/40; 8.8 rebs/40; 10/21 2ptFG, 10/25 3ptFG, adjusted shooting pct .543
Fields is a sophomore guard who has a reputation as an extremely streaky shooter. He can hit from outside, but the Cardinal need to limit his 2-point attempts. He's not terribly fast or great as a penetrator. His role is as a spot-up shooter. A poor assist to turnover ratio suggests he's not the best choice as a backup point guard. He's still a developing talent, and the team needs him as a third option from distance along with Goods and Hill.
Drew Shiller
22.5 pts/40; 1.83 rebs/40; 3/6 2ptFG, 10/17 3ptFG, adjusted shooting pct .782
Shiller transferred from San Francisco to Stanford and sat out last season as a result of NCAA rules. Looking at the above, it's not hard to tell why the Cardinal wanted him. A .782 adjusted shooting pct is insane, and obviously unsustainable, but he looks like a guy who's capable of making 40% of his three-point attempts. He has limited ability to penetrate, so he'll work best off of high screens from a Lopez or two to get free for three-point tries. He's also an exceptional free-throw shooter (he's made 28 out of 31 in his college career) which is an unheralded asset for teams trying to finish in close games.
Kenny Brown
23.2 pts/40; 6.3 rebs/40; 3/6 2ptFG, 7/15 3ptFG, adjusted shooting pct .642
Brown's "one shining moment" came in the infamous Chicken Soup Fiasco game last season against Arizona. Half of the team became ill with food poisoning as a result of a pregame meal, forcing Brown, Landry Fields and several other backups to play most of a game which was key to the Cardinal's tournament hopes. In the end the team lost, but not before erasing a huge deficit and forcing overtime. Brown's 22 points in that game were only exceeded, in the category of "astounding statistical outbursts," by Ivan Radenovic's 36 for Arizona.
In any event, the walk-on's primarily going to play a sparkplug role for the team. He's an unspectacular shooter, but has hot streaks.
Taj Finger
8.9 pts/40; 10 rebs/40; 9/21 FG (shooting pct .428)
For a variety of reasons, including the ankle injury to Lawrence Hill, Finger actually has the 6th most minutes played on the team so far this season. He's a solid rebounding forward, but the atrocious shooting percentage indicates that the team is going to need to find frontcourt scoring from other areas. Finger is more of a leadership guy at this point than anything else; he and Washington were significant contributors on Johnson's first NCAA tournament squad in 2005.
Peter Prowitt
11.5 pts/40; 6.2 rebs/40; 6/9 FG (shooting pct .667)
If Stanford could somehow combine Prowitt and Finger into one player, they'd have a pretty good forward, as Prowitt has a bit of the soft touch that Finger lacks. Unfortunately, you can't play 6 guys at once. Prowitt really never developed as a player during his time at Stanford, which is why he's been relegated to garbage time and emergency duties.
Josh Owens
12.8 pts/40; 12.8 rebs/40; 6/11 FG (shooting pct .545)
The only true freshman on the roster this season comes in pretty highly regarded (top 100 nationally) as an athletic talent, but hasn't had much of an opportunity given his position on the current depth chart. It might almost have been worth having him redshirt for a season, because he's currently buried at #5 on the forward depth chart, soon to drop to #6 if Brook Lopez gets his academic act together. Still, it's good to see him contributing positively in both points and rebounds in his limited minutes to date. If one or both Lopezes leave next season, he could shoot up that depth chart in a hurry.
And there we have it. Johnson's done a good job of bringing in guard talent in the last couple of seasons, but the team still lacks the true point guard with the ability to create his own shot. As a result, the offense is a little static. The defense should be rock-solid, though. The great thing about having a pair of 7-footers wandering around the paint is that it frees up the guards to be much more aggressive on the perimeter.
The team's next test (and by "test," I mean "test of how awake they are") comes tomorrow with a home game against Colorado State.
Although in Japan, many vehicles might actually say "vehicle is backing up" when backing up. I certainly recall the buses there had computerized voices which would say "the bus is turning right," or whatever happened to be appropriate. It was one of many weird aspects to the whole robotics culture over there.
One thing you may find, reading what I write, is frequent asides which are basically irrelevant to the main thrust of an issue. I'm a very stream-of-consciousness guy.
Backups
Landry Fields
17.6 pts/40; 8.8 rebs/40; 10/21 2ptFG, 10/25 3ptFG, adjusted shooting pct .543
Fields is a sophomore guard who has a reputation as an extremely streaky shooter. He can hit from outside, but the Cardinal need to limit his 2-point attempts. He's not terribly fast or great as a penetrator. His role is as a spot-up shooter. A poor assist to turnover ratio suggests he's not the best choice as a backup point guard. He's still a developing talent, and the team needs him as a third option from distance along with Goods and Hill.
Drew Shiller
22.5 pts/40; 1.83 rebs/40; 3/6 2ptFG, 10/17 3ptFG, adjusted shooting pct .782
Shiller transferred from San Francisco to Stanford and sat out last season as a result of NCAA rules. Looking at the above, it's not hard to tell why the Cardinal wanted him. A .782 adjusted shooting pct is insane, and obviously unsustainable, but he looks like a guy who's capable of making 40% of his three-point attempts. He has limited ability to penetrate, so he'll work best off of high screens from a Lopez or two to get free for three-point tries. He's also an exceptional free-throw shooter (he's made 28 out of 31 in his college career) which is an unheralded asset for teams trying to finish in close games.
Kenny Brown
23.2 pts/40; 6.3 rebs/40; 3/6 2ptFG, 7/15 3ptFG, adjusted shooting pct .642
Brown's "one shining moment" came in the infamous Chicken Soup Fiasco game last season against Arizona. Half of the team became ill with food poisoning as a result of a pregame meal, forcing Brown, Landry Fields and several other backups to play most of a game which was key to the Cardinal's tournament hopes. In the end the team lost, but not before erasing a huge deficit and forcing overtime. Brown's 22 points in that game were only exceeded, in the category of "astounding statistical outbursts," by Ivan Radenovic's 36 for Arizona.
In any event, the walk-on's primarily going to play a sparkplug role for the team. He's an unspectacular shooter, but has hot streaks.
Taj Finger
8.9 pts/40; 10 rebs/40; 9/21 FG (shooting pct .428)
For a variety of reasons, including the ankle injury to Lawrence Hill, Finger actually has the 6th most minutes played on the team so far this season. He's a solid rebounding forward, but the atrocious shooting percentage indicates that the team is going to need to find frontcourt scoring from other areas. Finger is more of a leadership guy at this point than anything else; he and Washington were significant contributors on Johnson's first NCAA tournament squad in 2005.
Peter Prowitt
11.5 pts/40; 6.2 rebs/40; 6/9 FG (shooting pct .667)
If Stanford could somehow combine Prowitt and Finger into one player, they'd have a pretty good forward, as Prowitt has a bit of the soft touch that Finger lacks. Unfortunately, you can't play 6 guys at once. Prowitt really never developed as a player during his time at Stanford, which is why he's been relegated to garbage time and emergency duties.
Josh Owens
12.8 pts/40; 12.8 rebs/40; 6/11 FG (shooting pct .545)
The only true freshman on the roster this season comes in pretty highly regarded (top 100 nationally) as an athletic talent, but hasn't had much of an opportunity given his position on the current depth chart. It might almost have been worth having him redshirt for a season, because he's currently buried at #5 on the forward depth chart, soon to drop to #6 if Brook Lopez gets his academic act together. Still, it's good to see him contributing positively in both points and rebounds in his limited minutes to date. If one or both Lopezes leave next season, he could shoot up that depth chart in a hurry.
And there we have it. Johnson's done a good job of bringing in guard talent in the last couple of seasons, but the team still lacks the true point guard with the ability to create his own shot. As a result, the offense is a little static. The defense should be rock-solid, though. The great thing about having a pair of 7-footers wandering around the paint is that it frees up the guards to be much more aggressive on the perimeter.
The team's next test (and by "test," I mean "test of how awake they are") comes tomorrow with a home game against Colorado State.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
De-Flatoed
Stanford 72, Yale 61
I gotta be honest with ya, "deflated" is how Stanford looked Tuesday night. The aforementioned Eric Flato dropped 22 on them, and while he is the preseason Ivy League player of the year... it's the Ivy League. He's not that good.
Meanwhile, Anthony Goods continued to be a virtual nonentity. His line: 0-for-4 shooting, 1 point, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 turnovers, 1 steal in 25 minutes. Something's not right with him, and I'm concerned that the illness he had last week hasn't really gone away. It took the Angels' pitcher Justin Speier a couple of months to kick a bug he had and get back to full strength. Let's hope that's not so for Anthony, because he's the team's most dynamic scorer and aggressive defender when he's right.
Mitch Johnson was similarly irrelevant scoring-wise, although he did have 6 dimes and 6 rebounds. He's really never developed an outside shot at all, and at this point it's pretty unrealistic to expect him to show one. It may be time for Trent Johnson to consider the possibility of reducing him to a sixth-man role and having Fred Washington take over the primary ball-handling responsibilities. A team with both of them on the floor at once is a team that's going to have a lot of trouble scoring.
On the other hand, Robin Lopez was a monster. 24 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocks-- he's starting to evolve his game to a higher level. 8 of 10 from the line is excellent as well; it argues that he's starting to develop shooting skills. Lawrence Hill also deserves effusive praise, as he posted his first real "Lawrence Hill-like" game of the season with 25 points. I suspect his early-season struggles were just a shooting slump. I do think he's a bit more comfortable playing the 3 than the 4, but he shot well from inside in this game (7-for-11).
I really like Lawrence Hill, not least because he's unusually honest for a sports star. When he says something is true, you can basically take it to the bank, as when he observed last year that the Virginia road game was a must-win (and indeed the Cardinal barely pulled it out at the end of regulation). If I had to pick one guy on the team, maybe even in the entire Pac-10, to take 2 free throws with 0.1 seconds remaining and the team down by one, I'd take him in a second.
I'll try and post my "backup profiles" tomorrow, as right now my elbow is sore. Feels like I slept on my funny bone or something. I'm not even sure if that's physically possible.
I gotta be honest with ya, "deflated" is how Stanford looked Tuesday night. The aforementioned Eric Flato dropped 22 on them, and while he is the preseason Ivy League player of the year... it's the Ivy League. He's not that good.
Meanwhile, Anthony Goods continued to be a virtual nonentity. His line: 0-for-4 shooting, 1 point, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 turnovers, 1 steal in 25 minutes. Something's not right with him, and I'm concerned that the illness he had last week hasn't really gone away. It took the Angels' pitcher Justin Speier a couple of months to kick a bug he had and get back to full strength. Let's hope that's not so for Anthony, because he's the team's most dynamic scorer and aggressive defender when he's right.
Mitch Johnson was similarly irrelevant scoring-wise, although he did have 6 dimes and 6 rebounds. He's really never developed an outside shot at all, and at this point it's pretty unrealistic to expect him to show one. It may be time for Trent Johnson to consider the possibility of reducing him to a sixth-man role and having Fred Washington take over the primary ball-handling responsibilities. A team with both of them on the floor at once is a team that's going to have a lot of trouble scoring.
On the other hand, Robin Lopez was a monster. 24 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocks-- he's starting to evolve his game to a higher level. 8 of 10 from the line is excellent as well; it argues that he's starting to develop shooting skills. Lawrence Hill also deserves effusive praise, as he posted his first real "Lawrence Hill-like" game of the season with 25 points. I suspect his early-season struggles were just a shooting slump. I do think he's a bit more comfortable playing the 3 than the 4, but he shot well from inside in this game (7-for-11).
I really like Lawrence Hill, not least because he's unusually honest for a sports star. When he says something is true, you can basically take it to the bank, as when he observed last year that the Virginia road game was a must-win (and indeed the Cardinal barely pulled it out at the end of regulation). If I had to pick one guy on the team, maybe even in the entire Pac-10, to take 2 free throws with 0.1 seconds remaining and the team down by one, I'd take him in a second.
I'll try and post my "backup profiles" tomorrow, as right now my elbow is sore. Feels like I slept on my funny bone or something. I'm not even sure if that's physically possible.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Morning Breath
Well, that was a nice start. Pity it didn't last through the first 9 days of the season.
Siena 79, Stanford 67
So I just get through praising Goods ecstatically, and he rewards me with a 2-for-12 shooting performance. Ouch. Looking at the box, you'd think it was Stanford that was the undersized small-conference team-- tons of 3-point attempts, not a lot of makes, an overall horrible shooting performance (26/71? Seriously?) and all of 3 free-throw attempts to Siena's 32.
Not having seen the game, I really can't tell if that was legit. But it seems to me that there may have been some substantial hometown reffing going on here. I'm sorry, I just have real difficulty believing that Stanford actually committed twice as many fouls as a Northeast Conference team.
Then again, a bunch of these free throws seem to have come down the stretch, so who knows, really. The game wasn't televised. Can someone work on this, please?
In any event, this is a loss that's going to sound really bad (and drop the team from the top 25) but actually not mean a ton. It's not horrible for the team's RPI, because Siena is a pretty good team in its conference that projects to win 15-20 games. It's early in the season. It's at Siena, which is something the selection committee looks pretty favorably on (scheduling moderately tough road games). It's definitely in the category of "irritating" rather than "devastating," similar to USC's loss to Mercer last weekend.
It would have been nice if Hill was healthy or Brook was available, but both of these will probably be taken into account when the committee looks at the team later in the season. The one irritating thing to me? Johnson should have known not to schedule this game in the morning. Pac-10 teams always have major issues with early games on the East Coast (see last year's NCAA tournament game for further evidence). Couldn't this have been plugged into prime time?
Siena 79, Stanford 67
So I just get through praising Goods ecstatically, and he rewards me with a 2-for-12 shooting performance. Ouch. Looking at the box, you'd think it was Stanford that was the undersized small-conference team-- tons of 3-point attempts, not a lot of makes, an overall horrible shooting performance (26/71? Seriously?) and all of 3 free-throw attempts to Siena's 32.
Not having seen the game, I really can't tell if that was legit. But it seems to me that there may have been some substantial hometown reffing going on here. I'm sorry, I just have real difficulty believing that Stanford actually committed twice as many fouls as a Northeast Conference team.
Then again, a bunch of these free throws seem to have come down the stretch, so who knows, really. The game wasn't televised. Can someone work on this, please?
In any event, this is a loss that's going to sound really bad (and drop the team from the top 25) but actually not mean a ton. It's not horrible for the team's RPI, because Siena is a pretty good team in its conference that projects to win 15-20 games. It's early in the season. It's at Siena, which is something the selection committee looks pretty favorably on (scheduling moderately tough road games). It's definitely in the category of "irritating" rather than "devastating," similar to USC's loss to Mercer last weekend.
It would have been nice if Hill was healthy or Brook was available, but both of these will probably be taken into account when the committee looks at the team later in the season. The one irritating thing to me? Johnson should have known not to schedule this game in the morning. Pac-10 teams always have major issues with early games on the East Coast (see last year's NCAA tournament game for further evidence). Couldn't this have been plugged into prime time?
Meet the Lopezes
When the movie of Stanford Basketball in 2007-8 is made, that's what they should call it.
You know, like "Meet the Robinsons?" Anybody?
OK, so I haven't actually seen that movie. Perhaps I should stick to jokes that actually involve plays on words that I understand the meaning of.
Stanford 71, Northwestern 60
With four games under our belts, it's time to look at the relevant players, their stats so far this season, and what we might be able to expect out of them. For our purposes, I'm using stats-per-40-minutes. There are two reasons for this: first, in the context of a single team, everyone gets the same number of potential possessions, so tempo really isn't a factor here, and second, I'm lazy and want something I can calculate in my head.
To get one minor item out of the way first: Will Paul and Da'veed Dildy are redshirting this season and won't contribute.
And in a not-so-minor item, Brook Lopez is academically ineligible for the first n games of the season, where n is a number between 9 and 11, depending on how soon fall semester grades are posted. If he continues his not-going-to-class ways, he might well be ineligible for the entire year. I'm inferring from certain things Johnson has said that he's no longer actually suspended from the team and is participating in practices, but I could be wrong about this.
Please, Brook, just go to class. Halo is not worth sacrificing 18 zillion dollars in the NBA for. As silly as the NCAA's academic rules are, and they're pretty silly, sometimes we just have to suck it up and deal with silly rules. I'll have more to say on this subject in another post, perhaps during the semester break ('Furd plays no games between Dec. 2 and Dec. 16).
The Starting Five (so far)
C. Robin Lopez
19.1 pts/40; 8.83 rebs/40; 4.65 blk/40; 16/26 2ptFG, 0/0 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .615)
See, Brook? Robin likes Halo, too, and still manages to make it to class often enough.
Frankly, these are (rebounds excepted) great numbers. But we can't really expect them to last. Most of the teams Stanford has played against so far have lacked true big men, with the result that Robin can score at will on dunks and tip-ins. The Pac-10? Not so much. He'll be matching up with Jon Brockman, Robbie Cowgill, Lorenzo Mata and DeVon Hardin in conference play, with a side order of Taj Gibson, Jordan Wilkes, Aron Baynes and Kirk Walters.
Nonetheless, it seems like Robin's offensive game has taken a bit of a step forward in the offseason. He's never going to be a great scorer-- some of his attempted hook shots and step-throughs last year were wince-inducing and usually turnover-inducing-- but if he can develop into a good college scorer and, thus, a mediocre NBA scorer, he'll be employed for a long time. I don't mean to rub salt in Warriors fans' wounds when I say that he could be the next Adonal Foyle.
His defense continues to be excellent, which is the most important factor in Stanford's run through a sequence of defensively challenged opponents (like, say, Siena). Force them to beat you with threes and you're forcing them to get very lucky to beat you.
PF. Lawrence Hill
13.1 pts/40; 12.5 rebs/40; 1.3 blk/40; 8/13 2ptFG, 1/9 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .432)
Hill started off the season ice-cold from three and then hurt his ankle against Northwestern, causing him to miss most of the second half with what the game recap describes as a "mild sprain." Hopefully, the 3-point percentage is just a shooting slump, as Hill led the team in that category last season and sparked the huge comeback against UCLA with his outside touch.
I think of Lawrence Hill as comparable in a lot of ways to Oakland A's outfielder Nick Swisher-- not very fast, but otherwise very athletic and defensively sound. He's an excellent rebounder, hawks the ball pretty well, and gets to the right spots on the floor. He has a funky shot which is probably more prone to slumps than most, but normally he's a very strong shooter from all parts of the floor. As his numbers above show, he's also an excellent rebounder, probably the best on the team skill-wise (although at 6-8, he's not going to get to as many balls as the Lopezes). He's one of those sleeper NBA types, a guy that will probably end up getting picked in the second round but might force his way into a team's rotation with quality play in practice.
Hopefully the ankle sprain will be fully healed by the time the team faces Yale next Tuesday.
SF: Fred Washington
12.3 pts/40; 7.7 rebs/40; 5.4 asst/40; 10/16 2ptFG, 1/3 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .638)
"Toujours l'audace" might as well be Fred Washington's motto. Let's be blunt-- the guy doesn't have a lot of talent. He's kind of fast, dribbles and passes pretty well, and that's about it. He's carved out a niche by being an incredibly aggressive slasher who's good at recognizing both whether he's committing to a drive or kicking out, and the point at which he needs to make that decision. His assist-to-turnover ratio, on a turnover-prone Stanford club, is excellent.
He's really the definition of the term "point forward." He's not a guard, but he can act like one for the first 3/4 of the court. With Goods and Hill being more spot-up shooters than ball handlers, and the lumbering Lopezes wandering around the court, this is a pretty essential skill.
Washington has absolutely no outside shot, so let's hope the 2-point percentage stays high and the 3-point shots taken stay low.
SG: Anthony Goods
26.7 pts/40; 4.44 rebs/40; 8/6 asst/TO ratio; 12/19 2ptFG, 11/25 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .647)
On a list of the "breakout seasons" of last year's Pac-10, Goods has to rank near the top. A role-player his freshman year, he turned into one of the conference's best scorers last year, and has continued to excel this season. He's turned into the clear #1 option offensively for Stanford. The point totals are not going to continue, but if they were to, he'd vault into serious contention for Pac-10 Player of the Year.
Goods is not a fabulous ballhandler, but he's capable of taking the ball to the hoop as well as lighting it up from outside. He's the clear best option when the Cardinal go inside-outside-- get the ball inside to a Lopez or have Washington penetrate, then kick out to an open Goods for an easy three-pointer.
I don't think enough has been said about the recruiting savvy of Trent Johnson. The Lopez twins were committed to Stanford from the Montgomery years onward, but Hill and Goods were tremendous under-the-radar pickups. This gives me a great deal of optimism about the team's future chances, especially with him tapping the recruiting gold mine of the Plumlee family (three brothers, with the two uncommitted guys currently a junior and a freshman in high school).
PG: Mitch Johnson
16.5 pts/40; 6.6 rebs/40; 8.2 asst/40; 20/11 asst/TO ratio; 7/11 2ptFG, 5/10 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .690)
Johnson is an object lesson in the need to evaluate chronic injuries in assessing players. He was expected to be a major contributor in his sophomore season; instead, he took a pretty big step backwards. He developed plantar fasciitis in his foot about midway through the season and was basically ineffective from that point on. Plantar fasciitis is the same medical issue that MLB outfielder Shannon Stewart has; it's an inflammation of the bottom of the foot caused by too much running on hard surfaces (the Metrodome's Astroturf, in the case of Stewart). As a result, it's pretty common among basketball players.
Unfortunately, it's also basically incurable; it can be managed and mitigated, but it never really "goes away." Johnson will probably wear down toward the end of the season when it flares up; it's not clear what can be done to prevent this other than finger-crossing. So far, so good; through four games, he's been outstanding.
I'll hit the rest of the players in somewhat shorter profiles next time around.
You know, like "Meet the Robinsons?" Anybody?
OK, so I haven't actually seen that movie. Perhaps I should stick to jokes that actually involve plays on words that I understand the meaning of.
Stanford 71, Northwestern 60
With four games under our belts, it's time to look at the relevant players, their stats so far this season, and what we might be able to expect out of them. For our purposes, I'm using stats-per-40-minutes. There are two reasons for this: first, in the context of a single team, everyone gets the same number of potential possessions, so tempo really isn't a factor here, and second, I'm lazy and want something I can calculate in my head.
To get one minor item out of the way first: Will Paul and Da'veed Dildy are redshirting this season and won't contribute.
And in a not-so-minor item, Brook Lopez is academically ineligible for the first n games of the season, where n is a number between 9 and 11, depending on how soon fall semester grades are posted. If he continues his not-going-to-class ways, he might well be ineligible for the entire year. I'm inferring from certain things Johnson has said that he's no longer actually suspended from the team and is participating in practices, but I could be wrong about this.
Please, Brook, just go to class. Halo is not worth sacrificing 18 zillion dollars in the NBA for. As silly as the NCAA's academic rules are, and they're pretty silly, sometimes we just have to suck it up and deal with silly rules. I'll have more to say on this subject in another post, perhaps during the semester break ('Furd plays no games between Dec. 2 and Dec. 16).
The Starting Five (so far)
C. Robin Lopez
19.1 pts/40; 8.83 rebs/40; 4.65 blk/40; 16/26 2ptFG, 0/0 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .615)
See, Brook? Robin likes Halo, too, and still manages to make it to class often enough.
Frankly, these are (rebounds excepted) great numbers. But we can't really expect them to last. Most of the teams Stanford has played against so far have lacked true big men, with the result that Robin can score at will on dunks and tip-ins. The Pac-10? Not so much. He'll be matching up with Jon Brockman, Robbie Cowgill, Lorenzo Mata and DeVon Hardin in conference play, with a side order of Taj Gibson, Jordan Wilkes, Aron Baynes and Kirk Walters.
Nonetheless, it seems like Robin's offensive game has taken a bit of a step forward in the offseason. He's never going to be a great scorer-- some of his attempted hook shots and step-throughs last year were wince-inducing and usually turnover-inducing-- but if he can develop into a good college scorer and, thus, a mediocre NBA scorer, he'll be employed for a long time. I don't mean to rub salt in Warriors fans' wounds when I say that he could be the next Adonal Foyle.
His defense continues to be excellent, which is the most important factor in Stanford's run through a sequence of defensively challenged opponents (like, say, Siena). Force them to beat you with threes and you're forcing them to get very lucky to beat you.
PF. Lawrence Hill
13.1 pts/40; 12.5 rebs/40; 1.3 blk/40; 8/13 2ptFG, 1/9 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .432)
Hill started off the season ice-cold from three and then hurt his ankle against Northwestern, causing him to miss most of the second half with what the game recap describes as a "mild sprain." Hopefully, the 3-point percentage is just a shooting slump, as Hill led the team in that category last season and sparked the huge comeback against UCLA with his outside touch.
I think of Lawrence Hill as comparable in a lot of ways to Oakland A's outfielder Nick Swisher-- not very fast, but otherwise very athletic and defensively sound. He's an excellent rebounder, hawks the ball pretty well, and gets to the right spots on the floor. He has a funky shot which is probably more prone to slumps than most, but normally he's a very strong shooter from all parts of the floor. As his numbers above show, he's also an excellent rebounder, probably the best on the team skill-wise (although at 6-8, he's not going to get to as many balls as the Lopezes). He's one of those sleeper NBA types, a guy that will probably end up getting picked in the second round but might force his way into a team's rotation with quality play in practice.
Hopefully the ankle sprain will be fully healed by the time the team faces Yale next Tuesday.
SF: Fred Washington
12.3 pts/40; 7.7 rebs/40; 5.4 asst/40; 10/16 2ptFG, 1/3 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .638)
"Toujours l'audace" might as well be Fred Washington's motto. Let's be blunt-- the guy doesn't have a lot of talent. He's kind of fast, dribbles and passes pretty well, and that's about it. He's carved out a niche by being an incredibly aggressive slasher who's good at recognizing both whether he's committing to a drive or kicking out, and the point at which he needs to make that decision. His assist-to-turnover ratio, on a turnover-prone Stanford club, is excellent.
He's really the definition of the term "point forward." He's not a guard, but he can act like one for the first 3/4 of the court. With Goods and Hill being more spot-up shooters than ball handlers, and the lumbering Lopezes wandering around the court, this is a pretty essential skill.
Washington has absolutely no outside shot, so let's hope the 2-point percentage stays high and the 3-point shots taken stay low.
SG: Anthony Goods
26.7 pts/40; 4.44 rebs/40; 8/6 asst/TO ratio; 12/19 2ptFG, 11/25 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .647)
On a list of the "breakout seasons" of last year's Pac-10, Goods has to rank near the top. A role-player his freshman year, he turned into one of the conference's best scorers last year, and has continued to excel this season. He's turned into the clear #1 option offensively for Stanford. The point totals are not going to continue, but if they were to, he'd vault into serious contention for Pac-10 Player of the Year.
Goods is not a fabulous ballhandler, but he's capable of taking the ball to the hoop as well as lighting it up from outside. He's the clear best option when the Cardinal go inside-outside-- get the ball inside to a Lopez or have Washington penetrate, then kick out to an open Goods for an easy three-pointer.
I don't think enough has been said about the recruiting savvy of Trent Johnson. The Lopez twins were committed to Stanford from the Montgomery years onward, but Hill and Goods were tremendous under-the-radar pickups. This gives me a great deal of optimism about the team's future chances, especially with him tapping the recruiting gold mine of the Plumlee family (three brothers, with the two uncommitted guys currently a junior and a freshman in high school).
PG: Mitch Johnson
16.5 pts/40; 6.6 rebs/40; 8.2 asst/40; 20/11 asst/TO ratio; 7/11 2ptFG, 5/10 3ptFG (effective shooting pct .690)
Johnson is an object lesson in the need to evaluate chronic injuries in assessing players. He was expected to be a major contributor in his sophomore season; instead, he took a pretty big step backwards. He developed plantar fasciitis in his foot about midway through the season and was basically ineffective from that point on. Plantar fasciitis is the same medical issue that MLB outfielder Shannon Stewart has; it's an inflammation of the bottom of the foot caused by too much running on hard surfaces (the Metrodome's Astroturf, in the case of Stewart). As a result, it's pretty common among basketball players.
Unfortunately, it's also basically incurable; it can be managed and mitigated, but it never really "goes away." Johnson will probably wear down toward the end of the season when it flares up; it's not clear what can be done to prevent this other than finger-crossing. So far, so good; through four games, he's been outstanding.
I'll hit the rest of the players in somewhat shorter profiles next time around.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Basketball Homecourt Classic
Stanford 111, Harvard 56
Stanford 97, Northwestern State 58
Stanford 67, UC Santa Barbara 48
A rant.
Stanford played three games last week. Together they comprised what is now officially known as the "Basketball Travelers' Classic."
"Classic." Common English word. Has a very common English meaning, viz., "A major, long-standing sporting event." (Or one of a few other meanings, but that'll do for our purposes.)
Not "Something we invented to get us a few extra home games this season." OK? This is the first time you are holding this event. In all likelihood, it is also the LAST time you are holding this event.
Let me put this in as simple of terms as possible: it's not fucking "classic" until you've had it more than once. Now, personally, I'd like to see the term restricted to events that have happened at least five times, since that implies a certain degree of longevity and continuity. But I'd settle for twice.
I know, I know. All classic events have to start sometime. Etc etc. Can't we let the event speak for itself? Believe me, in today's sports media landscape, anything that's even remotely close to "classic" will be referred to as such. Cf. "A classic play by Shawn Merriman!" (Merriman sacks the QB, quickly frisks him for any steroids he might conveniently be carrying on him, and goes into a spastic dance of frustration when he doesn't find any.) Or "A classic blast off the bat of Manny Ramirez!" (Manny rips a ball 400 feet, watches it intently in case it sprouts wings and flies back onto the field, observes its departure from play, points to the pitcher to say "Hey, you and me, we did this together!", then realizes he needs to pee and jogs uncomfortably around the bases before heading off toward the Green Monster.)
Guys-- can you at least pay off a sportswriter to describe the event as "classic" before appropriating the title?
In this case, the results of the actual games were pretty thoroughly "freestyle", which is precisely what a Stanford fan wants to see. (Warning: the previous sentence is a cross-country skiing joke. If you are not from Scandinavia, please imagine I just said something funny.) Playing classic games with Harvard has a disturbing tendency to imply future un-classic games with, say, Arizona later in the season.
Next time, I'll recap the forthcoming showdown with Northwestern and take a glance over the Stanford roster to see what snarky comments I can get away with before the season even really starts. (Odd: Within its first 4 games, Stanford plays Northwestern and Northwestern State, which are completely unrelated universities 1000-odd miles apart. Odder: Despite being from the Big Eleven, Northwestern has fewer all-time NCAA Tournament appearances [zero] than Northwestern State of the Southland Conference [two]. Northwestern is, uniquely, the only team in a BCS conference to have never appeared in the Big Dance.) If you are one of the seventeen people in the entire Bay Area who actually subscribes to the Big Ten Network, do tell me how it went.
Stanford 97, Northwestern State 58
Stanford 67, UC Santa Barbara 48
A rant.
Stanford played three games last week. Together they comprised what is now officially known as the "Basketball Travelers' Classic."
"Classic." Common English word. Has a very common English meaning, viz., "A major, long-standing sporting event." (Or one of a few other meanings, but that'll do for our purposes.)
Not "Something we invented to get us a few extra home games this season." OK? This is the first time you are holding this event. In all likelihood, it is also the LAST time you are holding this event.
Let me put this in as simple of terms as possible: it's not fucking "classic" until you've had it more than once. Now, personally, I'd like to see the term restricted to events that have happened at least five times, since that implies a certain degree of longevity and continuity. But I'd settle for twice.
I know, I know. All classic events have to start sometime. Etc etc. Can't we let the event speak for itself? Believe me, in today's sports media landscape, anything that's even remotely close to "classic" will be referred to as such. Cf. "A classic play by Shawn Merriman!" (Merriman sacks the QB, quickly frisks him for any steroids he might conveniently be carrying on him, and goes into a spastic dance of frustration when he doesn't find any.) Or "A classic blast off the bat of Manny Ramirez!" (Manny rips a ball 400 feet, watches it intently in case it sprouts wings and flies back onto the field, observes its departure from play, points to the pitcher to say "Hey, you and me, we did this together!", then realizes he needs to pee and jogs uncomfortably around the bases before heading off toward the Green Monster.)
Guys-- can you at least pay off a sportswriter to describe the event as "classic" before appropriating the title?
In this case, the results of the actual games were pretty thoroughly "freestyle", which is precisely what a Stanford fan wants to see. (Warning: the previous sentence is a cross-country skiing joke. If you are not from Scandinavia, please imagine I just said something funny.) Playing classic games with Harvard has a disturbing tendency to imply future un-classic games with, say, Arizona later in the season.
Next time, I'll recap the forthcoming showdown with Northwestern and take a glance over the Stanford roster to see what snarky comments I can get away with before the season even really starts. (Odd: Within its first 4 games, Stanford plays Northwestern and Northwestern State, which are completely unrelated universities 1000-odd miles apart. Odder: Despite being from the Big Eleven, Northwestern has fewer all-time NCAA Tournament appearances [zero] than Northwestern State of the Southland Conference [two]. Northwestern is, uniquely, the only team in a BCS conference to have never appeared in the Big Dance.) If you are one of the seventeen people in the entire Bay Area who actually subscribes to the Big Ten Network, do tell me how it went.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Welcome... to the Monkey House
My primary rooting interest in College Basketball has undoubtedly the most psychedelically frightening mascot in all of sports.
Let's face it. I am not a sane man. That's the first thing I need to get out of the way, as it were, before we get rolling here.
Of course, my sanity or lack thereof is only one of the Cardinal Precepts of... uh, Cardinal Precepts. The following represents my gesture in the direction of Ground Rules, Frequently Unasked Because They're So Unbelievably Obvious Questions, and what have you. Copyright whenever the hell I get around to it, may be changed at any time for any reason or no reason without notifying any or all reader(s-- I use the parenthesis deliberately), etc etc etc.
1. I'm a fan of Stanford Basketball.
You may have noticed this, thanks to the unbelievably clever title above. The primary purpose of this blog will be to follow the Stanford basketball team through its trials and tribulations in what should be a wild 2007-8 season-- and perhaps beyond.
2. I am not a Stanford alum.
Those of you who plugged "Cardinal rule, Bears drool" into Google and scrolled down to result #4353657 to find this are not going to find this blog particularly appealing. Frankly, I'm a fan of Cal basketball as well, and hopefully I'll find time to post some thoughts on Ben Braun's squad during the season as well. I'm actually something of an apologist for the entire Pac-10 conference, with the debatable exception of USC. And even they'll earn some grudging respect from me when they deserve it.
My own alma mater is Pomona College of Claremont, CA-- a fine school in all respects, but not exactly a basketball powerhouse. In the one game that I can recall that we played against a Division 1 opponent during my time there, we lost to UC Irvine 83-28. We were, if you'll pardon the pun, Eaten like Ants. So I pretty much still root for my hometown (ish) teams.
3. I am an admirer of stat geeks, without actually being one myself.
I'm a huge fan of advanced statistical analysis of sports. When this blog rolls around to baseball season, there may be a few posts along those lines. But I'm thoroughly ignorant of Excel's mathematical functions, couldn't find a standard deviation if my life depended upon it, and have no idea what the actual formula for VORP in baseball is, much less how to calculate it.
So while I plan to steal some topical notions from Ken Pomeroy and a few of the other excellent basketball analysts out there on today's Web (most notably the idea of tempo-adjusted statistics), don't expect massive reams of data. I don't have either the patience or the computer skills for it.
4. Writing-wise, what you see is pretty much what you get.
If I had to pick four words to describe my own style, they would be wry, cynical, adverbial and pun-tastic. If the reader is looking for the next A. Bartlett Giamatti, writing lyrical odes to the beauty of sport and the poetry of motion, he/she is once again advised to look elsewhere. I was born on National Grouch Day. (No joke. Look it up.) Rarely has a made-up semi-serious "holiday" been so apt.
5. Flames, abuse, vitriol and other hydrogen-ion-generating materials (that's "acids", for the non-chemically inclined) are welcome, but send them by email.
While I'll be more than happy (tickled pink, actually) to have an argument out in the comments, if it's purely insulting, it ain't staying. Sorry. Chalk it up to my inflated sense of self-worth, if you so desire.
I think that about covers things for now. Next time on Cardinal Precepts: we examine the team's season-opening tournament (the Basketball Travellers' Classic, which apparently involves a bunch of other cruddy teams Travelling to play at Maples) and meet our cast of characters.
Let's face it. I am not a sane man. That's the first thing I need to get out of the way, as it were, before we get rolling here.
Of course, my sanity or lack thereof is only one of the Cardinal Precepts of... uh, Cardinal Precepts. The following represents my gesture in the direction of Ground Rules, Frequently Unasked Because They're So Unbelievably Obvious Questions, and what have you. Copyright whenever the hell I get around to it, may be changed at any time for any reason or no reason without notifying any or all reader(s-- I use the parenthesis deliberately), etc etc etc.
1. I'm a fan of Stanford Basketball.
You may have noticed this, thanks to the unbelievably clever title above. The primary purpose of this blog will be to follow the Stanford basketball team through its trials and tribulations in what should be a wild 2007-8 season-- and perhaps beyond.
2. I am not a Stanford alum.
Those of you who plugged "Cardinal rule, Bears drool" into Google and scrolled down to result #4353657 to find this are not going to find this blog particularly appealing. Frankly, I'm a fan of Cal basketball as well, and hopefully I'll find time to post some thoughts on Ben Braun's squad during the season as well. I'm actually something of an apologist for the entire Pac-10 conference, with the debatable exception of USC. And even they'll earn some grudging respect from me when they deserve it.
My own alma mater is Pomona College of Claremont, CA-- a fine school in all respects, but not exactly a basketball powerhouse. In the one game that I can recall that we played against a Division 1 opponent during my time there, we lost to UC Irvine 83-28. We were, if you'll pardon the pun, Eaten like Ants. So I pretty much still root for my hometown (ish) teams.
3. I am an admirer of stat geeks, without actually being one myself.
I'm a huge fan of advanced statistical analysis of sports. When this blog rolls around to baseball season, there may be a few posts along those lines. But I'm thoroughly ignorant of Excel's mathematical functions, couldn't find a standard deviation if my life depended upon it, and have no idea what the actual formula for VORP in baseball is, much less how to calculate it.
So while I plan to steal some topical notions from Ken Pomeroy and a few of the other excellent basketball analysts out there on today's Web (most notably the idea of tempo-adjusted statistics), don't expect massive reams of data. I don't have either the patience or the computer skills for it.
4. Writing-wise, what you see is pretty much what you get.
If I had to pick four words to describe my own style, they would be wry, cynical, adverbial and pun-tastic. If the reader is looking for the next A. Bartlett Giamatti, writing lyrical odes to the beauty of sport and the poetry of motion, he/she is once again advised to look elsewhere. I was born on National Grouch Day. (No joke. Look it up.) Rarely has a made-up semi-serious "holiday" been so apt.
5. Flames, abuse, vitriol and other hydrogen-ion-generating materials (that's "acids", for the non-chemically inclined) are welcome, but send them by email.
While I'll be more than happy (tickled pink, actually) to have an argument out in the comments, if it's purely insulting, it ain't staying. Sorry. Chalk it up to my inflated sense of self-worth, if you so desire.
I think that about covers things for now. Next time on Cardinal Precepts: we examine the team's season-opening tournament (the Basketball Travellers' Classic, which apparently involves a bunch of other cruddy teams Travelling to play at Maples) and meet our cast of characters.
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