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.