For everyone's reading edification, I'll link to the positive, upbeat Cardinal coverage rather than the morose Bears coverage...
Stanford 82, Cal 77
Before I launch into the box score, let's get a couple other things out of the way. First, the game wasn't shown on FSN. Instead, they chose to show... the simultaneous (and intense) Wazoo-ASU game? (Side observation: who would have thought, three years ago, that we'd be saying THAT?) Nope. The Arizona marathon... and a golf recap. OK. Nice work, boys. Instead the game was kicked to obscure Comcast SportsNet, which I don't receive. I ended up watching most of Georgetown-WVA instead.
And second, despite being (by all reasonable measures) more of a Stanford fan, I was kind of rooting for Cal in this one. The Bears have a really, really tough road to hoe at this point. They've only got 4 home games left in the conference to hit the magic number (my personal opinion) of 8 wins. So it's either a. beat Washington State at home, plus Washington and an upset on the road, or b. Spring TWO road upsets from a candidate pool of USC, Arizona, ASU, WSU and Stanford. My BearJection has them at 7-11 and an NIT bid. The good news? I think they'll be a better team next year. Their top incoming recruit is a guard, while their top outgoing player is a center, a position the team has more than locked up for the foreseeable future.
Now, how did the Cardinal win this one? The simple answer is that they did what no one else has managed to do this season: shut down Ryan Anderson. Kind of. He did put up 11 points and 8 rebounds, so it's not like he was exactly invisible out there. But considering his season averages, you've got to consider that a victory.
Second: generate free-throw opportunities. Each team had the same number of field goal attempts and Cal made 4 more of them (admittedly Stanford hit 4 more 3s), but Stanford shot 38 free throws to Cal's 19. Getting into the bonus can be incredibly lucrative in college hoops, and Stanford was (incredibly) into the DOUBLE bonus halfway through the second half. They didn't exactly make the most of the opportunities (24 for 38 from the stripe is less than 60%) but simply having so many more of them made a big difference. Corrolary to this was that they got DeVon Hardin, who otherwise had one of his best games of the season, into foul trouble and eventually out of the game. Hardin, frankly, can take Brook Lopez on the offensive end, and when he was in the game he shot 7 of 9 from the field.
The final key factor I want to touch on is this: Stanford was able to get away with playing a ridiculously "big" lineup in this game because of Cal's shortage of quality guards. By my count, the Cardinal used 5 guards in the game, but played them for only 66 player-minutes. In other words, for at least 14 minutes of the game, the Cardinal had 4 forwards on the floor (most likely Washington, Hill, and the Lopezes). To me, this screams "drive-and-kick!" The problem is, or was, that the only guys who could drive the ball for Cal were the same ones who would receive the kicks-- Patrick Christopher and Jerome Randle. Randle had a good day as a point guard but a dismal day as a shooter, and Christopher couldn't do everything by himself. The two teams seemingly kind of agreed to play the game as a battle in the post by mutual consensus, and Stanford's bigs won the dogfight.
It's unfortunate. Cal played a strong game overall. They had balanced scoring, made their free throws, had a good assist-to-turnover ratio (16 assists-- Stanford typically holds opponents to around 10) and shot well against a national top-10 defense. Cal made 50% of its 2-pointers, which is doing extremely well against Stanford. Had they posted this kind of game against any of the three previous opponents to whom they lost (Oregon and the Arizona schools) they would have won. This is what is known in baseball circles as "underplaying your Pythagorean record," (and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll go into this in more detail at the end of the Pac-10 season) and it's enough to cause Ken Pomeroy's ranking system to place them, as of this writing, 311th out of 341 teams in "luck factor."
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Wasn't in the cards...
for me to see either game last weekend. You see, I am, or at least have been (I've been a bit lax lately) an avid participant in that protean pasteboard pastime, Magic: the Gathering. Many of the readers of approximately my age will recognize the game. Unfortunately my local player group tends to meet on Thursday nights... and I was at a tournament Saturday to inaugurate the release of a new set of cards. So. Not much in the way of firsthand observations to offer here. Instead, I'm forced to resort to flippancies, like noting that Brook Lopez appears to have a facial tic in his photo on the Stanford website. Nothing like a little Bell's Palsy to liven up any photo, eh?
Stanford 56, Arizona 52
Stanford 67, Arizona State 52
In an ironic rejoinder to last Sunday's loss, Stanford won the Arizona game at the free-throw stripe. The Cardinal hit 9 of 11; the Wildcats 6 out of 13. Then Arizona turns around two nights later and ices a no doubt extremely frustrated Cal team at the free-throw stripe. College basketball is weird.
In both games, the Cardinal did an outstanding job of limiting the opposition's scoring through tough defense. ASU's 2-point shooting in the second half was a miserable 2-for-14, and for the game it wasn't much better-- 9 for 33. That's barely over half a point per shot. Arizona was not quite as bad (34 points on 43 2-point attempts). Still, in general, if you can hold your opponents to under a point per 2-point attempt, you're doing good. Keep in mind the general rule of 1-point-per-possession, and the fact that many possessions end in turnovers.
I was a little worried-- OK, I was extremely worried-- about Mitch Johnson getting broken down by Jerryd Bayless all night long. He looked lost at times trying to guard Tajuan Porter last week. But to his significant credit, he hung on and helped hold Bayless to a mere 9 points.
Stanford shot better than the opposition, but not a lot better-- about 44% for each game. I feel like the team is more balanced offensively when they don't try to constantly force the ball in to Brook Lopez. Lawrence Hill and Anthony Goods are basically both in severe slumps at this point, and I think it's because they're hesitant to take shots sometimes.
In other news-- poor Ryan Anderson. The guy is simply playing out of his mind right now, and the team has nothing to show for it. He scored 62 points over the weekend in a pair of losses. I honestly cannot recall any instance of a team with a 30-point scorer in consecutive games losing both of them. It's almost unthinkable in college ball. The problem is that in the ASU game, Cal couldn't defend at all (99 points? To a team that slow?) and in the Arizona game, Patrick Christopher, the other major offensive force, was a complete nonentity. This is just setting me up, I can tell, for a good long late March/early April rant about the inevitable hosing-in-end-of-season-awards crap that routinely happens to good players on bad teams. I'm still not actually convinced that Cal is a bad team, but right now their record is unquestionably bad... so whatever.
Desperation time for the Bears now. They absolutely have to have this weekend's game against Stanford. You cannot go 1-4 at home in conference play and have any aspirations for the NCAA tournament. Realistically, they have little hope in two road games and will be significant underdogs in 3 more. They need wins, now, if they want to have a hope of reaching the 8-10 mark which will be required for plausible at-large consideration.
Stanford 56, Arizona 52
Stanford 67, Arizona State 52
In an ironic rejoinder to last Sunday's loss, Stanford won the Arizona game at the free-throw stripe. The Cardinal hit 9 of 11; the Wildcats 6 out of 13. Then Arizona turns around two nights later and ices a no doubt extremely frustrated Cal team at the free-throw stripe. College basketball is weird.
In both games, the Cardinal did an outstanding job of limiting the opposition's scoring through tough defense. ASU's 2-point shooting in the second half was a miserable 2-for-14, and for the game it wasn't much better-- 9 for 33. That's barely over half a point per shot. Arizona was not quite as bad (34 points on 43 2-point attempts). Still, in general, if you can hold your opponents to under a point per 2-point attempt, you're doing good. Keep in mind the general rule of 1-point-per-possession, and the fact that many possessions end in turnovers.
I was a little worried-- OK, I was extremely worried-- about Mitch Johnson getting broken down by Jerryd Bayless all night long. He looked lost at times trying to guard Tajuan Porter last week. But to his significant credit, he hung on and helped hold Bayless to a mere 9 points.
Stanford shot better than the opposition, but not a lot better-- about 44% for each game. I feel like the team is more balanced offensively when they don't try to constantly force the ball in to Brook Lopez. Lawrence Hill and Anthony Goods are basically both in severe slumps at this point, and I think it's because they're hesitant to take shots sometimes.
In other news-- poor Ryan Anderson. The guy is simply playing out of his mind right now, and the team has nothing to show for it. He scored 62 points over the weekend in a pair of losses. I honestly cannot recall any instance of a team with a 30-point scorer in consecutive games losing both of them. It's almost unthinkable in college ball. The problem is that in the ASU game, Cal couldn't defend at all (99 points? To a team that slow?) and in the Arizona game, Patrick Christopher, the other major offensive force, was a complete nonentity. This is just setting me up, I can tell, for a good long late March/early April rant about the inevitable hosing-in-end-of-season-awards crap that routinely happens to good players on bad teams. I'm still not actually convinced that Cal is a bad team, but right now their record is unquestionably bad... so whatever.
Desperation time for the Bears now. They absolutely have to have this weekend's game against Stanford. You cannot go 1-4 at home in conference play and have any aspirations for the NCAA tournament. Realistically, they have little hope in two road games and will be significant underdogs in 3 more. They need wins, now, if they want to have a hope of reaching the 8-10 mark which will be required for plausible at-large consideration.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Now blogging from a new location...
I've been having some frustrating issues with the interface on my home computer, and finally got around to posting this at work.
Oregon 71, Stanford 66
There's no worse feeling than losing a close game to a visibly weaker team. There were so many ways Stanford could have won this game-- make ANY three-pointers, shoot better than 50% at the free-throw line, not allow 5'6" guys to get layups, shoot a non-airball on the final meaningful possession...
I mean, Oregon played well given their limitations. They're a great passing team-- that much was obvious from the number of seemingly impossible situations they extricated themselves from when they penetrated inside. They know how to shoot, they know what shots to take, and they make a lot of them.
That being said... basketball is a game of height. Stanford dominated Oregon in height and should have dominated them in the run of play. My comments of the other day were somewhat prescient, in the wrong way. There were pretty much three types of game here-- the parts where both Lopezes were in the game, the parts where only one was, and the parts where neither was. And # of Lopezes was pretty strongly correlated with whether Stanford was winning or losing the game.
I don't want to sound like I'm blaming Trent Johnson for the loss here. Somewhere along the line, your players have to make some shots. But I felt like he didn't appreciate the total dominance that having two Lopezes in allowed Stanford to have on the boards and inside the arc. With them both in, Oregon's only prayer was to bomb away from 3 and hope they hit a bunch.
Let's hope some lessons have been learned for Thursday's game against Arizona. Zona isn't the same as Oregon-- their scorers are really only three deep, to the point where a triangle-and-two defense actually makes quite a bit of sense-- but the same basic premise applies. Dominate the height game, and you'll dominate the entire game.
Bayless and Budinger are going to score. A lot. But if "a lot" is 15 points each instead of 25, Stanford can-- nay, should-- win easily.
This is an absolutely critical weekend for both Bay Area teams. Stanford needs a sweep to stay in the Pac-10 title hunt. Cal needs at least a split to keep their bid hopes on track, and a sweep-- according to Joe Lunardi, ESPN's bracket guru-- would definitely put them into the field. I'm going to be missing tomorrow night's game, unfortunately, and perhaps Saturday's as well... so I'll probably be filling the time by raving a little more about how good Ryan Anderson is.
Oregon 71, Stanford 66
There's no worse feeling than losing a close game to a visibly weaker team. There were so many ways Stanford could have won this game-- make ANY three-pointers, shoot better than 50% at the free-throw line, not allow 5'6" guys to get layups, shoot a non-airball on the final meaningful possession...
I mean, Oregon played well given their limitations. They're a great passing team-- that much was obvious from the number of seemingly impossible situations they extricated themselves from when they penetrated inside. They know how to shoot, they know what shots to take, and they make a lot of them.
That being said... basketball is a game of height. Stanford dominated Oregon in height and should have dominated them in the run of play. My comments of the other day were somewhat prescient, in the wrong way. There were pretty much three types of game here-- the parts where both Lopezes were in the game, the parts where only one was, and the parts where neither was. And # of Lopezes was pretty strongly correlated with whether Stanford was winning or losing the game.
I don't want to sound like I'm blaming Trent Johnson for the loss here. Somewhere along the line, your players have to make some shots. But I felt like he didn't appreciate the total dominance that having two Lopezes in allowed Stanford to have on the boards and inside the arc. With them both in, Oregon's only prayer was to bomb away from 3 and hope they hit a bunch.
Let's hope some lessons have been learned for Thursday's game against Arizona. Zona isn't the same as Oregon-- their scorers are really only three deep, to the point where a triangle-and-two defense actually makes quite a bit of sense-- but the same basic premise applies. Dominate the height game, and you'll dominate the entire game.
Bayless and Budinger are going to score. A lot. But if "a lot" is 15 points each instead of 25, Stanford can-- nay, should-- win easily.
This is an absolutely critical weekend for both Bay Area teams. Stanford needs a sweep to stay in the Pac-10 title hunt. Cal needs at least a split to keep their bid hopes on track, and a sweep-- according to Joe Lunardi, ESPN's bracket guru-- would definitely put them into the field. I'm going to be missing tomorrow night's game, unfortunately, and perhaps Saturday's as well... so I'll probably be filling the time by raving a little more about how good Ryan Anderson is.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Bad Sports Metaphors 101
Is Trent Johnson a pizza chef?
A sushi guru?
Or perhaps the guy behind the counter at Baskin Robbins?
Stanford 66, Oregon State 46
I ask the question because so far, he seems to be pretty good at mixing up the flavor of the day to stop a given opponent. I observe the bad metaphor because, frankly, I like quality writing, and food metaphors are, pretty much by definition, excluded from that category.
The inimitable and unreplicable baseball blog FJM has an entire category of howlers related to the misuse (perhaps I should just say "use") of food metaphors in bad sports journalism. I'm just doing my small part to keep them in business.
In any event, tonight Robin Lopez came off the bench for the first time in his collegiate career so that Stanford could run a quicker, smaller lineup out for the first couple of minutes. It worked like a charm. The Cardinal rung up most of the final margin of victory by the first TV timeout (I use the term loosely, because the game wasn't televised) and at that point, the game was essentially over. Lawrence Hill finally broke out of his inexplicable (the word is the Chronicle's) 3-pointer slump by hitting 3 of 4. The rest of the team basically got their minutes, racked up some decent numbers, and got out of the building with a solid whomping of a clearly inferior opponent.
Again some props have to go to Stanford's defense, which frequently has opponents simply looking befuddled at how they're supposed to score the basketball. OSU shot a miserable 17-for-56 and racked up a mere 6 assists. Their only double-figure scorer, Omari Johnson, accomplished the feat by attempting 15 shots.
The question at hand now is: what lineup is best suited to stop Oregon on Sunday? Does Stanford go big and try to simply play above Oregon's heads? (The Ducks are virtually big-man free once again this year, something that Ernie Kent has worked hard to address with next year's massive incoming class.) Or do they play small and try to run with Oregon? I'm inclined to say "go big," myself. Oregon is not, despite the guard-heaviness, a particularly aggressive defensive team. It's more "roughly 20 minutes of heck" than "40 minutes of hell". I think Stanford can dictate the flow of the game to Oregon, force them to deploy bench players that really shouldn't be playing in games this important, and foul out Maarty Leunen by using the Lopez twins copiously. We'll see if Trent Johnson agrees.
A sushi guru?
Or perhaps the guy behind the counter at Baskin Robbins?
Stanford 66, Oregon State 46
I ask the question because so far, he seems to be pretty good at mixing up the flavor of the day to stop a given opponent. I observe the bad metaphor because, frankly, I like quality writing, and food metaphors are, pretty much by definition, excluded from that category.
The inimitable and unreplicable baseball blog FJM has an entire category of howlers related to the misuse (perhaps I should just say "use") of food metaphors in bad sports journalism. I'm just doing my small part to keep them in business.
In any event, tonight Robin Lopez came off the bench for the first time in his collegiate career so that Stanford could run a quicker, smaller lineup out for the first couple of minutes. It worked like a charm. The Cardinal rung up most of the final margin of victory by the first TV timeout (I use the term loosely, because the game wasn't televised) and at that point, the game was essentially over. Lawrence Hill finally broke out of his inexplicable (the word is the Chronicle's) 3-pointer slump by hitting 3 of 4. The rest of the team basically got their minutes, racked up some decent numbers, and got out of the building with a solid whomping of a clearly inferior opponent.
Again some props have to go to Stanford's defense, which frequently has opponents simply looking befuddled at how they're supposed to score the basketball. OSU shot a miserable 17-for-56 and racked up a mere 6 assists. Their only double-figure scorer, Omari Johnson, accomplished the feat by attempting 15 shots.
The question at hand now is: what lineup is best suited to stop Oregon on Sunday? Does Stanford go big and try to simply play above Oregon's heads? (The Ducks are virtually big-man free once again this year, something that Ernie Kent has worked hard to address with next year's massive incoming class.) Or do they play small and try to run with Oregon? I'm inclined to say "go big," myself. Oregon is not, despite the guard-heaviness, a particularly aggressive defensive team. It's more "roughly 20 minutes of heck" than "40 minutes of hell". I think Stanford can dictate the flow of the game to Oregon, force them to deploy bench players that really shouldn't be playing in games this important, and foul out Maarty Leunen by using the Lopez twins copiously. We'll see if Trent Johnson agrees.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
In rugby action today...
Stanford defeats USC, 52-46.
This was an old-school game. And by old-school, I mean it was reminiscent of the ancient Maya ball game, in which the players attempted to knock the ball through a vertical hoop (so it had to go through sideways) without using their hands to propel it. The only differences I could see: a. There was slightly more scoring in this game, and b. the losing team was not subsequently "honored" by participating in a blood sacrifice to the gods-- as the victims. Maybe they should have been.
Let's go through the ugliness:
The two teams had a combined assist to turnover ratio of 15:43.
ONE starter had a shooting percentage over 50%. (Taj Gibson, to be exact.)
Stanford shot 14 more times than USC, and made the same number of shots. And USC was not exactly lighting it up either.
Stanford scored 38 points on 63 shots. That's an effective field goal percentage of .302.
As far as I can make out, each team possessed the ball 66 times. USC therefore managed to score an average of .70 points per possession. Just for reference, an average NCAA team might score 1 point per possession. So USC was roughly 30% worse than an average team in this game; Stanford wasn't far behind, at .79 points per possession.
You had to watch this game to see how bad it was. Time and time again, each team would have open looks and simply whiff. Stanford was clearly the worse offender here. They utterly dominated the offensive glass-- pulling down fully half of the rebounds at that end of the floor, while giving up just 8 offensive boards to USC in 34 chances-- and simply could not convert those offensive boards into points. Apparently making point-blank layups was too easy, or something.
USC's problem was less the "lid on the basket" issue and more the "can't sink a shot no matter how open I am" one. SC's guys could have, on several occasions, taken set shots from 3-point range and had plenty of time to load beforehand, and they still clanked off the side of the rim. I can't tell if it was an off night or simply the wrong people taking the shots.
I think both teams would be well served to throw the videotape of this game in the trash bin. They'd be even better served to erase it from the stat sheets.
This was an old-school game. And by old-school, I mean it was reminiscent of the ancient Maya ball game, in which the players attempted to knock the ball through a vertical hoop (so it had to go through sideways) without using their hands to propel it. The only differences I could see: a. There was slightly more scoring in this game, and b. the losing team was not subsequently "honored" by participating in a blood sacrifice to the gods-- as the victims. Maybe they should have been.
Let's go through the ugliness:
The two teams had a combined assist to turnover ratio of 15:43.
ONE starter had a shooting percentage over 50%. (Taj Gibson, to be exact.)
Stanford shot 14 more times than USC, and made the same number of shots. And USC was not exactly lighting it up either.
Stanford scored 38 points on 63 shots. That's an effective field goal percentage of .302.
As far as I can make out, each team possessed the ball 66 times. USC therefore managed to score an average of .70 points per possession. Just for reference, an average NCAA team might score 1 point per possession. So USC was roughly 30% worse than an average team in this game; Stanford wasn't far behind, at .79 points per possession.
You had to watch this game to see how bad it was. Time and time again, each team would have open looks and simply whiff. Stanford was clearly the worse offender here. They utterly dominated the offensive glass-- pulling down fully half of the rebounds at that end of the floor, while giving up just 8 offensive boards to USC in 34 chances-- and simply could not convert those offensive boards into points. Apparently making point-blank layups was too easy, or something.
USC's problem was less the "lid on the basket" issue and more the "can't sink a shot no matter how open I am" one. SC's guys could have, on several occasions, taken set shots from 3-point range and had plenty of time to load beforehand, and they still clanked off the side of the rim. I can't tell if it was an off night or simply the wrong people taking the shots.
I think both teams would be well served to throw the videotape of this game in the trash bin. They'd be even better served to erase it from the stat sheets.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
C'est la UCLA
UCLA 76, Stanford 67
Well, it was a nice hope. UCLA was simply too efficient offensively in the second half. Frankly, they were also lucky on their shots; it seemed like they couldn't miss sometimes, and they got a couple of really random offensive rebounds that seemed to deflate Stanford defensively. I felt like the zone wasn't used enough by the Cardinal. Then again, maybe Trent Johnson felt like UCLA was shooting the ball so well from the outside that he couldn't afford to try it for an extended stretch.
Brook Lopez awoke from the dead with 11 points offensively in the second half, but this was still a deeply disappointing game for him. Stanford missed 6 points on whiffed slams and point-blank layups while UCLA was running their lead to 12 points, and that really cost them badly. The crowd was never able to fully get into the flow (and to be fair, with the school still on winter break, it was a bit sparser than usual).
Cal is thumping USC as I write this, so it's not all bad news for the Bay Area today. One non-basketball item to note: Oakland right fielder Nick Swisher was traded today for three minor leaguers. Baseball season is going to be long and, frankly, crummy next year. Thank God the Olympics will intervene when things really start getting ugly. I understand why this move was made-- and even approve of it on a strategic level-- but they are not going to be a good team next season at all. It's all about 2010 for Oaktown right now.
Well, it was a nice hope. UCLA was simply too efficient offensively in the second half. Frankly, they were also lucky on their shots; it seemed like they couldn't miss sometimes, and they got a couple of really random offensive rebounds that seemed to deflate Stanford defensively. I felt like the zone wasn't used enough by the Cardinal. Then again, maybe Trent Johnson felt like UCLA was shooting the ball so well from the outside that he couldn't afford to try it for an extended stretch.
Brook Lopez awoke from the dead with 11 points offensively in the second half, but this was still a deeply disappointing game for him. Stanford missed 6 points on whiffed slams and point-blank layups while UCLA was running their lead to 12 points, and that really cost them badly. The crowd was never able to fully get into the flow (and to be fair, with the school still on winter break, it was a bit sparser than usual).
Cal is thumping USC as I write this, so it's not all bad news for the Bay Area today. One non-basketball item to note: Oakland right fielder Nick Swisher was traded today for three minor leaguers. Baseball season is going to be long and, frankly, crummy next year. Thank God the Olympics will intervene when things really start getting ugly. I understand why this move was made-- and even approve of it on a strategic level-- but they are not going to be a good team next season at all. It's all about 2010 for Oaktown right now.
Halftime
Stanford down by a single point.
The guys need to play within themselves a little more. A couple of truly pointless turnovers on fast breaks where there was nothing available. There are open shots available in the halfcourt set. There's no reason to rush things.
Nice penetration work by the Stanford guards. This seems to be a real weakness of UCLA's D, which surprises me.
UCLA is totally shutting down Brook Lopez; hopefully he'll adjust and have a monster second half.
Stanford actually outplayed UCLA, I think, but they stayed in it with an unrealistic 3-pointer percentage. Granted, they had a bunch of open looks, but nobody is that hot all the time.
Lawrence Hill is getting some openings; they need to give him the ball despite his struggles in prior games. We know he's got the talent.
That's all for now. I'll wrap up in an hour or so.
The guys need to play within themselves a little more. A couple of truly pointless turnovers on fast breaks where there was nothing available. There are open shots available in the halfcourt set. There's no reason to rush things.
Nice penetration work by the Stanford guards. This seems to be a real weakness of UCLA's D, which surprises me.
UCLA is totally shutting down Brook Lopez; hopefully he'll adjust and have a monster second half.
Stanford actually outplayed UCLA, I think, but they stayed in it with an unrealistic 3-pointer percentage. Granted, they had a bunch of open looks, but nobody is that hot all the time.
Lawrence Hill is getting some openings; they need to give him the ball despite his struggles in prior games. We know he's got the talent.
That's all for now. I'll wrap up in an hour or so.
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