Rip the shit... till my bone collapse

That's what I tried to do to the chair downstairs when the Cardinal finally pulled off their heart-stopping, pulse-racing win over Washington State. Simply an unbelievable game-- one of the two or three best I've seen all season.

Stanford 67, Washington State 65

At the risk of sounding too much like a fanboy and too little like an analyst... this was a hell of a clutch performance. OK, the free-throw shooting was kind of unclutch (for both teams) and the Cardinal could have done better on their last possession than a contested 18-foot heave through traffic. But clutchness is more of a mental toughness thing anyway-- and we saw that on display yesterday. The team had a couple of opportunities to fold after getting down by 9 or so in the second half-- and both times, they fought back to get into the game again.

There's no question what factor made the largest difference in this one-- it was Lawrence Hill. 4 of 6 from 3-point range, 18 points, 8 rebounds. Not a stunning performance, but a very good one-- and it seemed like every 3-pointer came at a crucial moment, stopping a run, giving the team the lead, and so on. Lawrence Hill is an odd bird-- his oddly rotating jump shot is kind of symbolic-- but he's unquestionably a big-game player. He was huge in last year's UCLA upset that essentially carried the team into the NCAA tournament, and huge again in today's nailbiter.

I've also got to give props to Trent Johnson for this win. The hidden turning point of the game was when he moved Fred Washington to guard Derrick Low instead of Kyle Weaver. Weaver ran wild a bit-- he had a career-high in points-- but Low, after going on something like a singlehanded 9-0 run while "guarded" by Kenny Brown (sorry Kenny... facts is facts), was shut down for essentially the balance of the game. Combined with the Lopezes fouling out Aron Baynes with limited impact, this left the Cougs with only one good scoring option on the offensive end. Great game management to deal with the loss of Anthony Goods to an ankle sprain (which explains why he had so few minutes in Thursday night's game... I was afraid of something like that when I saw the box score).

This was an awesome statement win for NCAA tournament purposes. It's hard to overestimate the value of a good road win against a tough opponent in a hostile environment. Stanford's excellent road/neutral record (7-2) is going to pay dividends come tournament time, and well it should.

Ryan Anderson watch: 33 points and 17 rebounds against Washington. Just another day at the office.

The road sweep might be even bigger for Cal than it was for Stanford, as it essentially resurrected their season. The Bears have a legitimate shot at a Tournament berth now; it's probably going to take 5 or 6 wins down the stretch and into the Pac-10 tournament to do it, but that number sure looks a lot better than the 7 or 8 wins it looked to take BEFORE last weekend.