When is winning not a good thing?

Well, in college hoops, it's when you beat a bad team in a game where you played poorly, solely because the opposing team is terrible.

Stanford 71, Oregon State 56

The benighted Beavers weren't much of a threat. They have a habit of allowing ridiculous runs to their opponents, and this game was no exception, as Stanford basically blew the game open with a 15-0 stretch to close the first half.

The fact remains that this was one of the team's worse games of the season. Not on the level of the Siena game, or the USC game, or even the first Oregon game, but distinctly weaker than the excellent stretch of play which preceded it. They continued to hold the opponent's assist count down (OSU had only seven on 20 field goals) but shot poorly from the floor and committed a dizzying array of turnovers, including several really boneheaded ones. Brook Lopez stepped out of bounds at least twice, and I think Mitch Johnson did once as well.

Moreover, the team's defensive efficiency was only 90.3 in this game. That's relative to 100, so it was above NCAA average-- but keep in mind, Oregon State is a terrible offensive team. The defense Stanford played Saturday was par for the conference course this year-- and given that the team's offense is likewise rather average, that's not going to be good enough to win on the road this weekend. Let's hope it was a one-game aberration.

Up next: James Harden, Jeff Pendergraph and whoever else Arizona State throws out there. This is a tough road game, but it's a good matchup-- Stanford eats halfcourt teams for lunch. It's a game that ought to be won.

Cal got absolutely poleaxed by Oregon on Saturday; I didn't see the game courtesy of Comcast SportsNet, but it sounds like they were victimized by unbelievable Oregon shooting. These things happen, sadly. Cal's in a really tough bind at this point-- they need four out of seven games, and five of the seven are road games. The most plausible scenario would be wins over the Arizona schools on the road and the Washington schools at home. Doesn't seem all that plausible to me. I guess anything can happen, but Cal is not a good defensive team.