I'm pretty sure that's what last night's game felt like if you were an Oregon Duck.
Stanford 72, Oregon 43
In a stark contrast to the first meeting between the two, where the tempo and run of play were largely controlled by Oregon, Stanford utterly dominated this game from the start-- and did it with the "big lineup" that (not to toot my own horn excessively here) I advocated before that game. It's unfortunate, because I think if Trent Johnson had used it more extensively there, the team would now be 9-1 in conference play-- but he should also get credit for recognizing that the strategy of going small to try to play with Oregon on the perimeter was ineffectual and changing course.
Last night's game wasn't televised, so other than the running Opposition Assist Count (Oregon had six last night-- rather incredible when you consider how good their offense actually is) I don't have a lot to analyze here. I did, however, see most of the Wazoo-UCLA game.
UCLA is clearly the best team in the league at this point. Washington State really doesn't turn the ball over very much-- Stanford only forced four in an overtime WIN-- but for a stretch of about 5 minutes in the second half, they might as well have dipped their hands in a vat of lard. That's how easily UCLA was getting steals. I think you have to chalk it up to UCLA's defense-- it's not particularly great at field goal percentage, but they are unquestionably exceptional at forcing turnovers and the complete package is a national top 10 unit.
Their offense is also excellent, although it has odd weaknesses for a college offense-- particularly an inability (and unwillingness) to shoot the 3-pointer. Still, they generate enormous numbers of easy shots and can hit from midrange, with the result that on a per-possession basis UCLA is a bare fraction worse than Kansas for the top unit in the country. A lot of this is because of Kevin Love, who keeps impressing me more every time I see him. He's the interior scoring threat last year's Bruins needed so badly.
It's kind of odd to watch, because Love looks like a football player-- squat, kind of flabby, no discernible neck. Yet the guy is an absolute powerhouse. He was routinely scoring through double teams, and not just by tossing shots over them (as Brook Lopez is somewhat prone to). He would simply force his way out of them. He's a vacuum on the rebounding glass, he can hit from outside if you play off of him, and his oft-remarked-upon passing strength probably generates 4-6 free points a game on fast-breaks appearing out of nowhere.
It's going to be interesting to see where things shake out with regard to him and the NBA. He's a true center, but he's very short for the position at the NBA level. Can pure strength overcome the inevitable prejudices of scouts against his height? Or will someone take him and attempt to convert him to a power forward? If it's the latter, his draft stock will probably slip a bit.
It would certainly be interesting to see what he could do with four years at the college level. One hesitates to say he would rewrite the school record books (this is, after all UCLA) but he could win Conference Player of the Year multiple times. Not that I, as a fan of two other Pac-10 teams, would be particularly thrilled to see them play against him twice each. Regardless, I don't think it'll happen. He might stay one more year; I can't see him hanging around any longer. At some point, there's just nothing left to prove.
Cal notes: the Bears have some kind of issue with Oregon State. It just never seems to go well when those two match up. The Bears did pull it out but it was a damned near run thing, to paraphrase Wellington.
One must-win down, two more to go. The game against Oregon tomorrow should be a fun and high-scoring affair. Win that, steal one on the road in Arizona and maybe we're talking an NCAA bid in a few more weeks.
Stanford obviously isn't in that situation right now, but seeding-wise they would be strongly advised to not mess around with OSU tomorrow. I hate these "gimme" games-- nothing good can happen even if you win, and a loss is a disaster. At least in this case it wasn't brought on voluntarily through scheduling.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Draft buzz
I'm not going to dwell on last night's Cardinal game, which wasn't televised at all (Can someone work on this? Please?) except to note a rather remarkable number from the box score-- Stanford allowed all of FOUR assists in this game. Overall Stanford's conference opponents are averaging a mere 9 a game; on the season, it's 9.5. Those are pretty remarkable numbers. Essentially what they're saying is that the only way to score on the Cardinal is to penetrate or somehow isolate one guy. Stanford's won 6 games out of 8 with both Lawrence Hill and Anthony Goods in severe shooting slumps, and that goes a long way toward explaining how. Defense doesn't go into a slump, I guess.
And now for something completely different...
In this piece, Chad Ford ranks Anderson as a rising talent. He's still listed as a late first/early second round pick on ESPN's big draft board, but I suspect if he keeps dropping 27 on good defenses like he did last night, he'll probably make his way up the chart pretty quickly. He sees the key to Anderson's potential value as his improved rebounding skills-- often an indicator of a willingness to "get physical" and something that might inveigh against the popular stereotype of jump-shooting white big men, which is that they're not willing to bang for balls.
In this piece, John Hollinger analyzes the draft class according to a metric he's developed to help predict the NBA success of college players-- and Anderson comes off extremely well, given that he's perceived as being primarily a scorer who lacks the freakish athleticism that NBA coaches crave. He is, in fact, the second-highest rated non-freshman, and the formula suggests that Anderson should be as high as a late lottery pick this year and definitely a first-rounder.
It's going to be extremely interesting to see where Anderson's stock ends up after this season, especially relative to teammate DeVon Hardin (who was far bigger on the radar screen prior to the season) who provides a pretty easy point of comparison. My hunch? He'll declare for the draft, but pull his name out and stay another season to ensure that he'll get picked very high, along the lines of what Brook Lopez did last season.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Twin seems like a near-lock for a top 10 (probably top 5) pick after this season, which sadly more or less guarantees that he won't be returning for his junior year. He's pretty much capable of scoring at will at the college level at this point. That's the curse of today's college game-- the better the players get, the more likely they are to leave. Being a minor league baseball fan must be a similar feeling. I continue to wish that the NBA would abandon the ridiculous one-year rule (creator of media abominations like O.J. Mayo) and institute a system akin to baseball-- let guys go pro out of high school, but give a college 3 years of a player before he can declare as a junior.
As usual, no one asked me.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Analysis Double-Dip!
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."
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."
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.
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