WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - Printable Version

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - CompSci87 - 02-03-2016

Lots of quotes on passing up shots in the Palo Alto Online article: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/02/02/cardinal-women-take-a-defensive-stand-for-hoops-win-over-cal

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - 81alum - 02-03-2016

Thanks, CompSci.  Here are a few from the two newspaper stories that I think capture the performance:

Quote:Stanford and California first took to the court for an intercollegiate game 120 years ago this April. The Cardinal won that contest, 2-1.  Tuesday night's game, the third in five days for both teams, may have been just as exciting.

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/02/02/cardinal-women-take-a-defensive-stand-for-hoops-win-over-cal

Quote:"It wasn't pretty but it was gritty," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. "We were offensively challenged but the defense stepped up and came through for us. This is one of the most committed defensive teams we've had."

Quote:"It's frustrating when you're making unforced errors, throwing the ball away," said Samuelson, who also added six boards and team highs in assists (4) and steals (2). "We need to start off more aggressive and we need to take the open shots we get."

Quote:Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb expects the Golden Bears' shooting to vastly improve in Haas Pavilion.  "I hope that we'll shoot better at home," she said. "If we were playing on Mars on Friday we would shoot better than 29 percent."

http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_29467871/womens-basketball-stanford-holds-off-cal-ninth-straight

Quote:Stanford was held to its lowest-scoring home game this season whereas Cal had its fewest points any time this season.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - 81alum - 02-03-2016

(02-03-2016, 12:39 AM)m1ffle link Wrote:Lili's less than stellar performance today may have been due to having the ring & pinkie fingers of her right hand taped -- broken pinkie? Didn't keep her from playing for 36 minutes.

I completely missed this.  Interesting.  It would be a more plausible explanation for why she went from 11/15 against WSU to 3/15 against C.al just because she is "streaky."

(02-03-2016, 12:03 AM)Viking_Guy link Wrote:I REALLY wish the referees would take a look at Anigwe's go-to post move - she's hooking the defender with her off-arm almost every time, starting on the right block, sweeping her left arm down and around the defender's hip to pin her, then pivoting to the hoop.

Your observations are always golden, VG.  I watched her carefully and could not articulate what it was that bothered me, but you nailed it.  Something else I noticed about her was how effective she was at backing in to the paint.  Not to be indelicate, but she absolutely bulldozed people with her butt--they could not get any leverage to keep her from backing in to the paint before she had the ball.  Then she would receive the pass and--legal or not--that is one freshman who did not take 3 years to develop a back-to-the-basket move.  It made me think that we would be better off fronting her--a strategy that we usually use against taller players when we want to deny them the ball and feel we can't prevent them from scoring if they get it in close.

Someone asked at the Chalk Talk why we did not recruit her.  Tempie said that with many players it is obvious early that they cannot get past admissions, and so they are not even worth watching in high school.  Someone also asked how many players we had recruited who had been admitted and who chose to go elsewhere.  A decade ago Tara had mentioned 7 in her entire career.  Tempie said only 1 in recent years--Katie Lou.  I did not speak up, but we know of one other, obviously, after Pivec displayed her admissions letter.  It might be more complicated than we understand, I suppose. 

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - RuralFan - 02-03-2016

I just don't understand our offensive philosophy.  Cal played a two three zone with the guards out high to prevent three point shots.  The three baseline players stayed low to prevent drives.  This leaves a brobdingnagian hole in the middle of the zone. We could pass into the middle or dribble into the middle whenever we wanted, but then nothing.  The unguarded player with the ball ten to twelve feet from the basket looked to pass the ball back outside.  Surely someone on our team can consistently hit a ten or twelve foot shot.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - 81alum - 02-03-2016

(02-03-2016, 06:37 AM)RuralFan link Wrote:I just don't understand our offensive philosophy.  Low APR U played a two three zone with the guards out high to prevent three point shots.  The three baseline players stayed low to prevent drives.  This leaves a of exceedingly large proportions hole in the middle of the zone. We could pass into the middle or dribble into the middle whenever we wanted, but then nothing.  The unguarded player with the ball ten to twelve feet from the basket looked to pass the ball back outside.  Surely someone on our team can consistently hit a ten or twelve foot shot.

Exactly!  The mid range jumper has been our Achilles heel since Amber left.  Those are the shots we need Marta and Bri to start making.  Karlie has shown the willingness, a few times, to go around her perimeter defender and hit a mid range jump shot, and that needs to happen more.  She could seriously punish the zone by doing that more.  Out of Lili's 12 misses, only two were mid range jumpers--when she can't get open for treys and when the layups are in too much traffic, she needs to stop-and-pop, and that seems to be her last preference.  How odd, too, given that one of the first options in our new "pick and roll"  offense is for the guard to get an open mid range jumper after curling around the screen.  It wastes the screens if that never happens.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - TheFarm07 - 02-03-2016

(02-03-2016, 06:48 AM)81alum link Wrote:[quote author=RuralFan link=topic=14530.msg155369#msg155369 date=1454506665]
I just don't understand our offensive philosophy.  Low APR U played a two three zone with the guards out high to prevent three point shots.  The three baseline players stayed low to prevent drives.  This leaves a of exceedingly large proportions hole in the middle of the zone. We could pass into the middle or dribble into the middle whenever we wanted, but then nothing.  The unguarded player with the ball ten to twelve feet from the basket looked to pass the ball back outside.  Surely someone on our team can consistently hit a ten or twelve foot shot.

Exactly!  The mid range jumper has been our Achilles heel since Amber left.  Those are the shots we need Marta and Bri to start making.  Karlie has shown the willingness, a few times, to go around her perimeter defender and hit a mid range jump shot, and that needs to happen more.  She could seriously punish the zone by doing that more.  Out of Lili's 12 misses, only two were mid range jumpers--when she can't get open for treys and when the layups are in too much traffic, she needs to stop-and-pop, and that seems to be her last preference.  How odd, too, given that one of the first options in our new "pick and roll"  offense is for the guard to get an open mid range jumper after curling around the screen.  It wastes the screens if that never happens.
[/quote]

AGREED.  It seems like mid-range jumpers have not been in our offensive reportoire for a few years.  It's either shooting the three (leaving us vulnerable to a cold shooting night) or scoring inside whether through a drive or through a post (which could be stopped by clogging up the lane).  It seemed like we got a memo saying that we weren't allowed to score anywhere else.

We have good shooters who could use the confidence boost from making shorter range shots and it would help in taking better shot selection if opponents' defenses are leaving us the biggest gap in the areas between the paint and the perimeter.

I really hope these quotes from the players and Tara are not just talk and they actually try to implement them going forward starting with the game at Berkeley on Friday night.  I would love to see them crack 70 points for a change.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - pepper1 - 02-03-2016

Good commentaries and comments on this game, especially from 81alum -- thanks!  The game was best summed up as UGLY ... but happily the Cardinal won another close one with hustle, toughness & gritty D.  Sitting six rows behind the UCB bench, the only comment I would add is that the UCB coach seemed at several junctures to have lost her team and several other times to be out of step with her assistants.  With the impressive talent UCB has (albeit with only seven suited players), this may be another reason they are struggling as much as they have been during the conference schedule.  Hopefully Friday the Cardinal can hit some shots early & not leave the outcome in doubt until the fourth quarter.

With no legit top-10 team in the Pac-12 this year but many very talented teams with comparable talent, the games have generally been entertaining, with this latest being an exception.  It will be interesting to see if Tara can devise a way for this Cardinal team to take it up a notch during the last 4-5 weeks of the season.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - M T - 02-03-2016

Scoring only 53 points, Stanford missed having 4 players in double figures because Bri missed a FT in the last minute.  What scoring there was, was evenly spread.

5 minutes into the game, down 11-4 (with TO by Karlie(2), Marta, & Kailee),  Tara sent in Bri, Alana, & Brittany for Marta, Kaylee, & Karlie.  Marta started but only played 7 minutes.  I guess Tara thought her net worth (ball distribution minus TO & lack of scoring) was less than Bri's for this game.

The number of short shots (incl. FT) early in the game seemed too large for it to be chance.  These are young ladies that are in great shape.  I don't buy that their shots would be short because they played a game two days earlier.  Jitters?  Stress?  I don't know.

Any thoughts of pity for C.al having only 7 players were crushed when one C.al player threw a vicious elbow.  Fortunately, on a night where they missed so many shots, it missed too (an "air elbow"?).  Do you think it is the Berkeley water?  Is it that coach that encourages elbows and balls thrown at faces?  Or maybe, that's the kind of recruit she has to settle for.

While others on this board see a team struggling on offense, when I watch the team, I see 100% effort at defense.  They really are doing a good job at that.  Tara's coaching & preparation really shows there.  Anyone else noticed they're doing a better job at blocking out & rebounding?  At the offensive end, they're not releasing as early as before.  Against C.al, we got 9/34 (26%) OR and 10/44 (77%) DR, giving a slight edge (103 vs 97) in combined rebounding percentages.  But Stanford didn't get as many blocks as usual.



Tickets were $20 for general admission.  I guess Stanford's been taking lessons from the Warriors.  If the game is televised, the level of ticket prices doesn't change the attendance much.    Between PAC-12 televising games, Tuesday night start-time, ticket prices, and the weak season, this rivalry game only had attendance of 3268 (about 44% of capacity).  Well, it wasn't the lowest attendance of the year (only 2858 for the Friday game against UW and a couple of others back in November).  Any one know if "attendance" counts sold tickets (including season tickets) or actual people who entered the door?  I would have guessed it was less than 44% occupied.

(02-03-2016, 08:20 AM)ghsfcal link Wrote:With no legit top-10 team in the Pac-12 this year

Yeah, the AP is just hot air.  No way do ASU & OSU deserve to be in the top 10, nor do UCLA & Stanford deserve to be in the top 15.  They're just not legit.  After all, when you're used to being top-4 every year, anything less is just not worthy of being top 10. 

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On KZSU, the sports talk show followed the game.  I admit I rarely listen to it, but they started off talking about the WBB game that just ended.  Thank goodness the host had a guest that seemed like he may watch Stanford WBB.  Among the errors by the host were a comment about how Lili really was productive on the Washington trip last week, a question regarding how Stanford, now 3rd[sic] in the conference, was in a place it hadn't been in a long time, and a note that Stanford will play C.al on Friday at 7PM at Pauley Pavilion.  He did sound like he actually watches MBB, but when talking about their last game, he mis-spoke and said that Stanford shot 12% from the free-throw line. It led me to reflect about how difficult it must be to talk about a sport one doesn't watch.  He is just a student and still learning.  I'm sure I would be much worse!

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - oldalum - 02-03-2016

(02-03-2016, 06:31 AM)81alum link Wrote:Something else I noticed about her was how effective she was at backing in to the paint.  Not to be indelicate, but she absolutely bulldozed people with her butt--they could not get any leverage to keep her from backing in to the paint before she had the ball. 

I kept watching that after I noticed it early. I was surprised none of our bigs could resist her. If we can't keep her from backing us up in the key, we have to let her go by and front her. 

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - BobK - 02-03-2016

Lili's hand has been taped for some time.  Doesn't mean it got worse of course

Cowling throws an elbow and the refs ignore.  Like they ignored Anigwe living in the key each trip in the first half for 6-12 seconds  then finally they called in the 2nd half

2 blocked shots and hands  straight up called fouls on us. Replay at the game showed no foul

Defense great I don't know a single person who understands our silly offense.  It's guard oriented despite having only one decent guard.  Sadly we don't want Lili at the point. We want her looking to shoot or Karlie could play the 2 and McPhee the 3

Alanna Smith is regressing.  There I said it 81

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - TheFarm07 - 02-03-2016

(02-03-2016, 09:57 AM)BobK link Wrote:Alanna Smith is regressing.  There I said it 81

How can you tell? She's been barely getting any playing time the last month

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - CompSci87 - 02-03-2016

On one of Anigwe's plays where she drew a foul, her hooking was very visible on the scoreboard replay, shown as she was going to the line. That drew a ton of boos and yells about the hooking.

The crowd also was trying mightily to help the refs notice the 3 second violations throughout.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - chimera - 02-03-2016

Lots of great points in this thread.  Agree wholeheartedly about the officiating not being good this game and the stuff about Anigwe's game.  On some level, stinky offense or not (and it is stinky) we just have to make the open shots.  In the post-game presser, Tara said we need more from Marta, Alanna, and Britanny, which yeah we do, but that means she has to put them in the game more.  I don't  like either Johnson in the high post with the ball.  Instantly the defense sags.  We can use Bird there.  She is a threat to shoot from there, or play Smith a bit and let her play high post.  She can shoot from there and keep the defense honest.  Or even play McPhee at the 4 a bit and let her occupy that spot, from which she can shoot or drive. 

Our offense is way too slow.  We don't make the defense move enough.  We wait for screens for too long.  We catch a pass and think wait too long before deciding what to do.  We should have been driving on Cal with our forwards, who are big enough to draw a foul rather than get blocked.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - mbdude - 02-03-2016

I agree with the idea of Smith at the high post. She played there a few times at the beginning of the season . Now whenever she enters she's stuck in the corner, or down low - and nobody knows how to make a post entry pass.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - BobK - 02-03-2016

Actually she played a bit in the high post last night.  Then a mistake and yanked

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - 76lsjumb - 02-03-2016

Judging from the comments, I may be alone on this, but last night's game left me longing wistfully of the days when yelling at [and about] bad reffing was reserved for the games against Tenn or U.Conn or Charli/ASU -- that is, the elite teams -- and not wasted on the bottom feeder games [where it used to be so irrelevant to the almost certain outcome (i.e., a very comfortable win) as to be more a source of amusement than a cause for concern].  I've yelled [or, rather, forcefully expressed my opinion] at my share of refs over the years, but I confess that, deep down, I know there are games when the yelling is due to undeniably bad reffing and then there are games when the yelling is -- truth be told -- due as much to frustration with the way our team is playing as to actual bad reffing.  I think last night fell into the latter category.

As for Anigwe -- and, again, I may be alone on this -- she looked to me like the only player on the floor last night who is [even as a freshman] a solid college player with a likely WNBA career ahead of her, notwithstanding the fact that she couldn't get her shots to drop for much of the evening.  Otherwise put, if she had been playing for us and not them, I think we would be comparing her performance favorably to a number of our post alums and not so much complaining about the fairness of her moves or her, um ... extended... time in the key.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - pepper1 - 02-03-2016

Good comments by 76lsjumb on Anigwe.  She looked like the most talented player on the court and played hard throughout.  UCB's offensive "sets" (to use the term very loosely) did her no favors.  She has "O" sister type talent, and it is difficult not to fantasize about what Tara might do with a young talent like that.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - TheFarm07 - 02-03-2016

(02-03-2016, 12:48 PM)ghsfcal link Wrote:Good comments by 76lsjumb on Anigwe.  She looked like the most talented player on the court and played hard throughout.  UCB's offensive "sets" (to use the term very loosely) did her no favors.  She has "O" sister type talent, and it is difficult not to fantasize about what Tara might do with a young talent like that.

Not surprising since Anigwe was the #8 recruit in the Class of 2015 Rankings.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - Jskass - 02-03-2016

And Chiney has made comments to the effect that Anigwe already has moves that she didn't develop for a few years...assume she didn't mean the hook.

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Re: WBB: Stanford 53 C.al 46 - TheFarm07 - 02-03-2016

Highly doubtful, but maybe one of the members of next year's incoming class will have a big impact. Carrington?

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