The CardBoard
Re: Re: WBB: Stanford 96 Oregon 66 - Printable Version

+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Re: Re: WBB: Stanford 96 Oregon 66 (/thread-6551.html)

Pages: 1 2

Re: Re: WBB: Stanford 96 Oregon 66 - BBGuru - 01-04-2014

(01-03-2014, 11:26 PM)Jskass link Wrote:What a class act Chiney is-- while she was being applauded, she was totally focused on the game and not her credit. BTW, I think McCall played well and moved aggressively to the basket. She seems to be progressing steadily and showed signs of potentially playing the role Chimey played to Nneka her freshman year

Kailee appears to be uncomfortable with the nose guard and will probably show significant improvement once she no longer has to wear it

I agree, Chiney is definitely a class act. I had a chance to speak with her father yesterday, and he is a class act as well.

Re: Re: WBB: Stanford 96 Oregon 66 - BBGuru - 01-04-2014

(01-03-2014, 11:26 PM)Jskass link Wrote:What a class act Chiney is-- while she was being applauded, she was totally focused on the game and not her credit. BTW, I think McCall played well and moved aggressively to the basket. She seems to be progressing steadily and showed signs of potentially playing the role Chimey played to Nneka her freshman year

Kailee appears to be uncomfortable with the nose guard and will probably show significant improvement once she no longer has to wear it

I agree, Chiney is definitely a class act. I had a chance to speak with her father yesterday, and he is a class act as well.

WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - 81alum - 01-05-2014

Overview

Stanford beat a very good Oregon State team with an unusual strategy and somewhat balanced scoring.  Chiney made 33 points, at least half with 12-17 foot jumpers, as she worked around Oregon State's Griner-sized 6'6" center.  Lili Thompson exploded for a career high of 19, including 3/4 treys.  Ruef played one of her best games, sinking 12 foot jumpers to collect 10 points.  Taylor Greenfield came off the bench for 13.  Most importantly, we had a very low 6 turnovers for the game.

Flow of the game

Attendance was sparse due to the 49ers playoff game, but the band, the dollies, and a hard core 3000 or so kept the place from feeling completely sedate.

As noted in another thread, the game began in one of the more lopsided fashions we have seen in quite some time.  Pre game we had been warned that Oregon State was an excellent team that led Notre Dame deep into their game.  They have a 6'6" center who is talented enough to play for the Canadian national team, and Jamie Weisner who is a sophomore phenom. 

Oregon State scored the first basket, and then Chiney and Lili and Sara James went on a 19-0 run.  OSU scored another basket and then Chiney and Lili went on a 10-0 run.  With us ahead 29-4 only 9 minutes in,  I think a number of us were wondering if we had been sold a bill of goods about the strength of the Oregon State team.  Kate Paye had noted, however, that since we play Oregon State often, we knew how to defend them better than a team like Notre Dame who saw them for the first time in December.  And sure enough, for most of the first half we mostly shut down Weisner and Weiss, their leading scorers.

On offense, Chiney often did not play close to the basket.  Her first five shots were all jumpers, and she made two of them.  Tara decided to adopt the Baylor strategy, and Chiney took many of her shots from 12-17 feet away.  Her jumpers are not fast and they rarely swish, but the scouting report suggest that the paint would be very congested and Chiney stayed away from it much of the game.  As the game progressed, it was clear that they were not going to contest Ruef's shots, and she was given numerous open looks from 12-15 feet away. 

It seemed that after the early drubbing we delivered, Oregon State competed well, and the margin stayed relatively even the rest of the way.  The "Swiss sisters" Weisner and Weiss did eventually wind up with 28 points between the two of them, so our close defense was not sustained the whole way.  Even so, the last 3/4 of the game did feel a bit anticlimactic after the roaring start.  We barely "won" the second half--39-37.

Tara talked after the game, and something she and Kate both said struck me.  They both emphasized how competitive team practices are, and how having all our players healthy makes for much better practices.  She also stressed how supportive our bench is of the starters--and noted that this is not always the case with all teams.  There seems to be good team chemistry and excellent competition in practice at the same time.  Kate also noted how difficult a transition it is for the frosh--hinting that other than Lili we might not expect too much out of them for a while.  Roberson, said Kate, was "super fast" and is working on how to use that speed as a point guard. 

Performances

Chiney passed Jayne on the all time scoring list and is now 4th.  Kate Starbird is up next about 75 points away.  That might take three games to reach.  Big sister Nneka is an additional 250 points away, which Chiney should reach somewhere around the halfway point of Pac12 competition.  At the top is Candice, who is about 500 points from where Chiney is now.  If we go all the way through the Pac 12 tournament and at least a couple of games into the NCAAs, that is a minimum of 21 more games.  Chiney could possibly do it if she carries on with a 25 point average.

What was impressive today was the way Chiney did it.  She made 13/28, not bad at all for taking so many long jumpshots.  Her free throw shooting was a little off today. however,  at 5/9.

This was a breakout day for Lili.  She was very hot in the first half, and wound up with 19 points and 5 assists to go with 0 turnovers.

Ruef played well, with 10 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and 0 turnovers.  Solid.

Taylor Greenfield seems to be getting most of the minutes at the 3 position, playing 23 minutes.  13 points, and to think this was a position that we were most worried about at the start of the season. 

Amber and Sara were relatively quiet offensively, but contributed valuable defense against OSU's best players.  Weisner and Weiss got most of their 7 treys in the second half after the game was out of reach.  Amber had 5 assists and 2 steals to go with 1 turnover. 

Conclusion.

An interesting stat:  Stanford made 7 three point shots on only 10 attempts.  But in addition to the treys, what we are seeing is a much greater reliance on jumpers than we are used to--including intermediate jumpers by Chiney and Ruef.  I haven't seen Stanford with this style of offense since before Jayne.  The extremely low number of turnovers, despite the fact that OSU pressed for much of the second half, reflect much better ball handling than we had just a couple of years ago.  And here is a shocker--points off turnovers: Stanford 18, OSU 2.  We had 9 steals.  It will take some getting used to.  We won the rebounding battle, 43:35, but that was not as much a factor as it would have been in prior years.  Lili, interestingly, was our third leading rebounder with 5 after Chiney and Ruef.

Over the last few years, we have enjoyed watching players grow and replace graduated players.  But the basic style of play was quite similar since Brooke Smith in 2005.  I wonder if we are beginning to see a different style of play cropping up in certain games, that may become more prevalent in the post-Chiney era?



Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - BobK - 01-05-2014

Great report as usual.  Thanks for all you put Into this for us.

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - BobK - 01-05-2014

Great report as usual.  Thanks for all you put Into this for us.

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - BBGuru - 01-05-2014

Awesome observations and analysis.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Chiney break records, and watching the team come out fighting so cohesively.

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - BBGuru - 01-05-2014

Awesome observations and analysis.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Chiney break records, and watching the team come out fighting so cohesively.

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - 81alum - 01-06-2014

Wow, C.al barely beat Oregon last night, 101-98, after going to overtime.  It makes our 30 point drubbing of the Ducks on Friday seem all the more impressive.

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - 81alum - 01-06-2014

Wow, C.al barely beat Oregon last night, 101-98, after going to overtime.  It makes our 30 point drubbing of the Ducks on Friday seem all the more impressive.

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - WAcard - 01-06-2014

Not so fast, does anyone actually watch how the other team play? 2nd half score was 39 to 37 with mainly the starters playing! OSU came out flat, no energy and no D, in fact I can't remember a Scott Rueck team doing that, was very surprised that they didn't show up until about half way through the first half. They gave us completely wide open shots for that time period, it was like we were playing by ourselves. 2nd half was the Rueck of the past and it showed, not sure why we would have small guards in when OSUs guards were shooting right over the top of them for 3s and allowing OSU to stay in the game.

Kudos to Chiney for another record breaker.

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - WAcard - 01-06-2014

Not so fast, does anyone actually watch how the other team play? 2nd half score was 39 to 37 with mainly the starters playing! OSU came out flat, no energy and no D, in fact I can't remember a Scott Rueck team doing that, was very surprised that they didn't show up until about half way through the first half. They gave us completely wide open shots for that time period, it was like we were playing by ourselves. 2nd half was the Rueck of the past and it showed, not sure why we would have small guards in when OSUs guards were shooting right over the top of them for 3s and allowing OSU to stay in the game.

Kudos to Chiney for another record breaker.

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - BBGuru - 01-06-2014

I agree OSU played much better after the half. Whatever Rueck said to them it lit a fire under them and they came out playing with a renewed vigor. Those long threes they hit were beautiful. But they hit them on a tiring team in the 2nd half, not on a fresh team with more defensive energy like we had in the first half. Most of our starters played near-maximum minutes and got very few breaks.

Props for OSU's 2nd half run, but they were still the same players who played poorly in the first half. Playing better after being down doesn't negate their earlier play or our earlier successes. Sometimes we are sluggish early on too. We all still have to own our complete performances, even if we do get to later sing the common song, "Gosh, we could have beaten them IF we had played harder earlier on." The trick is to play harder earlier on!

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - BBGuru - 01-06-2014

I agree OSU played much better after the half. Whatever Rueck said to them it lit a fire under them and they came out playing with a renewed vigor. Those long threes they hit were beautiful. But they hit them on a tiring team in the 2nd half, not on a fresh team with more defensive energy like we had in the first half. Most of our starters played near-maximum minutes and got very few breaks.

Props for OSU's 2nd half run, but they were still the same players who played poorly in the first half. Playing better after being down doesn't negate their earlier play or our earlier successes. Sometimes we are sluggish early on too. We all still have to own our complete performances, even if we do get to later sing the common song, "Gosh, we could have beaten them IF we had played harder earlier on." The trick is to play harder earlier on!

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - 81alum - 01-06-2014

(01-06-2014, 09:37 AM)WAcard link Wrote:Not so fast, does anyone actually watch how the other team play? 2nd half score was 39 to 37 with mainly the starters playing! OSU came out flat, no energy and no D, in fact I can't remember a Scott Rueck team doing that, was very surprised that they didn't show up until about half way through the first half. They gave us completely wide open shots for that time period, it was like we were playing by ourselves. 2nd half was the Rueck of the past and it showed, not sure why we would have small guards in when OSUs guards were shooting right over the top of them for 3s and allowing OSU to stay in the game.
Yes, as I noted, we barely "won" the second half. 

Jamie Weisner is one of the best three point shooting guards in the Pac 12, and as Kate said before the game, we were focused on stopping her and their frosh phenom Wiese.  Weisner missed her first 4 shots.  Beginning late in the first half she made 3 treys in a row, then missed her last two shots.  That is not bad defense on a player who is making 44%.  A couple of those shots she took were defended well and I was amazed that she made them.

We did not do as well on Wiese, who is the 6' guard you probably noticed shooting over our players.  She was 4/8, and I think your critique of our defense of her is correct.  This was the first time we played her.  I imagine we will be better prepared to deal with her next time, if we get them in the tournament.  (We don't go to Oregon this year.)

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - 81alum - 01-06-2014

(01-06-2014, 09:37 AM)WAcard link Wrote:Not so fast, does anyone actually watch how the other team play? 2nd half score was 39 to 37 with mainly the starters playing! OSU came out flat, no energy and no D, in fact I can't remember a Scott Rueck team doing that, was very surprised that they didn't show up until about half way through the first half. They gave us completely wide open shots for that time period, it was like we were playing by ourselves. 2nd half was the Rueck of the past and it showed, not sure why we would have small guards in when OSUs guards were shooting right over the top of them for 3s and allowing OSU to stay in the game.
Yes, as I noted, we barely "won" the second half. 

Jamie Weisner is one of the best three point shooting guards in the Pac 12, and as Kate said before the game, we were focused on stopping her and their frosh phenom Wiese.  Weisner missed her first 4 shots.  Beginning late in the first half she made 3 treys in a row, then missed her last two shots.  That is not bad defense on a player who is making 44%.  A couple of those shots she took were defended well and I was amazed that she made them.

We did not do as well on Wiese, who is the 6' guard you probably noticed shooting over our players.  She was 4/8, and I think your critique of our defense of her is correct.  This was the first time we played her.  I imagine we will be better prepared to deal with her next time, if we get them in the tournament.  (We don't go to Oregon this year.)

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - WAcard - 01-06-2014

There's no trick, you play hard the whole game or you don't win, thats why we have all the players we have!

Re: WBB: Stanford 89 Oregon State 67 - WAcard - 01-06-2014

There's no trick, you play hard the whole game or you don't win, thats why we have all the players we have!

Re: Re: WBB: Stanford 96 Oregon 66 - pepper1 - 01-06-2014

Very good report from 81alum.  I'd call out special kudos to (1) Lili for another very impressive game, showing she is probably a ready-for-prime-time frosh; (2) Chiney who showed some nice versatility with her 10-15 foot jumpers (WNBA scouts undoubtedly noticed) together with her continued sublime rebounding skills against a tall OSU front line; and (3) Mikela who came back from a really poor & awkward first half against the Ducks to (as 81alum put it) play solid throughout the OSU game -- we will need her to play big in March.

The positive comments about the OSU team were definitely merited.  Had Cardinal not come out hitting everything they threw up, this could have been a very different game.  OSU is well coached, play hard and have some players with some real skills.  The Cardinal are fortunate that the schedule does not require them to go up to Oregon for a Duck/Beaver road trip this year -- either of those teams would be a threat playing at home.  And look out for them next year ...

If one was to look for a cloud amidst the silver lining, the Cardinal continues to look thin on the front line.  The Cardinal will need McCall and/or Kailee to step up in the next couple months or it will be very vulnerable inside ... especially in situations where Chiney has foul trouble or is just getting a blow.  That said, 81alum may be on to something in suggesting that Tara is finding ways to capitalize on this team's quickness in the absence of the "inside pounders" we've had the last seven or eight years.

Re: Re: WBB: Stanford 96 Oregon 66 - pepper1 - 01-06-2014

Very good report from 81alum.  I'd call out special kudos to (1) Lili for another very impressive game, showing she is probably a ready-for-prime-time frosh; (2) Chiney who showed some nice versatility with her 10-15 foot jumpers (WNBA scouts undoubtedly noticed) together with her continued sublime rebounding skills against a tall OSU front line; and (3) Mikela who came back from a really poor & awkward first half against the Ducks to (as 81alum put it) play solid throughout the OSU game -- we will need her to play big in March.

The positive comments about the OSU team were definitely merited.  Had Cardinal not come out hitting everything they threw up, this could have been a very different game.  OSU is well coached, play hard and have some players with some real skills.  The Cardinal are fortunate that the schedule does not require them to go up to Oregon for a Duck/Beaver road trip this year -- either of those teams would be a threat playing at home.  And look out for them next year ...

If one was to look for a cloud amidst the silver lining, the Cardinal continues to look thin on the front line.  The Cardinal will need McCall and/or Kailee to step up in the next couple months or it will be very vulnerable inside ... especially in situations where Chiney has foul trouble or is just getting a blow.  That said, 81alum may be on to something in suggesting that Tara is finding ways to capitalize on this team's quickness in the absence of the "inside pounders" we've had the last seven or eight years.

Re: Re: WBB: Stanford 96 Oregon 66 - M T - 01-09-2014

I was out of town this past weekend & couldn't go to the games or watch them live.  I just got through them on the TiVo.

So many players deserve superlatives -- but I'll defer to the already-made comments.

I was more worried about OSU.  That was the closest 22 point win I can remember.  It felt like Stanford was one missed shot from letting OSU really getting close.  But the shots kept falling.  With their 3 pointers & height, OSU has a chance to beat good teams.  ND almost learned that.  I happened to watch their game against Kal after watching the Stanford game.  Of note was that the Kal bigs did better & longer hedging on the high double screen, and on the other screens as well.  Weisner & Wiese really were good at hitting the threes if you gave them even an instant.

I think the game showed that we have responded to the problems shown in the UConn game. (Whether we're on track to beat them in a future match-up is still uncertain.)  Chiney wasn't hitting the mid-range jumpers in games in the first part of the season, but she did well on Sunday.  And, of course, our offense is more diversified.

While OSU may be glad that they aren't playing the Bay Area teams again during the regular season, I'm somewhat ambivalent about that from a Stanford fan point of view.  OSU represents a risk to Stanford, esp. playing them at their site.  But, OSU may also be our best test against some of the UConn traits (good 3s & height)

If you missed the comment attributed to Tara by the TV announcers (probably Ros) this weekend, she said something like "The team is like a band.  Chiney is the conductor.  Amber keeps the beat going.  The rest of the team will get their own solos."  During the first part of the game, OSU might have thought they were a band saw.

It was good to see the team do well without Chiney in, during the main part of the game.  I think that is tied to the diversified offense.  Players are looking for shots more than just looking to pass to Chiney.

One negative thing that caught my eye was where our point guard (two different ones at different times) was near midcourt when the opponent got the ball under our basket.  Our guard drifted back 20' or 30', waiting as the players caught up to her, and ignored the opponents rushing down the court on the opposite side, well ahead of their appointed defender (who had been trying to rebound or whatever), resulting in a long pass to an open player & quick points.