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WBB: Stanford 83 Washington 60 - Printable Version

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WBB: Stanford 83 Washington 60 - 81alum - 02-27-2014

Overview:
We avenged our lone Pac-12 loss with a complete effort in which we led from start to finish.  The game was never in doubt, but it would have been even more of a rout had Washington not made 12 treys at a 48% clip.  We had four players in double digits and held Washington to 27 fewer points than the last time we faced them.

Before the game
Before the game Tempie took questions and indicated that we had a completely different game plan against Washington than the last time out.  We would be looking for more ways to attack the basket.  Bonnie would start, to provide an outside threat from the beginning.  Washington and quite a few other teams sag off of Amber and Mikaela to make it impossible to get the ball to Chiney.  More motion under the basket and more alternatives are needed to prevent the double and triple teams from suppressing our offense.

Karlie's foot sounds like a nagging injury that causes her to play with some pain and may be an on-again off-again injury for the rest of the season.  It should not prevent her from playing. 

Rather than focusing on the negative of getting down 19 at SC, Tempie was proud of the character our team showed in coming back from that hole to win.

Flow of the game
Tara started Chiney, Ruef, Bonnie, Amber and Lili.  Nneka was visiting in the stands, and we wondered if anyone would notice if she put her old uniform on and played a bit more alongside her sister.  Sadly, there were only 3100 present for this critical game. 

When Amber and Bonnie both hit their first three point attempts it was obvious that this would be a different game than the one in Seattle.  We were soon up 13-2 and it was beginning to look like it could turn into an early blowout.  But then Washington started hitting threes.  Despite their sniping, we were scoring well too, and Washington never got within a single digit again.  At halftime we were up 45-32 and the lead kept mounting.  When we were up by 30 with 5 minutes left Tara took Chiney and Amber out and let the reserves play.

Performances
I was pleased that this was not just the Chiney and Amber show, but that Bonnie and Lili also made significant contributions.  Still, Chiney was a star, again, with 32 points on 14/23 shooting.  She is showing, however, some fatigue and she is also missing too many freethrows--4/8 today.  She did get 11 rebounds for her umpteenth double-double. 

Bonnie did her job well, hitting 4/7 from three point range but also scoring on a floater and wracking up 14 points.  Lili with 11 and Amber with 10 helped to diversity our operation.  Ruef had 14 rebounds and 5 assists!

Amber was much better today than she has been of late, with 4 assists and no  TOs, to go with her 10 points.

On defense we did much better as a team, but Plum still got 21 points.  Plum is going to be a difficult player to handle for several more years.  Amber and Lili and Bri all took turns defending her.  She is equally good at shooting threes, stop-and-pops, and dribble drives.  Holding her to 21 reminds me a little of how other teams react when they hold Chiney to the low twenties.

We wound up 9 of 24 from three point range.  We also made 9 three pointers the last time we played Washington, but took 41 shots instead of 24 to do it. 


Parting Thoughts
We exorcized some demons today,  but there are other stern tests ahead.  Hard to believe that we could be saying good bye to our seniors on Saturday.  But getting both our offense and our defense on track were important steps toward a successful post season.

Re: WBB: Stanford 83 Washington 60 - 81alum - 02-28-2014

From AP:
Quote:"We just had added motivation, which is nice," Ogwumike added. "Payback, I don't like to use that word. I like to approach each game the same. I think we were just a little more fired up."

Teammate Mikaela Ruef wasn't quite so diplomatic.

"I'm not as politically correct as Chiney," Ruef said, laughing. "I wanted to kill 'em. Nobody likes losing. I was super motivated. I think our team was motivated. I wanted payback. I'll say it."

"I think that our staff and team really focused on what we needed to do defensively in a different way," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. "We just helped a lot better and we had a better defensive scheme. We understood what we needed to do better."

Also of note:  Tim Fitzgerald points out that Washington had 31 free throw attempts in the first game and only 12 this game, making only 4 of them.  Whether that is all officiating or the way we defended is hard to say.

Chiney is now 87 away from Candice's Stanford and Pac12 record.

Re: WBB: Stanford 83 Washington 60 - chimera - 02-28-2014

It was a much better effort for sure.  UW again hit some long, contested threes but were stopped cold inside.  Chiney had more pep until late in the game.  Refs again let an opponent bang her around with few calls.  Bonnie did well as a starter.  I still wish the zone offense was more aggressive driving, making the defense shift, etc.  Tara says they need to take what the defense gives, which of course is true but does UConn think that, for instance?  I'm sure they do to some extent but I'm also sure they think they can dictate what sort of offense they run against pretty much any team.  Against most teams I think we need to do more dictating on offense when someone comes out with a zone.

Re: WBB: Stanford 83 Washington 60 - nlbphd - 02-28-2014

One of the big differences this time is that Plum didn't get rewarded with as many foul calls for jumping into defensive players.  She got one early in the game when she jumped backwards into Amber.  But Tara gave the ref an earful about that and most of the rest of the night Plum jumped into and ran into defenders without getting gift wrapped trips to the foul line.

Re: WBB: Stanford 83 Washington 60 - Griffins78 - 02-28-2014

(02-28-2014, 11:15 AM)nlbphd link Wrote:One of the big differences this time is that Plum didn't get rewarded with as many foul calls for jumping into defensive players.  She got one early in the game when she jumped backwards into Amber.  But Tara gave the ref an earful about that and most of the rest of the night Plum jumped into and ran into defenders without getting gift wrapped trips to the foul line.
nlbphd - what kinda handle is that? You're right, Plum has a very distinctive style of play - she drives into traffic and jumps into the opposing player no matter which direction that is - away from the basket, sideways, backwards, wherever the defender happens to be. She gets fouled and to the FT line a lot. Was worried about that first call against Amber and Plum got several more calls like that, but nearly as much as she tried.

Re: WBB: Stanford 83 Washington 60 - BobK - 02-28-2014

Great game, great win, one more to go then post season.

Loved Kailee Johnson's aggressiveness.  Over her broken nose and played very hard.  Good for her and our future.



Re: WBB: Stanford 83 Washington 60 - CompSci87 - 02-28-2014

(02-28-2014, 11:15 AM)nlbphd link Wrote:One of the big differences this time is that Plum didn't get rewarded with as many foul calls for jumping into defensive players.  She got one early in the game when she jumped backwards into Amber.  But Tara gave the ref an earful about that and most of the rest of the night Plum jumped into and ran into defenders without getting gift wrapped trips to the foul line.

One of their other players got rewarded with free throws for intentionally throwing a hip into a defender as she went by. I agree though that the refs mostly didn't fall for such tactics last night.