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WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - Printable Version

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WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - 81alum - 01-05-2015

Overview:

This was an ugly win.  I guess we could call it a defensive slugfest against one of the Pac 12's worst teams.  But the truth is that we stopped ourselves with some pretty bad shooting.  Despite this, we held a steady lead from late in the first half, and even a modest lead began to seem like a big cushion against Utah, which shot even worse than we did.

Flow of the game

Before the game the ever cheerful Tempie talked to the boosters and answered some useful and some not-so-useful questions.  The real insight came on Bob's question about getting the posts more involved--McCall in particular.  Tempie said McCall was more like a freshman than a sophomore because she played behind Chiney last year.  Right now, all the posts have one job--rebound, and put back o-boards.  We could run plays to get them the ball, but they have to prove they can get position and to finish under the basket first.  Chiney was the same way her freshman year.  But we have heard it from Kate and Tempie both now--don't expect our offense to go through our posts until they develop their skillsets more than they have.  In the meantime--they have one and only one job--rebounding.  Utah, she said, had two very large posts, and would pose serious problems for our offense accordingly.

The atmosphere at the game was salvaged by the band and the Dollies.  The TV schedule really hurts the home court advantage--it is not just that people can stay home to watch, but the weird scheduling makes attendance difficult.  5 pm on a working night was ridiculous.  I think the upper stands were 10% full and the lower stands 40%--counting the completely empty ends.  I don't think the students are back yet, or if they are they must just be moving back in. 

I can summarize the flow of the game very concisely.  Utah was methodical, we pressed them, we spent a lot of time in the halfcourt, and the game plodded along as the two sides bludgeoned each other.  In the first half the refs let a lot of stuff go, and this contributed to a very low scoring game.  In the second half they began to call all kinds of stuff that had previously been overlooked, and this contributed to higher offensive output.  Missy was ref, and yes this time she had what appeared from the stands to be a couple of bad calls that generated a chorus of boos each time..

In the first half it seemed as if neither team could figure out how to score.  With 14 minutes gone by the score was tied 12-12 when Lili made a jumper.  Utah closely guarded Bonnie and Karlie and nearly shut them down the whole night, just as Colorado did.  If we were going to score, it was going to be with our posts or with our small guards.  But time and time again Lili and Amber drove to the basket and put up layups that did not go.  Sometimes it was because they were amongst the trees, but at other times they just missed.  We shot 27% in the first half and were 8/30.  That was a lot of misses.

In the second half the guards began to do more pull up jumpers, and just as happened against Colorado, this was the antidote.  They began to go in.  Then Greenfield probably made the play of the night when she drove towards the basket and delivered a perfect bounce pass to Erica McCall for a layup.  Overall, the second half was only marginally better than the first in terms of baskets--we were 10/20.  What made the difference was that we shot 12/16 free throws in the second half as the refs decided to enforce the rules of the game.  The first half we were 3/4.

Performances

Amber and Lili scored most of the points, going 6/17 and 6/14 respectively. 

Kaylee seemed a bit improved on offense, going 3/5 and looking a little more sure of herself.

Bonnie needs credit for her defense.  And before the game, Tempie pointed out that Bonnie had defended Breanna Stewart successfully and her confidence as a defender was growing.  Bonnie was up against an aggressively physical team and she comported herself well.  Bonnie also had 7 rebounds, which might be her personal best.

Taylor Greenfield got 16 minutes, was 0-1 but sank 3/5 free throws, had that one beautiful assist and 5 rebounds.

Beyond that, it is hard to find too much remarkable to single out.  We had only 6 assists for the entire game, we did have an edge in rebounding 43/33 which was excellent given the bigger team we were playing.  The rebounds were spread around. 

Looking ahead

Nothing changes my mind that the conference season hinges to a significant extent on the two games coming up next week--at Washington and at Washington State.  Both schools will be significantly better than Colorado and Utah, and we have played poorly on the road so far this year.  Two wins in Washington would go a long ways to allaying my concerns--two losses would confirm our worst fears.  Hopefully the team can use the lesson it learned on the hostile Tennessee trip to prepare.





Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - pepper1 - 01-05-2015

81alum was kind in her description of this game as an "ugly win."  After watching the grim game on Saturday vs. CO, I did not think things could get worse, but I turned out to be an optimist.  This was nearly unwatchable basketball tonight, though in fairness the rugby-rules officiating through most of the game made the play of two unexceptional teams look even worse.  After two forgettable home games against two of the weakest teams in the Pac-12, several takeaways for me were:

1.  It is remarkable how far the team has regressed since its early games against CT and TX.
2.  The lack of inside presence (on offense and defense) and toughness seem like insurmountable obstacles for the Cardinal to compete with even moderately good teams, even if Tara & crew can coach the team into more effectively playing her new offensive scheme.
3.  It looks likely based on the current level of play that the Cardinal's streak of consecutive NCAA tourney appearances will end this year, leading one to ponder whether Tara would accept an invite to the WNIT in March.
4.  Aside from W/L results, the team's style of play left many fans groaning the past two games and one wonders if the team's largely loyal fans could give up on this team.

Looking for positives tonight (which required an electron microscope), I saw some encouraging offensive moves near the basket from Kaylee to go with her strong rebounding effort against the beefier inside players from UT and the continued valiant play from Amber and Lili.

Turning around this team and this season will test Tara and her staff's coaching skills. 

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - chimera - 01-05-2015

We got caught up in the Utah pace, which is sluggish and plodding.  I keep hoping the passing in this offense will work better but so far the offense does not generate assists.  I understand that a ball screen offense will result in drives, and therefore no assists on even some good plays.  Gotta think it needs more passing for open shots mixed in there, and not only passes to open three point shooters.  We need to hit cutters and drive and dish inside too.  I don't know if the execution is not there yet.  I assume that has to be the case.  I still have mixed feelings about the notion that we can't use the posts to do more than rebound and hit putbacks, which is what we heard in the chalk talk.  A good offense with sharp passing should get some shots for post that they don't have to be Chiney to hit.  That said they generally did not make much case this weekend to get more shots.  Ultimately I think it is a mixture of our posts needing to improve their footwork and finishing (which is on the coaches to help them do) and the offense getting them some better chances.  If we do not want teams to just lurk with two bigs in or near the paint to stop drives, which the coaches say we do not, we have to make them guard people in there.  Even moving to a stretch 4 won't keep teams from clogging driving lanes.  Driving and dishing to posts would make them have to guard those bigs, no? 

I would love to disagree that the team has regressed since early on but I can't.  We do seem worse.  CO is middling and Utah is just plain bad.  Teams have figured out how to defend us and it doesn't seem all that hard to do, frankly.  Any team that can bang inside and play reasonable defense on the perimeter has a chance to shut us down.  I sense a frustrated team out there.  I'm not close to enough of a basketball mind to know if we could fix the offense with experience and better execution or if there is some fundamental issue with the schemes. 

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - 81alum - 01-05-2015

Well, ghsfcal, there was one positive--we cut our turnovers down significantly.  We never went through one of those atrocious stretches as against Colorado where we turned the ball over on seven consecutive possessions.  We had 10 for the game tonight.

Here is another positive.  Utah's star player Wicijowski was 1/6 in the first half.  Tempie said we were working to be able to double team their posts when they got the ball, and the scheme worked.  Our poor offensive showing should not obscure the fact that we had a great defensive showing.  Utah got only 12 points in the paint, we got 10--so we essentially neutralized their big post advantage.  If we had not, we would have lost.

We have not talked too much about our defense here at the Cardboard, but I would say that it has been moderately successful to very successful--depending on who we play.  In our losses we gave up 87 to Texas--that was our worst defensive game, and it had something to do with the pace of the game as well.  But the other three were 70, 54, and 59.  If we can get our offense clicking even modestly better than it currently is, our defense is good enough to win a lot of games. 

But I think you are right to point to a seeming offensive regression.  Against UConn we scored 88.  Against Texas we scored 81.  We have the same players.  Is it simply that other teams have figured out how to stop us?  Is the offensive regression all explained by scouting reports?  Or is it coaching overload--giving the players too much to think about so they stop playing the game naturally?

I really hope your pessimism about making the NCAAs turns out to be off base--but the fact that we are even talking about it is worrisome.  I certainly do worry that even if we do reasonably well with the rest of the schedule we won't manage to get the 4-seed we need to host the first two games.  For that we are going to have to beat the best teams in the Pac 12--not just the worst.  And that means starting this weekend in Washington. 

One oddity tonight--Bri Roberson had only 7 minutes even though we were expending a lot of guard energy pressing.  When she was in she made one brilliant play for a layup-and-one.  She seems to have good finishing skills when she gets to the basket.  I'd like to see more of her.  McPhee was in some and made a great block and another great steal.  But she is being used very sparingly too.  I saw her caught out of position on defense once, leaving her man open for an open trey.  Maybe that was it.

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - Jskass - 01-05-2015

interesting that the stats show McPhee with 3 blocks. She does provide a spark of energy, and is motivated to score.

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - TheFarm07 - 01-05-2015

(01-05-2015, 10:37 PM)81alum link Wrote:But I think you are right to point to a seeming offensive regression.  Against UConn we scored 88.  Against Texas we scored 81.  We have the same players.  Is it simply that other teams have figured out how to stop us?  Is the offensive regression all explained by scouting reports?  Or is it coaching overload--giving the players too much to think about so they stop playing the game naturally?

It's hard to believe a team that scored 88 against the likes of Breanna Stewart and Kiah Stokes can only muster 55 against a 6-7 Utah team.  Tara needs to use all of her HoF credentials this year.  Right now, maintaining our level of play seems tough enough, our offense is actually seemingly getting worse with every game for some unknown reason.

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - Jskass - 01-05-2015

Too much tinkering means not enough gelling?

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - TheFarm07 - 01-06-2015

(01-05-2015, 10:37 PM)81alum link Wrote:I really hope your pessimism about making the NCAAs turns out to be off base--but the fact that we are even talking about it is worrisome.  I certainly do worry that even if we do reasonably well with the rest of the schedule we won't manage to get the 4-seed we need to host the first two games.  For that we are going to have to beat the best teams in the Pac 12--not just the worst.  And that means starting this weekend in Washington. 

Charlie Creme has us as a #5 seed in his bracket today.  It's jarring not to see us as a #1 or #2 seed, and will be even more jarring if we don't qualify.  I think the UConn win will go a long way into helping us qualify as long as we don't dip below .500 in conference play (who would have thought that? Considering the dominance we have had in the last few years when we seldom lost more than 1 or 2 games in the Pac-10/12)

This shows how far we have fallen in just one year!  Due to some bad luck and who knows what else, we were not able to translate this 7 year streak to top recruits and sustained excellence, but I guess even the top programs have their off years.

I only started paying attention to women's b-ball when I came to Stanford in the early 2000s.  I know that in 1998(?) we became the first and so only #1 seed in either men's or women's to lose to a #16 seed, but around that time, we were a decent team, but not great, right?  It wasn't until Nicole Powell's last years and Candice Wiggins' early years that we started to become the powerhouse of the last few years.

Even with Wiggins and Brooke Smith, we didn't get back to the FF until the 2008 season.

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - BostonCard - 01-06-2015

No no no.  The mid-90's teams with Kate Starbird, Jamila Wideman, Naomi Mouitaopele (sp?), Olimpia Scott, Vanessa Nygaard, and later Kristin Folkl were some of the best teams we had until our current run (of course, we won two national championships in the early 90's, but that was before my time).  We went to three consecutive final fours in 95, 96, and 97, until we suffered two ACL tears in the span of 1 week before the 98 tournament, taking out Folkl and Nygard. After that we suffered a bit of a swoon until the Powell/Wiggins/Appel/Ogwumike(x2) resurgence.

BC

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - 81alum - 01-06-2015

I think this is Tara commenting on the officiating in the first half. Of course, she has learned how to phrase things so as not to criticize the officiating:

Quote:"It was like a heavyweight fight," Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer said. "It was a very physical first half. I'm not a fan of that kind of basketball."
http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_27263569/stanford-women-beat-utah

Tara also described Taryn Wicijowski as as a "sixth-year hockey player."  Almond points out we had more blocks than assists.  Also of note, Utah has lost 3 starters to injuries this year.  Other than Taryn, 3 of the 4  they put out on the floor began the year as their second string.

By the way, I was not a fan of the Utah coach, who stood two feet out onto the floor and gesticulated wildly.  He should have been given a technical.

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - M T - 01-06-2015

Regarding the 98 ACL disaster, the two girls that went out averaged 39.4% of the team's scoring (sum of their pts/game divided by team's pts/game).  This season, Lili + Amber average 39.5% of the team's scoring.  But in 1998, the team was good enough that they would have bounced back and done well enough to go at least to the sweet 16 if they'd had a week or two to adjust to the loss of that much of the offense.

Speaking of the 90s teams, did you notice that Jamie Carey was on the bench for Colorado?  I would have missed that completely except for watching the game again on TiVo.


I'm not sure why Tara would describe Wicijowski as a hockey player.  I thought she played quite well close to the basket, not too rough.  Comparing her play to our posts was night and day.  She would position herself before the play happened, not waiting for a passer to get into position first, or waiting for a shot to go up.    She made the same number of FGs as did Amber & Lili, but with fewer attempts.  I am hoping our posts study how she played tonight.

I think it is appropriate to give medical redshirts, but it does mean Wicijowski played against Stanford in 5 seasons:
11/27/2009 (S):  29 min, 15 pts, 3 reb
11/19/2010 (U):  28 min, 11 pts, 6 reb *
1/12/12(S):  36 min, 12 pts, 11 reb
1/6/13(U):  37 min, 9 pts, 6 reb  *
1/25/13(S): 10 min, 2 pts, 3 reb  (IIRC, she hurt her knee in this game, but returned a few games later)
2013-14 season:  she didn't play us
1/5/15(S):  36 min, 14 pts, 9 reb  *
              * Melissa Barrow was a ref.

In the last two games, Bonnie has played 63 minutes, but has only taken 8 3-pt attempts and hit only one.    The decreased offensive production by her may be a consequence of playing her more.    Maybe coming in off the bench lets her get some shots as the defense adjusts to having her on the floor.  And fresh legs has to help.



Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - M T - 01-06-2015

(01-05-2015, 08:49 PM)81alum link Wrote:....  The TV schedule really hurts the home court advantage--it is not just that people can stay home to watch, but the weird scheduling makes attendance difficult.  5 pm on a working night was ridiculous.  I think the upper stands were 10% full and the lower stands 40%--counting the completely empty ends.  I don't think the students are back yet, or if they are they must just be moving back in. 

It gets worse!  In two weeks, we have a home game that starts at 3 PM on a Monday.  Against ASU, no less.

Some may have the day off, but only some.  I sure don't.    I probably will not take time off from work.  If enough of us aren't there, maybe in the future they'll schedule things more appropriate so they don't have to avoid the "crowd" shots.


Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - FarmDad.01 - 01-06-2015

Monday, Jan. 19, is a federal holiday -- MLK Jr. Day.

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - Yellowlab - 01-06-2015

Well, that was a clunker.  The first half was virtually unwatchable.  Clear fouls were simply not called.  I wonder whether Missy got a phone call at the half, because she and her crew started calling some real sticky-tacky stuff in the second half.  They were calling it equally badly for both sides so it didn't result in a competitive advantage one way or the other, IMHO, but it isn't fair to the players.  They are supposed to adjust to how the refs are calling the game.  When the refs change how they are calling things in mid-game, it has to be confusing.

Lili looked like she was rounding back into form.  The only thing I noticed was that she was still a bit tentative on her drives to the hoop.  She didn't finish a few times, when she certainly would've last year. Later she took a charge (called a block) and seemed to hit her head on the floor on the way down.  (Maybe MT or someone else who recorded the game might confirm this for me.  I don't get the PAC-12 network.)  She looked shaky getting up and, IIRC, did not return.

I agree that Bonnie's extended minutes (very physically demanding minutes too) are probably playing a role in her shooting woes.  The shots she did take had no chance of going in.  I also think she might want to shelve the under hand scoop shot for a bit.

I am pleased to see Kaylee continue to show improvement on the offensive end.  She has a long way to go, but there are signs that things are starting to click for her.

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - BobK - 01-06-2015

Thanks 81 for the kind comment.  :)  And as always the great report.

Great point about the D, it's been very good.  The O?    :( >:( ???

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - CompSci87 - 01-06-2015

(01-06-2015, 06:57 AM)81alum link Wrote:By the way, I was not a fan of the Utah coach, who stood two feet out onto the floor and gesticulated wildly.  He should have been given a technical.

The call that my section noticed him complaining about the most was one where a Stanford player going up for a shot lost the ball out of bounds (and fell out of bounds as well), and the ball was given to Stanford. His contention apparently was that no Utah player had touched the ball and so it should go to Utah. When I looked at the replay at home, he was right that the Utah player trying to block the shot didn't touch the ball -- she only committed a hard uncalled foul on the Stanford player. So I thought it took a lot of cheek for Utah's coach to complain about the call. He was lucky it wasn't properly called a foul.

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - Jskass - 01-06-2015

I couldn't get to the game but watch on PAC-12 network and IIRC it was Amber who was fouled (not called). They showed the replay and definitely agreed with you and your section!

Re: WBB: Stanford 55 Utah 44 - 81alum - 01-06-2015

(01-06-2015, 12:33 AM)TheFarm07 link Wrote:I only started paying attention to women's b-ball when I came to Stanford in the early 2000s.  I know that in 1998(?) we became the first and so only #1 seed in either men's or women's to lose to a #16 seed, but around that time, we were a decent team, but not great, right?  It wasn't until Nicole Powell's last years and Candice Wiggins' early years that we started to become the powerhouse of the last few years.
Here is an article that tells the whole story:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncw/news/story?id=2391084

I've heard Tara talk about this game several times.  In addition to our two last minute injuries to stars--think Chiney and Ruef going down the week before the NCAAs last year--she also points out that Harvard was certainly not a legitimate 16 seed.  In those years the WBB committee played very fast and loose with seeding in order to create match ups that would increase attendance at the games or otherwise stimulate interest in WBB.  Stanford vs. Harvard was just too much for the committee to resist.  Harvard's senior Allison Feaster was a special player who had turned down numerous scholarships to attend Harvard--and she went on to have a good career in the WNBA. 

By the way, since seventeen years is not too short a time to keep wishing for revenge on Harvard, you might enjoy knowing that Chattanooga turned back Harvard with 2.2 seconds remaining yesterday:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/6/harvard-womens-basketball-chattanooga/