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WBB: Stanford 60 Washington 56 - Printable Version

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WBB: Stanford 60 Washington 56 - 81alum - 01-09-2015

Overview:

In another defensive slugfest in which neither side shot over 34%, we took the lead for good with 3:30 left in the game.  Our offense struggled mightily in the first half, but Bonnie, Lili, and Amber each made it into double figures in the second half to scrape together a win.

Flow of the game

The first half felt much like the Utah game.  As the the teams struggled to get to 20 points by half, I was left depressed at our offense but I kept marveling that our defense was keeping us in the game.  Washington, after all, was not doing very much better.  In that dreadful first half we figured out how to contain Kelsey Plum, the second leading scorer in the nation, by shading her to her left.  She is more lopsided than Amber ever was in that regard, and it discombobulated her.  To give credit, we saw Arizona State do that to her and beat Washington in their last game, so we just took a page out of their book.

Bonnie made a couple of treys and Greenfield made one, and their scoring was half our offense.  Washington managed to cut off the lanes for our guards for most of the half, and Lili in particular was shut down as a result. 

Kaylee played wonderfully in the first half in most respects, grabbing rebounds and getting in position for point blank shots, but she missed three of them and Tara sent in McCall.  McCall also looked like she had her moments and blocked a shot and made a jumper.  Later on, though, we saw a new lineup and for a while it seemed to work.  Taylor Greefield played the 5 and Bonnie the 4, with Karlie, Lili, and Amber in.  All five players were potential three point shooters, but I think Tara probably thought that Taylor would do a better job with put-backs.  The half ended with Washington leading 24-22.

In the second half we started fast and got out to a 7 point lead on the strength of a Bonnie trey and Karlie and Amber jumpers.  Washington's Aminah Williams, however, made us pay for focusing on the Washington guards and reeled off two jumpers and a layup.  Plum got hot midway through the half and our lead slipped away.  Finally Kaylee broke through on offense, with a jumper and a layup--both looking quite good, and the game tilted back and forth.  Lili, who had been quiet offensively, made three baskets in the last 8 minutes.  The dagger, though, came at 2:39 when Bonnie drained a trey to give us a 5 point lead.  We traded a few baskets as the clock slipped down.  Lili banked a three pointer off the glass with the shot clock expiring to pretty much ice it with 27 seconds left.  All in all, the second half was far more satisfying half to watch than the first, but watching Stanford WBB these days is not for the faint-of-heart.

Performances:

Amber had 14 points and by the end of the game her percentage was not terrible.  She went 0/3 from three point range and 6/13 everywhere else.  Most important, though, she had 5 assists, a steal, and only two turnovers.  In general, the team did well as far as turnovers are concerned with just 9 compared with Washington's 14--and unlike the Utah game, we did not press at all.

Bonnie was wonderful tonight, although she did go through a long cold spell.  She wound up a more than respectable 4/9 from three point range, but also had 4 rebounds and 2 steals while delivering more than adequate defense.

Kaylee was back to her old ways as a dominant rebounding machine, with 14.  Her offensive misses in the first half were not, on a whole, awkward or extremely difficult shots--it seemed like nervous energy was interfering with shots that were not always more difficult than those she probably made hundreds of times in high school.  It was good to see her come out of her offensive funk in the second half and make a couple of shots--one of which was particularly nice.

Lili led our offense with 15 points and also had a couple of steals.  Like so many others, her offense did not get on track really until the second half. 

Karlie continues to be cold offensively.  She was 0/5 from three point range and even missed a free throw.  From what Tempie said last week, Karlie is just thinking about stuff too much, and eventually her slump will end once she starts having some fun playing the game.

From the bench, McPhee got some minutes in front of family, back in her home state.  She was 0/2, but 2/2 free throws, with 6 rebounds and 2 blocks in very limited minutes.  I do not understand how this kid gets so many blocks--but she does.  You have to be in the right position to get rebounds and especially to get blocks, and McPhee seems to have the knack of always being in the right place at the right time. 

As a team, we shot poorly from everywhere, including a mere 58% free throw shooting and only 26% from three point range.  We did have the edge in rebounds and turnovers.  That edge, and the fact that our defense held Washington down to equally deplorable shooting at 34%, won us the game.

Looking ahead:

This was a critically important win, remembering that we lost at Washington last year with Chiney and Ruef--and this group of youngsters were able to gut out a tough win on the road.  We needed to prove to ourselves that we can win in these circumstances.  I think the difference between the beginning of the season when we beat UConn and our collapsing offense in recent weeks has largely been lack of confidence by our young players.  Playing with confidence and enjoying the game was hard after the Tennessee trip, but winning breeds confidence with very young players, and confidence inspires better play.

Tonight C.al beat Washington State, but not by much, and Washington State will be eager to attempt to notch their first win in history over any Stanford WBB team.  WSU looks like an international team, with a Kiwi, a Macedonian, a Canadian and a Romanian--oh and two of the conference's best guards in Tia Pressley and Liz Galdeira.  If we can get by them and come home with two wins it will be a major accomplishment to add to Tara's miracle working.  But winning in Pullman will be just as difficult as tonight.

Re: WBB: Stanford 60 Washington 56 - CompSci87 - 01-09-2015

We did something unusual this game: played slowdown a lot on offense, and not only with a lead. Part of the reason for the low score.

Re: WBB: Stanford 60 Washington 56 - chimera - 01-09-2015

Nice win!  I thought we blew it when UW got up by 5 or 6 in the second half but nope.  Gritty win.  I did not like the no big lineup with Greenfield at the 5.  Too little rebounding.  The bigs missed chippies but so did everyone else.  Gotta give them the experience if we want them to get better at those shots, and I think they are getting a bit better. We did best with a big in there rebounding.  I also did not love the dependence on three point shooting, which can be hot and cold, and mostly was cold tonight.  Got a clutch three from Bonnie and a clutch/lucky banked one from Lili but still, we took and missed too many.  Can't argue with 3-0 in conference though. 

Re: WBB: Stanford 60 Washington 56 - 81alum - 01-10-2015

Now that the full stats are out, I see we shot 23% in the first half and 46% in the second half.  Washington went from 31% to 38%.  So while the defenses wore down a bit as they always do, leading to a somewhat more offensive second half, our increase in offensive output has to be explained by a lot more than Washington just wearing down.  In the first half Amber and Lili each had 2 points apiece.  The Washington defensive plan was working perfectly.  In the second half Amber had 12 and Lili had 13.  They did get to the rim a bit more but they mainly got their pull-up midrange jumpers working.  That is the same pattern as the Utah game.  I am not sure if this was the result of a scheme or a halftime adjustment or a collapse in the Washington defense against gap penetration.  I would like to know, if any of you have insight.  It would be nice to start our games with that kind of success.

Here is something else that is remarkable:  we had 20 points in the paint compared with Washington's 12.  Those mostly came from guards getting to the rim.

A shocking gap was that we had 19 second chance points compared with Washington's 2.  Their coach even remarked about that at halftime, but the problem got worse for them in the second half.  In fact, Washington did not have a single field goal off of a second chance in the game.

Where did all those second chance points come from?  We had 13 offensive rebounds on 45 missed shots--with that many misses we were bound to get some O-boards.  (Kaylee had 4 of them and McPhee 2 but the rest were widely scattered with no particular pattern.)  In looking over the play-by-play, the posts quite often missed when they tried immediate follow-ups on those offensive rebounds, and when they passed out they did not pick up immediate assists either, but they got new clocks and extended the play.  A lot of our free throws came off of fouls we picked up after getting offensive rebounds, and a few two and three point jumpers did too.  The typical pattern of getting an immediate layup after a O-board was not there--McCall and Kaylee each had one such put-back.

Another interesting stat:  Kelsey Plum was 6/16.  Amber was also 6/16.  The two lefty guards famous for favoring one direction over the other both wound up with identical stats--but this was a major reduction in Kelsey's normal output and it was not for Amber. 

Also, while the announcers kept talking about Washington's depth, Washington played relatively few players and we played more.  They had 6 players with 10+ minutes and one more with 5+.  We had 7 players with 10+ and 2 more with 5+.  I think we wore them down a bit more than they wore us down.

The press is pointing out that we have held our last 9 opponents to fewer than 60 points in each game (including the two losses in Tennessee), while we started the season allowing our first six opponents all to score more than 60--sometimes much more.  At the beginning of the season we talked a lot about "up tempo" offense.  I think it is now clear that Tara has decided against the up tempo part, and that this has in turn led to a slower paced game and (sometimes) a more effective defense. 

Finally--were those new glasses for Bird?  They looked nice--playing to the Nerd Nation meme!

Re: WBB: Stanford 60 Washington 56 - BobK - 01-10-2015

Well I found our O encouraging.  Lots of good shots.  Yes lots of misses for sure but good shots.  The D has been outstanding, which saves us but that's half the game and I applaud the hustle. 

So putting this jinx out there like wvb, wbb has never lost to the Cougars.

Re: WBB: Stanford 60 Washington 56 - pepper1 - 01-10-2015

Great posts from 81alum as usual.  Her "looking for silver lining" comments about the Cardinal defensive intensity after last week's discouraging CO and UT games carried through to this game against a much more credible offensive team on the road.  Without this gritty defensive intensity and consistent rebounding, the Cardinal would have lost this game by double digits.  Some other comments on individual performances:

Kaylee's second-half cross under layup was reminiscent of the type of wildly athletic, slightly out-of-control move that Chiney showed as a freshman.  Kaylee's rebounding skills and speed up and down the court continue to impress and one wonders how fast she can develop her immense potential, particularly finishing around the basket.

Bonnie's long-range shooting, while not as deadly as on some occasions, clearly kept the WA defense on edge, and all her points were crucial to another low-scoring team effort.  Special kudos for her intensity on the D-boards where she did not let her slighter frame impede her efforts against the larger WA bigs.

Karlie had another peculiarly ineffective offensive game and peculiarly effective defensive game.  Mysteriously, even her deadly FT shooting from last year has left her thus far this year.  Her stroke still looks good, so I continue to be optimistic about her offensive mojo returning.  In the meantime, her defensive intensity and contributions to the Cardinal's offensive flow cannot be underestimated -- great basketball IQ.

On offense it still remains mainly the Amber and Lilli Show for the time being.  Lilli's comeback from a cold first half was absolutely essential to the Cardinal winning this close game.  And I'm sure I heard her call "Glass" on that last shot.  Amber remains the team leader and did another great job on defense and offense.

A road win against a good WA team is one to savor, but scoring only 60 points against an undistinguished D that gave us many, many open shots (most of which we missed badly in the first half) indicates the Cardinal still has much room to improve on offense.  Hopefully, continued strong defense efforts can keep the team in games until its offense comes of age (knock wood).  Right now, the Cardinal would probably be underdogs to CA, OSU & ASU ... but the season is still young.

 

Re: WBB: Stanford 60 Washington 56 - Yellowlab - 01-10-2015

Wbbfan and I both had a bad feeling about this game.  We were so delighted to see that they pulled it out.  There will be very few "easy" games this year and WSU won't be one of them, but I'm not betting against the Cardinal.  This team may be flawed, but it really is interesting to watch them develop.