[81alum]

Preliminary:

Tara has certainly got this team improving, but how much?  I think Oregon deserves its #6 ranking.  Frankly, I can't see us matching up well.  If we double Hebard the way we doubled Gulich we will wind up leaving elite three point shooters open.  To have any chance everything will have to fall in place--they get key players into foul trouble, we get hot from three point range, someone on their team has an off day, we don't turn it over and we get our rebounding going.  What are the chances of that happening?  Let's just say that beating Plum and Osahor in Seattle last year was an easier task than this.

Overview:

My preface above reflects my skepticism that our team was ready to compete with Oregon.  The first half showed we could compete but gave no assurance we would pull it off against the nation's #6 team in the second half.  After all, Hebard had scorched us for 16 in the first half and we were outscored by 10 in the second quarter alone.  But Tara's defense came alive in the second half, holding Hebard scoreless--repeating the number we had just done to Gulich at OSU.  Our rebounding improved, turnovers stayed low, and McPhee caught on fire, making 13 second half baskets, including 3/3 from three point range.  As the clock ticked down Oregon fell apart, making uncharacteristic turnovers, giving us an 11-0 run over the last five minutes of the game.  And so we win a piece of first place--and declare to the world that our we deserve to be back on center stage.

Flow of the Game:

The first quarter started badly, with Ionescu, Sabally, and Heberd getting Oregon out to an 8-0 lead.  Tara substituted quickly, partly because Kaylee picked up 2 early fouls, and we sometimes played with four guards on the floor.  Williams began to hit some treys and our defense tightened, and we scratched back to a 16-15 lead after the first quarter.

The second quarter was a different story.  We managed to score another 16 points, but the wheels came off our defense and Oregon racked up 26.  I don't remember Stanford giving up 26 points in a quarter this year.  It was not mainly three point shooting but Heberd inside, who could not be defended one on one, and Oregon guards getting to the rim.  The half was called tight and this dramatically favored Oregon's offense.  We staggered to halftime down 41-32.  We were outrebounded 17-10, but the good news--only 4 turnovers.  After starting hot in the first, Williams did not score in the second--continuing an unusual pattern.  Oregon's top two had 16 and 10--making Tara's scouting report defense look a bit anemic.

The third quarter began a turnaround in our fortunes.  McPhee's three point shot has been erratic all year, but she rapidly hit two quick treys to go with a layup of her own, a Smith layup and a Williams trey and we evened up the score 48-48 in the first five minutes of the half.  We had a new game with 15 minutes left to play, and my nerves were acting up.  From this point on McPhee hit many mid range jumpers curling around a screen set by Johnson--Williams hit a couple of them too.  This worked against OSU but McPhee's accurate mid range shot made it especially deadly today.

Then what looked like a disaster.  Scrambling for a ball, McPhee and Williams lunge from opposite directions and play bocce ball with their heads.  Both went to the floor.  The collision was violent enough that I was sure both would be gone under concussion protocol for the game if not longer.  ESPN showed it three times from different angles, and showed Williams trying to staunch the flow of blood from her nose, her left hand coated.  She was taken to the locker room, given stitches to the bridge of her nose, and reentered the game late.  McPhee sat out a minute or two but came back to continue her offensive clinic.  I can only guess that the collision was cushioned by William's nose, which must have hurt horribly but may have prevented far worse.

For the last five minutes of the third quarter and the first five of the fourth we kept a slight lead, but Oregon did not let us pull away.  Ionescu kep them in contact by hitting treys even when well defended.  And so we were up only 67-65 with 5:08 in the game, and playing on the road in front of a full house gave little reassurance that we had the game in the bag.  Far from it. 

But then something strange happened.  Everything went our way.  McPhee made a trey, we got a stop, McPhee made a jumper.  Kiana, back in the game, stole the ball and got it to McPhee for another jumper.  At 2:54 we got the rebound after a Hebert miss with a 9 point lead.  Two offensive rebounds and a foul by Ionescu let us keep the ball in that one possession until Marta found McPhee on a beautiful back door cut--taking nearly 2 minutes off the clock and giving us an 11 point lead with barely a minute left.  The court was very, very quiet outside the immediate environs of the Stanford bench.  And that's just the way we wanted it.

Performances:

As a team, it was a tale of two halves.  We had only 3 total rebounds in the second quarter, 13 for the 1st half, compared with Oregon's 23.  Second half was almost reversed, we had 21 to Oregon's 13.  After 4 turnovers in the 1st half we had only 2 in the 2nd--possibly our best half of the year on that count.  After shooting 38% in the first, we shot 56% in the second.  We made 3/12 treys in the first, but 6/11 in the second.  Six assists in the first, 11 in the second.  Gave up 16 points to Hebard in the 1st, 0 in the second.  McPhee with 2 points in the 1st, 31 in the 2nd. 

McPhee's previous career high was 28 points against Texas in 2016, so her 33 tonight tops that.  Every so often we witness a player who gets into a psychological zone and seemingly can't miss, and that was McPhee today.  She was 9/10 in the fourth quarter.  The rest of her stat line was pretty quiet--she was too busy scoring.  She also spend much of the game defending taller players.

Williams had a very respectable 14 points, 4 assists and 0 turnovers, and a couple of steals and a block! for good measure.  I think her block was of a much taller player--the second time I have seen her leap to do that.

Smith also had 14 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and a whopping 4 blocks.  4 blocks against a significantly taller team!  She did pick up 4 fouls and this limited her minutes--an all too regular problem for her.

No one else was in double digit scoring--they did not need to be.  Carrington had 6 points, 3 assists and 2 steals and played good defense during critical stretches of her 23 minutes.  Marta had 4 points, 5 assists to 1 turnover, and 2 steals in her 35 minutes.  Fingall played 13 minutes and nailed a trey.  Dodson played 9 and made fabulous moves to the basket, but consistently finished too hard and left 0/3.  Jerome and Wilson also got in the game--nice to see that Wilson is OK.

Conclusion:

Winning against two quality teams on the road and seizing a piece of first place should dispel many of our early season ghosts.  But we probably won't be able to count on another 31 point half from Britt if we meet Oregon in the Pac 12 tournament.  Can we finish out our regular season with consistent performances?  Can we beat C.al twice in week?  Will we overlook two dangerous Washington teams on our final road trip?  Or will we keep getting better, climb the RPI, and prime ourselves for a deep NCAA run? 

[81alum]

Preliminary:

Tara has certainly got this team improving, but how much?  I think Oregon deserves its #6 ranking.  Frankly, I can't see us matching up well.  If we double Hebard the way we doubled Gulich we will wind up leaving elite three point shooters open.  To have any chance everything will have to fall in place--they get key players into foul trouble, we get hot from three point range, someone on their team has an off day, we don't turn it over and we get our rebounding going.  What are the chances of that happening?  Let's just say that beating Plum and Osahor in Seattle last year was an easier task than this.

Overview:

My preface above reflects my skepticism that our team was ready to compete with Oregon.  The first half showed we could compete but gave no assurance we would pull it off against the nation's #6 team in the second half.  After all, Hebard had scorched us for 16 in the first half and we were outscored by 10 in the second quarter alone.  But Tara's defense came alive in the second half, holding Hebard scoreless--repeating the number we had just done to Gulich at OSU.  Our rebounding improved, turnovers stayed low, and McPhee caught on fire, making 13 second half baskets, including 3/3 from three point range.  As the clock ticked down Oregon fell apart, making uncharacteristic turnovers, giving us an 11-0 run over the last five minutes of the game.  And so we win a piece of first place--and declare to the world that our we deserve to be back on center stage.

Flow of the Game:

The first quarter started badly, with Ionescu, Sabally, and Heberd getting Oregon out to an 8-0 lead.  Tara substituted quickly, partly because Kaylee picked up 2 early fouls, and we sometimes played with four guards on the floor.  Williams began to hit some treys and our defense tightened, and we scratched back to a 16-15 lead after the first quarter.

The second quarter was a different story.  We managed to score another 16 points, but the wheels came off our defense and Oregon racked up 26.  I don't remember Stanford giving up 26 points in a quarter this year.  It was not mainly three point shooting but Heberd inside, who could not be defended one on one, and Oregon guards getting to the rim.  The half was called tight and this dramatically favored Oregon's offense.  We staggered to halftime down 41-32.  We were outrebounded 17-10, but the good news--only 4 turnovers.  After starting hot in the first, Williams did not score in the second--continuing an unusual pattern.  Oregon's top two had 16 and 10--making Tara's scouting report defense look a bit anemic.

The third quarter began a turnaround in our fortunes.  McPhee's three point shot has been erratic all year, but she rapidly hit two quick treys to go with a layup of her own, a Smith layup and a Williams trey and we evened up the score 48-48 in the first five minutes of the half.  We had a new game with 15 minutes left to play, and my nerves were acting up.  From this point on McPhee hit many mid range jumpers curling around a screen set by Johnson--Williams hit a couple of them too.  This worked against OSU but McPhee's accurate mid range shot made it especially deadly today.

Then what looked like a disaster.  Scrambling for a ball, McPhee and Williams lunge from opposite directions and play bocce ball with their heads.  Both went to the floor.  The collision was violent enough that I was sure both would be gone under concussion protocol for the game if not longer.  ESPN showed it three times from different angles, and showed Williams trying to staunch the flow of blood from her nose, her left hand coated.  She was taken to the locker room, given stitches to the bridge of her nose, and reentered the game late.  McPhee sat out a minute or two but came back to continue her offensive clinic.  I can only guess that the collision was cushioned by William's nose, which must have hurt horribly but may have prevented far worse.

For the last five minutes of the third quarter and the first five of the fourth we kept a slight lead, but Oregon did not let us pull away.  Ionescu kep them in contact by hitting treys even when well defended.  And so we were up only 67-65 with 5:08 in the game, and playing on the road in front of a full house gave little reassurance that we had the game in the bag.  Far from it. 

But then something strange happened.  Everything went our way.  McPhee made a trey, we got a stop, McPhee made a jumper.  Kiana, back in the game, stole the ball and got it to McPhee for another jumper.  At 2:54 we got the rebound after a Hebert miss with a 9 point lead.  Two offensive rebounds and a foul by Ionescu let us keep the ball in that one possession until Marta found McPhee on a beautiful back door cut--taking nearly 2 minutes off the clock and giving us an 11 point lead with barely a minute left.  The court was very, very quiet outside the immediate environs of the Stanford bench.  And that's just the way we wanted it.

Performances:

As a team, it was a tale of two halves.  We had only 3 total rebounds in the second quarter, 13 for the 1st half, compared with Oregon's 23.  Second half was almost reversed, we had 21 to Oregon's 13.  After 4 turnovers in the 1st half we had only 2 in the 2nd--possibly our best half of the year on that count.  After shooting 38% in the first, we shot 56% in the second.  We made 3/12 treys in the first, but 6/11 in the second.  Six assists in the first, 11 in the second.  Gave up 16 points to Hebard in the 1st, 0 in the second.  McPhee with 2 points in the 1st, 31 in the 2nd. 

McPhee's previous career high was 28 points against Texas in 2016, so her 33 tonight tops that.  Every so often we witness a player who gets into a psychological zone and seemingly can't miss, and that was McPhee today.  She was 9/10 in the fourth quarter.  The rest of her stat line was pretty quiet--she was too busy scoring.  She also spend much of the game defending taller players.

Williams had a very respectable 14 points, 4 assists and 0 turnovers, and a couple of steals and a block! for good measure.  I think her block was of a much taller player--the second time I have seen her leap to do that.

Smith also had 14 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and a whopping 4 blocks.  4 blocks against a significantly taller team!  She did pick up 4 fouls and this limited her minutes--an all too regular problem for her.

No one else was in double digit scoring--they did not need to be.  Carrington had 6 points, 3 assists and 2 steals and played good defense during critical stretches of her 23 minutes.  Marta had 4 points, 5 assists to 1 turnover, and 2 steals in her 35 minutes.  Fingall played 13 minutes and nailed a trey.  Dodson played 9 and made fabulous moves to the basket, but consistently finished too hard and left 0/3.  Jerome and Wilson also got in the game--nice to see that Wilson is OK.

Conclusion:

Winning against two quality teams on the road and seizing a piece of first place should dispel many of our early season ghosts.  But we probably won't be able to count on another 31 point half from Britt if we meet Oregon in the Pac 12 tournament.  Can we finish out our regular season with consistent performances?  Can we beat C.al twice in week?  Will we overlook two dangerous Washington teams on our final road trip?  Or will we keep getting better, climb the RPI, and prime ourselves for a deep NCAA run?