[81alum]

There are no girls on our team - they're women. And they are getting the same Stanford degree I got, so they're hardly stupid. As for recruiting rankings, three of our starters missed between half and all of one of the past two seasons with lower leg injuries. And a fourth was unranked as a recruit. Oregon starts two top 5 recruits and 2 other projected top 8 WNBA players.

With friends like this, who needs enemies? More later once I have a chance to watch the game, but an 8 point loss is better than I was fearing.

Yeah, TT can get a little heated in his posts on hoops (though usually the commentary is on the mark).  5 observations from this evening's game:

1.  Ionescu a fabulous college player . . . will be an average pro (at best).  She has no foot speed, and she won't be able to out muscle those in pro leagues.  Also, she won't get benefit of the whistle as she did on a few calls tonight.  None of this should take away from the fact that she has put together an All Time Great college career.

2.  Ki is Stanford's most indispensable player.  She also makes WAY too many bad decisions for an elite point guard, including - as TT rightly noted - walking the ball up when Stanford needed to push the pace; dribbling out WAY too much of the shot clock and then dumping the ball to a teammate who is then in a horrible position; and forcing some bad passes.  I get that she is exhausted out there - but just because she is tired does not mean she can take the air out of the ball when we need to run.  And the fact that she is so tired is on Tara to no small degree.  Give Wilson more minutes to spell Ki.

3.  There is one person who has great upside for Stanford - who can turn Stanford from a good team to a contender.  That's Prechtel.  She needs to be infused with confidence, and that comes with PT . . . plain and simple.  She hit a couple good treys in Q4, but it was obviously too little, too late.  She can't help the team from the bench, Tara.  And I know she made some bad decisions/played weakly in 1H (but who didn't on the roster tonight); still, empowerment comes primarily with PT.  I'd ramp her time up.

4.  Oregon's zone was effective, even when it didn't do much other than slow our ball movement up the court.  And it was especailly effective when, for some inexplicable reason, Ki dribbles it into a double team at the sideline just after the half court line.  Good grief, that's Y ball decision-making.  Bottom line: Oregon was better coached tonight (as much as it pains me to say it).

5.  N/W/S all of the above, Stanford can beat Oregon.  Truthfully.  Yeah, Lexie had a career game, but everyone else on the roster can play better.  Much better.  Stanford did a lot of thins reasonably well tonight - including rebounding and D - and a couple bad breaks resulted in easy layups for Oregon.  8 points is hardly an insurmountable differential - heck, take away the two times when the ball just dropped down from a miss to Ionescu alone under the hoops (one time, two Stanford players knocked each other down); take away the ridiculous breakdown on the in-bounds play (again giving Ionescu a layup), and take away the failure by Fingall to box out on a trey miss by the Oregon star (who got her own rebound and scored on a take to the rack).  That's 4 simple fixes, and 8 points.

The differential isn't as great as some here think.

But kudos to Oregon and their fans who showed in force at Maples.  It was fun being there, even in defeat.

P.S.  More music form the band; less canned music piped through speakers.

P.P.S.  Last thing:  ingress/egress to Maples was a freaking DISASTER.  The guys at the Maples lot are clueless.  They were turning away cars - which backed up all the way back to El Camino - saying lot was full.  I walked in and saw 3 empty spaces, plus more cars exiting as people left Stanford for work.  I was on foot, so it didn't affect me.  But it was pretty embarrassing to see.  Finally told the guy letting cars out on Campus Drive that he had to tell those yahoos on the detour route that there were spaces in the lot, and they should make sure that all spots are full when they close the lot.  HELLO?!?

Good post.  Agreed all around.

My write-up done at the top.

[81alum]

There are no girls on our team - they're women. And they are getting the same Stanford degree I got, so they're hardly stupid. As for recruiting rankings, three of our starters missed between half and all of one of the past two seasons with lower leg injuries. And a fourth was unranked as a recruit. Oregon starts two top 5 recruits and 2 other projected top 8 WNBA players.

With friends like this, who needs enemies? More later once I have a chance to watch the game, but an 8 point loss is better than I was fearing.

Yeah, TT can get a little heated in his posts on hoops (though usually the commentary is on the mark).  5 observations from this evening's game:

1.  Ionescu a fabulous college player . . . will be an average pro (at best).  She has no foot speed, and she won't be able to out muscle those in pro leagues.  Also, she won't get benefit of the whistle as she did on a few calls tonight.  None of this should take away from the fact that she has put together an All Time Great college career.

2.  Ki is Stanford's most indispensable player.  She also makes WAY too many bad decisions for an elite point guard, including - as TT rightly noted - walking the ball up when Stanford needed to push the pace; dribbling out WAY too much of the shot clock and then dumping the ball to a teammate who is then in a horrible position; and forcing some bad passes.  I get that she is exhausted out there - but just because she is tired does not mean she can take the air out of the ball when we need to run.  And the fact that she is so tired is on Tara to no small degree.  Give Wilson more minutes to spell Ki.

3.  There is one person who has great upside for Stanford - who can turn Stanford from a good team to a contender.  That's Prechtel.  She needs to be infused with confidence, and that comes with PT . . . plain and simple.  She hit a couple good treys in Q4, but it was obviously too little, too late.  She can't help the team from the bench, Tara.  And I know she made some bad decisions/played weakly in 1H (but who didn't on the roster tonight); still, empowerment comes primarily with PT.  I'd ramp her time up.

4.  Oregon's zone was effective, even when it didn't do much other than slow our ball movement up the court.  And it was especailly effective when, for some inexplicable reason, Ki dribbles it into a double team at the sideline just after the half court line.  Good grief, that's Y ball decision-making.  Bottom line: Oregon was better coached tonight (as much as it pains me to say it).

5.  N/W/S all of the above, Stanford can beat Oregon.  Truthfully.  Yeah, Lexie had a career game, but everyone else on the roster can play better.  Much better.  Stanford did a lot of thins reasonably well tonight - including rebounding and D - and a couple bad breaks resulted in easy layups for Oregon.  8 points is hardly an insurmountable differential - heck, take away the two times when the ball just dropped down from a miss to Ionescu alone under the hoops (one time, two Stanford players knocked each other down); take away the ridiculous breakdown on the in-bounds play (again giving Ionescu a layup), and take away the failure by Fingall to box out on a trey miss by the Oregon star (who got her own rebound and scored on a take to the rack).  That's 4 simple fixes, and 8 points.

The differential isn't as great as some here think.

But kudos to Oregon and their fans who showed in force at Maples.  It was fun being there, even in defeat.

P.S.  More music form the band; less canned music piped through speakers.

P.P.S.  Last thing:  ingress/egress to Maples was a freaking DISASTER.  The guys at the Maples lot are clueless.  They were turning away cars - which backed up all the way back to El Camino - saying lot was full.  I walked in and saw 3 empty spaces, plus more cars exiting as people left Stanford for work.  I was on foot, so it didn't affect me.  But it was pretty embarrassing to see.  Finally told the guy letting cars out on Campus Drive that he had to tell those yahoos on the detour route that there were spaces in the lot, and they should make sure that all spots are full when they close the lot.  HELLO?!?

Good post.  Agreed all around.

My write-up done at the top.