[M T]

Some quotes from the Washington Post story about Maryland's game vs. FGCU:

(To the WP author:) Well, duh.  Of course, no one on FGCU could handle a 6'3" player, since FGCU had no one on their roster taller than 6'1".
The starters were 5'3", 6'1", 5'10", 5'9", 5'7".
(That's about the size of the roster of Clarke, which Stanford played in exhibition -- not to say that FGCU isn't a lot better than Clarke.  Even Morgan State had a taller roster.)

Maryland's performance in that game has little bearing on how they'll do against Stanford.  Stanford isn't that tall (5'9", 6'1", 6'1", 6'4", 6'1") but is a lot closer to Maryland (6'3",6'2", 6'3",6'0", 5'6")

We played Maryland in the Bahamas back around Thanksgiving and won 87-67.  Throw those results away.  Maryland in that game was without three of their top players and two other starters got into serious foul trouble.  We were without Prechtel and Brink, but had enough depth to run the normally high octane Maryland squad into the ground.  

Maryland had 3 of their starters and 5 of their 7 most-used players from the FGCU game  in the Bahamas.  I don't know what 3rd player was missing.  Brink did play for 9 minutes.  Wilson only played 5 minutes   Stanford was up 29 points going into the 4th quarter and emptied the bench, letting MD get the lead down to just 20 points at the end.  Stanford's bench players (not including Wilson, Brink, Hulls, Jump, Belbi, Jones) played 46 minutes (ie, about 5 players at 9+ minutes each).   (The two missing MD starters scored 29 points against FGCU)

The big difference may be that officials don't call fouls in the tournament (no matter what the points of emphasis say).  Reese only played 15 minutes before fouling out in November.  Two other players eventually got to 4 fouls, but in that game, more fouls were called against Stanford. MD got nearly 31% of their points at the foul line while Stanford got a bit over 16% of their points at the foul line.  (Not counting fouls, the score would have been 72-47).   MD is a much better FT% team, so the non-calls may benefit Stanford more.

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Yes, players need to focus one game at a time, but the coaches need to scout the road ahead.  Stanford gets a benefit because they've played MD and TX before, so they've got a head start on preparing for the possible match-ups this coming weekend, and the players already have faced those teams.  LSU/Ohio State will need new preparation beginning later today for the winner of that game.

[M T]

Some quotes from the Washington Post story about Maryland's game vs. FGCU:

(To the WP author:) Well, duh.  Of course, no one on FGCU could handle a 6'3" player, since FGCU had no one on their roster taller than 6'1".
The starters were 5'3", 6'1", 5'10", 5'9", 5'7".
(That's about the size of the roster of Clarke, which Stanford played in exhibition -- not to say that FGCU isn't a lot better than Clarke.  Even Morgan State had a taller roster.)

Maryland's performance in that game has little bearing on how they'll do against Stanford.  Stanford isn't that tall (5'9", 6'1", 6'1", 6'4", 6'1") but is a lot closer to Maryland (6'3",6'2", 6'3",6'0", 5'6")

We played Maryland in the Bahamas back around Thanksgiving and won 87-67.  Throw those results away.  Maryland in that game was without three of their top players and two other starters got into serious foul trouble.  We were without Prechtel and Brink, but had enough depth to run the normally high octane Maryland squad into the ground.  

Maryland had 3 of their starters and 5 of their 7 most-used players from the FGCU game  in the Bahamas.  I don't know what 3rd player was missing.  Brink did play for 9 minutes.  Wilson only played 5 minutes   Stanford was up 29 points going into the 4th quarter and emptied the bench, letting MD get the lead down to just 20 points at the end.  Stanford's bench players (not including Wilson, Brink, Hulls, Jump, Belbi, Jones) played 46 minutes (ie, about 5 players at 9+ minutes each).   (The two missing MD starters scored 29 points against FGCU)

The big difference may be that officials don't call fouls in the tournament (no matter what the points of emphasis say).  Reese only played 15 minutes before fouling out in November.  Two other players eventually got to 4 fouls, but in that game, more fouls were called against Stanford. MD got nearly 31% of their points at the foul line while Stanford got a bit over 16% of their points at the foul line.  (Not counting fouls, the score would have been 72-47).   MD is a much better FT% team, so the non-calls may benefit Stanford more.

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Yes, players need to focus one game at a time, but the coaches need to scout the road ahead.  Stanford gets a benefit because they've played MD and TX before, so they've got a head start on preparing for the possible match-ups this coming weekend, and the players already have faced those teams.  LSU/Ohio State will need new preparation beginning later today for the winner of that game.