[cardcoug]

I don't think anyone is subscribing to an Olympic Table Tennis style lose on purpose type effort.  Rather if Stanford is down by 14 points in the 3rd quarter the team will know it has got to find a way.  Conversely, if UCLA is down by 14 points in the 3rd quarter a fair number of the players on the  team will be thinking about that mulligan option.  Almost all Pac-12 teams are capable of winning on any given weekend, so that possibility of an unprecedented difference in motivation is noteworthy.

I think this is exactly right - the situation will matter only if Stanford jumps out to a solid lead, especially if our D consistently shuts them down through three quarters. You hear all the time about a team fighting "with everything they've got 'til the very end", which will certainly be Stanford this week, but you have to think at least a few Bruins (maybe the younger ones) will already start thinking "yeah yeah - just wait until next week" in this situation.

[cardcoug]

I don't think anyone is subscribing to an Olympic Table Tennis style lose on purpose type effort.  Rather if Stanford is down by 14 points in the 3rd quarter the team will know it has got to find a way.  Conversely, if UCLA is down by 14 points in the 3rd quarter a fair number of the players on the  team will be thinking about that mulligan option.  Almost all Pac-12 teams are capable of winning on any given weekend, so that possibility of an unprecedented difference in motivation is noteworthy.

I think this is exactly right - the situation will matter only if Stanford jumps out to a solid lead, especially if our D consistently shuts them down through three quarters. You hear all the time about a team fighting "with everything they've got 'til the very end", which will certainly be Stanford this week, but you have to think at least a few Bruins (maybe the younger ones) will already start thinking "yeah yeah - just wait until next week" in this situation.