It has become clear that we have three exceptional freshmen. All need to do some things better but they all have very high ceilings. It has also become clear (to me at least) that our coaching is sub-par. We seem to have little ability to utilize the skills we have and I consider this more a coaching problem than a player problem. All of the players have some issues. Ogden and Agara are both good shooters but they need to recognize good shots from bad shots. Somfai has the same problem. She is very good but takes too many bad shots. Swain seems to be improving but when she is driving to the basket she needs to learn to pass at times rather than force a shot. Eschmeyer has the upside to be another Brink but she needs to gain strength and learn to position herself better. She certainly should be playing more minutes than she has been. After her game against Cal one might think she would play a lot more in future games but it would not surprise me to see her back to 10-12 minutes next game unless Agara misses the game from injury. For some reason the coaches seem to think she is not ready. Shay seems very inconsistent – sometimes excellent, sometimes terrible. Clardy is probably the most consistent overall player but is better when fresh. Lepolo is Lepolo. She is the best passer on the team but is neither a scorer or an assist machine. Her TOs are too high and assists not high enough for a good point guard. Stephenson does a few things well but scoring is not one of them. I wish we had Umeh healthy to see if she has the potential to really help
The refs have been so bad in recent games I wonder if the ACC resents Stanford for some reason. Last night there was one ball that was clearly knocked out by two Cal players going for the ball. The closest Stanford player was an arms length away, yet Cal was awarded the ball. The Cal center seemed to be in the lane for 5-6 seconds at times without being called and delivered more body shots than a professional boxer. Few were called. However, we still could have won this game with decent showings from Ogden, Agara, and Shay
The refs have been so bad in recent games I wonder if the ACC resents Stanford for some reason. Last night there was one ball that was clearly knocked out by two Cal players going for the ball. The closest Stanford player was an arms length away, yet Cal was awarded the ball. The Cal center seemed to be in the lane for 5-6 seconds at times without being called and delivered more body shots than a professional boxer. Few were called. However, we still could have won this game with decent showings from Ogden, Agara, and Shay