[Papa John]

The Stanford men (#89 NET) take on UCLA (#14 NET) in a game that could put the Cardinal back in the NCAA tournament discussion. ESPN BPI gives Stanford a 19.3% probability of pulling of the upset, which is much better than when Stanford played UCLA in Pauley Pavilion a little over a week ago. Since that 23-point drubbing at the hands of a depleted Bruin squad, Stanford has showcased its trademark inconsistency, with a sloppy win over #147 Cal, a sloppy loss to #36 WSU and an impressive shellacking of #131 Washington.

Tuesday's game will mark the end of a rare 4-game homestand and is yet another opportunity for a Quad 1 win over a UCLA team that just finished a disastrous trip to the desert, where the Bruins lost to 1st-place Arizona by 10 and then fell to 9th-place ASU in triple OT on Saturday. Normally I would predict that a team that is playing its third game in three cities in six days--and had already lost the first two games of the road trip--would be ripe for an upset, but UCLA is back at full strength and is deep.

Since UCLA does pretty much everything well, here are the areas where they have struggled in conference play:
29.2% 3-pt FG (11th in conference, Stanford 6th)
-1.3 rebounding margin (8th, Stanford 3rd)

Notably, UCLA has committed the fewest turnovers in conference play and is third at forcing turnovers.

Stanford is currently 7-5 and in seventh place, but in the loss column the Cardinal is only two games behind UCLA, Oregon and WSU and one game behind USC and Washington. A fourth place finish and first-round bye in the conference tournament still feels like a bridge too far, but that could change if Stanford somehow manages to knock off the Bruins. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Stanford has a four-game home winning streak versus UCLA, albeit last season's home OT win was in Santa Cruz.

[Papa John]

The Stanford men (#89 NET) take on UCLA (#14 NET) in a game that could put the Cardinal back in the NCAA tournament discussion. ESPN BPI gives Stanford a 19.3% probability of pulling of the upset, which is much better than when Stanford played UCLA in Pauley Pavilion a little over a week ago. Since that 23-point drubbing at the hands of a depleted Bruin squad, Stanford has showcased its trademark inconsistency, with a sloppy win over #147 Cal, a sloppy loss to #36 WSU and an impressive shellacking of #131 Washington.

Tuesday's game will mark the end of a rare 4-game homestand and is yet another opportunity for a Quad 1 win over a UCLA team that just finished a disastrous trip to the desert, where the Bruins lost to 1st-place Arizona by 10 and then fell to 9th-place ASU in triple OT on Saturday. Normally I would predict that a team that is playing its third game in three cities in six days--and had already lost the first two games of the road trip--would be ripe for an upset, but UCLA is back at full strength and is deep.

Since UCLA does pretty much everything well, here are the areas where they have struggled in conference play:
29.2% 3-pt FG (11th in conference, Stanford 6th)
-1.3 rebounding margin (8th, Stanford 3rd)

Notably, UCLA has committed the fewest turnovers in conference play and is third at forcing turnovers.

Stanford is currently 7-5 and in seventh place, but in the loss column the Cardinal is only two games behind UCLA, Oregon and WSU and one game behind USC and Washington. A fourth place finish and first-round bye in the conference tournament still feels like a bridge too far, but that could change if Stanford somehow manages to knock off the Bruins. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Stanford has a four-game home winning streak versus UCLA, albeit last season's home OT win was in Santa Cruz.

[Papa John]

Here's a little bit of UCLA perspective heading into tonight's matchup at Maples:

https://www.dailynews.com/2022/02/07/no-...d-tuesday/

[Papa John]

Here's a little bit of UCLA perspective heading into tonight's matchup at Maples:

https://www.dailynews.com/2022/02/07/no-...d-tuesday/

[SamuelMcF]

Stanford is currently 7-5 and in seventh place, but in the loss column the Cardinal is only two games behind UCLA, Oregon and WSU and one game behind USC and Washington. A fourth place finish and first-round bye in the conference tournament still feels like a bridge too far, but that could change if Stanford somehow manages to knock off the Bruins. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Stanford has a four-game home winning streak versus UCLA, albeit last season's home OT win was in Santa Cruz.

UW and Wazzu have both played baby-soft conference schedules up to this point. 5 of each of their 7 conference wins were to the bottom 4 conference teams, and the other 2 were Colorado and Stanford (both teams also have a loss to Colorado and Stanford, btw). They have yet to beat the top 4 teams in conference, and have to play said teams in 5 of their final 9/10 games (UW gets UCLA twice, Wazzu gets Oregon twice), and still have to play each other twice too. I would be more impressed/worried if either of them actually had a good conference win. Maybe the most impressive was Wazzu taking Colorado behind the woodshed at home, but that's really it.

Point is, getting to 5th in conference is actually much more doable than it may appear. 4th is probably a stretch unless we win @ Oregon.

Most likely IMO is getting 5th-ish in conference and losing the first round tournament game, as we seem to do every year.

[SamuelMcF]

Stanford is currently 7-5 and in seventh place, but in the loss column the Cardinal is only two games behind UCLA, Oregon and WSU and one game behind USC and Washington. A fourth place finish and first-round bye in the conference tournament still feels like a bridge too far, but that could change if Stanford somehow manages to knock off the Bruins. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Stanford has a four-game home winning streak versus UCLA, albeit last season's home OT win was in Santa Cruz.

UW and Wazzu have both played baby-soft conference schedules up to this point. 5 of each of their 7 conference wins were to the bottom 4 conference teams, and the other 2 were Colorado and Stanford (both teams also have a loss to Colorado and Stanford, btw). They have yet to beat the top 4 teams in conference, and have to play said teams in 5 of their final 9/10 games (UW gets UCLA twice, Wazzu gets Oregon twice), and still have to play each other twice too. I would be more impressed/worried if either of them actually had a good conference win. Maybe the most impressive was Wazzu taking Colorado behind the woodshed at home, but that's really it.

Point is, getting to 5th in conference is actually much more doable than it may appear. 4th is probably a stretch unless we win @ Oregon.

Most likely IMO is getting 5th-ish in conference and losing the first round tournament game, as we seem to do every year.

[McKenwood]

Stanford is currently 7-5 and in seventh place, but in the loss column the Cardinal is only two games behind UCLA, Oregon and WSU and one game behind USC and Washington. A fourth place finish and first-round bye in the conference tournament still feels like a bridge too far, but that could change if Stanford somehow manages to knock off the Bruins. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Stanford has a four-game home winning streak versus UCLA, albeit last season's home OT win was in Santa Cruz.

UW and Wazzu have both played baby-soft conference schedules up to this point. 5 of each of their 7 conference wins were to the bottom 4 conference teams, and the other 2 were Colorado and Stanford (both teams also have a loss to Colorado and Stanford, btw). They have yet to beat the top 4 teams in conference, and have to play said teams in 5 of their final 9/10 games (UW gets UCLA twice, Wazzu gets Oregon twice), and still have to play each other twice too. I would be more impressed/worried if either of them actually had a good conference win. Maybe the most impressive was Wazzu taking Colorado behind the woodshed at home, but that's really it.

Point is, getting to 5th in conference is actually much more doable than it may appear. 4th is probably a stretch unless we win @ Oregon.

Most likely IMO is getting 5th-ish in conference and losing the first round tournament game, as we seem to do every year.

Excellent points on the Washington school schedules. By contrast Stanford only has single games against Utah and OSU, two of the bottom feeders this year but has 8 games against AZ, UCLA, Oregon and USC.

[McKenwood]

Stanford is currently 7-5 and in seventh place, but in the loss column the Cardinal is only two games behind UCLA, Oregon and WSU and one game behind USC and Washington. A fourth place finish and first-round bye in the conference tournament still feels like a bridge too far, but that could change if Stanford somehow manages to knock off the Bruins. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Stanford has a four-game home winning streak versus UCLA, albeit last season's home OT win was in Santa Cruz.

UW and Wazzu have both played baby-soft conference schedules up to this point. 5 of each of their 7 conference wins were to the bottom 4 conference teams, and the other 2 were Colorado and Stanford (both teams also have a loss to Colorado and Stanford, btw). They have yet to beat the top 4 teams in conference, and have to play said teams in 5 of their final 9/10 games (UW gets UCLA twice, Wazzu gets Oregon twice), and still have to play each other twice too. I would be more impressed/worried if either of them actually had a good conference win. Maybe the most impressive was Wazzu taking Colorado behind the woodshed at home, but that's really it.

Point is, getting to 5th in conference is actually much more doable than it may appear. 4th is probably a stretch unless we win @ Oregon.

Most likely IMO is getting 5th-ish in conference and losing the first round tournament game, as we seem to do every year.

Excellent points on the Washington school schedules. By contrast Stanford only has single games against Utah and OSU, two of the bottom feeders this year but has 8 games against AZ, UCLA, Oregon and USC.

[Papa John]

Stanford is currently 7-5 and in seventh place, but in the loss column the Cardinal is only two games behind UCLA, Oregon and WSU and one game behind USC and Washington. A fourth place finish and first-round bye in the conference tournament still feels like a bridge too far, but that could change if Stanford somehow manages to knock off the Bruins. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Stanford has a four-game home winning streak versus UCLA, albeit last season's home OT win was in Santa Cruz.

UW and Wazzu have both played baby-soft conference schedules up to this point. 5 of each of their 7 conference wins were to the bottom 4 conference teams, and the other 2 were Colorado and Stanford (both teams also have a loss to Colorado and Stanford, btw). They have yet to beat the top 4 teams in conference, and have to play said teams in 5 of their final 9/10 games (UW gets UCLA twice, Wazzu gets Oregon twice), and still have to play each other twice too. I would be more impressed/worried if either of them actually had a good conference win. Maybe the most impressive was Wazzu taking Colorado behind the woodshed at home, but that's really it.

Point is, getting to 5th in conference is actually much more doable than it may appear. 4th is probably a stretch unless we win @ Oregon.

Most likely IMO is getting 5th-ish in conference and losing the first round tournament game, as we seem to do every year.

Good points, SamuelMcF. Tonight's game isn't a must win, but it feels like Stanford needs to win each of its games versus the teams below it in the standings--@ OSU, vs Utah, vs Colorado, at Cal, at ASU--and win at least one of the games versus the teams above it--vs UCLA, @ Oregon, @ Arizona. A 6-2 finish would put Stanford at 13-7 and in the running for 4th place. So maybe the game at Oregon is more important than tonight's game, because we would have season sweeps over both Oregon and USC, and even with a win tonight we're probably not going to chase down UCLA by season's end. In any case, I was thinking of Arizona, UCLA, USC and Oregon as the most likely top four, not UW and WSU, so thanks for clarifying that.

And having typed the above, it still feels like a bridge too far.

[Papa John]

Stanford is currently 7-5 and in seventh place, but in the loss column the Cardinal is only two games behind UCLA, Oregon and WSU and one game behind USC and Washington. A fourth place finish and first-round bye in the conference tournament still feels like a bridge too far, but that could change if Stanford somehow manages to knock off the Bruins. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Stanford has a four-game home winning streak versus UCLA, albeit last season's home OT win was in Santa Cruz.

UW and Wazzu have both played baby-soft conference schedules up to this point. 5 of each of their 7 conference wins were to the bottom 4 conference teams, and the other 2 were Colorado and Stanford (both teams also have a loss to Colorado and Stanford, btw). They have yet to beat the top 4 teams in conference, and have to play said teams in 5 of their final 9/10 games (UW gets UCLA twice, Wazzu gets Oregon twice), and still have to play each other twice too. I would be more impressed/worried if either of them actually had a good conference win. Maybe the most impressive was Wazzu taking Colorado behind the woodshed at home, but that's really it.

Point is, getting to 5th in conference is actually much more doable than it may appear. 4th is probably a stretch unless we win @ Oregon.

Most likely IMO is getting 5th-ish in conference and losing the first round tournament game, as we seem to do every year.

Good points, SamuelMcF. Tonight's game isn't a must win, but it feels like Stanford needs to win each of its games versus the teams below it in the standings--@ OSU, vs Utah, vs Colorado, at Cal, at ASU--and win at least one of the games versus the teams above it--vs UCLA, @ Oregon, @ Arizona. A 6-2 finish would put Stanford at 13-7 and in the running for 4th place. So maybe the game at Oregon is more important than tonight's game, because we would have season sweeps over both Oregon and USC, and even with a win tonight we're probably not going to chase down UCLA by season's end. In any case, I was thinking of Arizona, UCLA, USC and Oregon as the most likely top four, not UW and WSU, so thanks for clarifying that.

And having typed the above, it still feels like a bridge too far.

[bl82]

I would like our chances better if we could increase our shooting percentages. Of the 358 D1 basketball programs, this is where we rank after our great shooting game against Washington:
3 FG %: 186th
FG %: 233th
FT %: 312th

Ouch

[bl82]

I would like our chances better if we could increase our shooting percentages. Of the 358 D1 basketball programs, this is where we rank after our great shooting game against Washington:
3 FG %: 186th
FG %: 233th
FT %: 312th

Ouch

[Farm93]

Stanford could have a great day and UCLA could have an off day.  In that scenario, maybe Stanford can do just enough to win a close game in the end.  A quiet midweek game in Maples just might give Stanford the edge.   Most teams seem to be coming in on game day for these Tuesday COVID make-up games.   If UCLA takes a similar approach and then starts slowly in an empty arena I can imagine a Stanford upset.

Nothing in the Haase era suggests Stanford will get stronger in the last few weeks of the season, but if Stanford can finish 4th in the conference and get to the Pac-12 tournament semifinals then maybe Stanford can get one of those play-in 12 seeds.

[Farm93]

Stanford could have a great day and UCLA could have an off day.  In that scenario, maybe Stanford can do just enough to win a close game in the end.  A quiet midweek game in Maples just might give Stanford the edge.   Most teams seem to be coming in on game day for these Tuesday COVID make-up games.   If UCLA takes a similar approach and then starts slowly in an empty arena I can imagine a Stanford upset.

Nothing in the Haase era suggests Stanford will get stronger in the last few weeks of the season, but if Stanford can finish 4th in the conference and get to the Pac-12 tournament semifinals then maybe Stanford can get one of those play-in 12 seeds.

[needle]

Fourth in the conference would be miraculous.

Realistic goal is sixth (right where the team is in KenPom, 34 slots behind Oregon and 14 above Colorado).

[needle]

Fourth in the conference would be miraculous.

Realistic goal is sixth (right where the team is in KenPom, 34 slots behind Oregon and 14 above Colorado).

[burger]

I would like our chances better if we could increase our shooting percentages.  Of the 358 D1 basketball programs, this is where we rank after our great shooting game against Washington:
3 FG %: 186th
FG %: 233th
FT %:  312th

Ouch

Our shooting percentages are not the problem with the offense.  In conference play we're 6th in 3-point % and 7th in 2-point %. Not good, not awful.

The problem is that we're 345th in Division I in turnover percentage.  23% of our possessions end in turnovers.  That's not acceptable.

And before anyone goes blaming the players for this, Haase's teams have been 281st or worse in turnovers every year of his reign except the first, when almost none of the players were his recruits.

[burger]

I would like our chances better if we could increase our shooting percentages.  Of the 358 D1 basketball programs, this is where we rank after our great shooting game against Washington:
3 FG %: 186th
FG %: 233th
FT %:  312th

Ouch

Our shooting percentages are not the problem with the offense.  In conference play we're 6th in 3-point % and 7th in 2-point %. Not good, not awful.

The problem is that we're 345th in Division I in turnover percentage.  23% of our possessions end in turnovers.  That's not acceptable.

And before anyone goes blaming the players for this, Haase's teams have been 281st or worse in turnovers every year of his reign except the first, when almost none of the players were his recruits.

[bl82]

Total agreement, but the two may be related. When you have two big men on the perimeter who you pass the ball to that won't shoot or drive, they get pressured as the clock runs out and either they force a pass for a turnover or they force it to someone else just as the shot clock is expiring for a poor shot.

So poor offensive design (doesn't fit our big man skill sets) translates into both too many turnovers and too many bad shots.

If it were not for rebounding, particularly the offensive boards, we would be under .500.

[bl82]

Total agreement, but the two may be related. When you have two big men on the perimeter who you pass the ball to that won't shoot or drive, they get pressured as the clock runs out and either they force a pass for a turnover or they force it to someone else just as the shot clock is expiring for a poor shot.

So poor offensive design (doesn't fit our big man skill sets) translates into both too many turnovers and too many bad shots.

If it were not for rebounding, particularly the offensive boards, we would be under .500.

[JJJ]

If Arkansas can beat Bruce Pearl’s #1 Auburn, I’m going to dream big for this game! :)

Late add: I didn’t quite fully appreciate that Stanford was his *first* assistant coaching gig. Can we take some credit? Do we want to? :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Pearl

[JJJ]

If Arkansas can beat Bruce Pearl’s #1 Auburn, I’m going to dream big for this game! :)

Late add: I didn’t quite fully appreciate that Stanford was his *first* assistant coaching gig. Can we take some credit? Do we want to? :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Pearl

[martyup]

If we play the same as we did in the last game against UW, we have a shot.  We'll see in just 20 minutes from now.  GO CARD!

[martyup]

If we play the same as we did in the last game against UW, we have a shot.  We'll see in just 20 minutes from now.  GO CARD!

[martyup]

On our first possession, Delaire dribbles into the paint and tries to force a shot against a double team.  Fortunately, Hasse pulled him early.

We are playing good ball to start the game. Ingram and MOC are in the zone.

[martyup]

On our first possession, Delaire dribbles into the paint and tries to force a shot against a double team.  Fortunately, Hasse pulled him early.

We are playing good ball to start the game. Ingram and MOC are in the zone.

[JJJ]

Both offenses are coming in hot!

[JJJ]

Both offenses are coming in hot!

[martyup]

Ingram might win us this game.  GO CARD!

[martyup]

Ingram might win us this game.  GO CARD!

[JJJ]

Ingram and O’Connell and Jones. Keep it up!

[JJJ]

Ingram and O’Connell and Jones. Keep it up!

[martyup]

Get Delaire out of the there.  Ridiculous. He makes our first two turnovers.

---

At the half we trail by 10.  We made our first 2 threes and then missed the next 8.  We only have 3 turnovers.

[martyup]

Get Delaire out of the there.  Ridiculous. He makes our first two turnovers.

---

At the half we trail by 10.  We made our first 2 threes and then missed the next 8.  We only have 3 turnovers.

[old spanish trail]

Well, it was great while it lasted. The subs stopped the momentum while Bruins important guys played .

[old spanish trail]

Well, it was great while it lasted. The subs stopped the momentum while Bruins important guys played .

[PVTree]

We fizzled at the end of the half and trail by 10 after it was very close for 15 minutes.

[PVTree]

We fizzled at the end of the half and trail by 10 after it was very close for 15 minutes.

[JJJ]

That was a tremendously suboptimal final few minutes to the half! We were going toe to toe until then.

[JJJ]

That was a tremendously suboptimal final few minutes to the half! We were going toe to toe until then.