Preview
New Year’s Eve, at 6pm, the Morgan State Athletics come to Maples. The game will be live streamed at Stanford:
https://pac-12.com/live/stanford-university
Morgan State is a public HBCU in Baltimore, with about 9000 students. Their WBB team is 4-9 this year, and ranked 318th (out of 360) by Massey. They are coming off a loss Thursday at Oregon State, which beat them 80-51. Raegan Beers carved them up inside, so I would think that Brink and Iriafen will have very pleasant evenings.
In the Oregon State loss, Morgan State was led by Joelle Johnson with 14 points. Johnson is a 5’11” grad student forward who transferred in from Northwestern State, and she leads the team statistically for the year.
Morgan State does have a 6’2” sophomore from Gilroy--perhaps this is one of those local stops that coaches put together for their players. I couldn’t find anyone else over 6’0” on their team.
They have two players who have made 10 threes so far this year, but no one stands out as a consistent sharpshooting threat. No one has attempted a great many, and the percentages are not good either.
The one danger that I can see is that they average a whopping 13 steals per game. This game could test our ball handling. I would expect Clardy to get a lot of time.
Those of you who know me realize that I am a inclined toward pessimism and I tend to overestimate our opponents. Call it a Stanford defense mechanism from the losing years when I was a student. But try as I might, I cannot find a reason to overestimate Morgan State. They are scoring 54 ppg, making 23% of their three point shots, and are under water on their scoring differential with opponents.
I’m sure that Tara wanted a lightweight game in between Cal and the serious challenge that next week's visits by the two Washington schools will pose. Morgan State must have wanted a west coast swing, perhaps for some of its players to perform for family, and maybe for more national exposure. Nevertheless, my guess is that the Stanford players will have the more festive New Year’s eve.
New Year’s Eve, at 6pm, the Morgan State Athletics come to Maples. The game will be live streamed at Stanford:
https://pac-12.com/live/stanford-university
Morgan State is a public HBCU in Baltimore, with about 9000 students. Their WBB team is 4-9 this year, and ranked 318th (out of 360) by Massey. They are coming off a loss Thursday at Oregon State, which beat them 80-51. Raegan Beers carved them up inside, so I would think that Brink and Iriafen will have very pleasant evenings.
In the Oregon State loss, Morgan State was led by Joelle Johnson with 14 points. Johnson is a 5’11” grad student forward who transferred in from Northwestern State, and she leads the team statistically for the year.
Morgan State does have a 6’2” sophomore from Gilroy--perhaps this is one of those local stops that coaches put together for their players. I couldn’t find anyone else over 6’0” on their team.
They have two players who have made 10 threes so far this year, but no one stands out as a consistent sharpshooting threat. No one has attempted a great many, and the percentages are not good either.
The one danger that I can see is that they average a whopping 13 steals per game. This game could test our ball handling. I would expect Clardy to get a lot of time.
Those of you who know me realize that I am a inclined toward pessimism and I tend to overestimate our opponents. Call it a Stanford defense mechanism from the losing years when I was a student. But try as I might, I cannot find a reason to overestimate Morgan State. They are scoring 54 ppg, making 23% of their three point shots, and are under water on their scoring differential with opponents.
I’m sure that Tara wanted a lightweight game in between Cal and the serious challenge that next week's visits by the two Washington schools will pose. Morgan State must have wanted a west coast swing, perhaps for some of its players to perform for family, and maybe for more national exposure. Nevertheless, my guess is that the Stanford players will have the more festive New Year’s eve.
