WBB: UCLA 79 Stanford 69 - Printable Version
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WBB: UCLA 79 Stanford 69 - 81alum - 02-05-2020
Preview:
UCLA is having its best season in at least a decade. They are 19-2, having lost only to USC (barely) and Arizona (decisively.)
They have beaten Arizona State twice, but don't have a lot of marquee wins. They play the Oregon schools only once, at home, so considering
they are finished with the Arizona schools they have by far the easiest league schedule of any of the contenders. This makes our
one game with them absolutely crucial to us. UCLA is 10th in the AP and coaches polls, and are 6th in RPI.
UCLA is led by 6'0" forward Michaela Onyenwere who is averaging 19ppg and shooting over 50%. She is a good all-around player who grabs 8 rebounds per game, delivers some assists, and shoots the 3 at 30%.
I have nightmares about Japreece Dean, who has found a way to torch us in the past--notably two years ago which is the last time UCLA beat us. She is an experienced senior 5'7" point guard who has a whopping 94 assists at a 2:1 ratio, and is averaging 14 ppg. She is capable of cutting to the basket, pulling up, and makes treys at 30%. She is one of those shifty, quick guards who is a team player when she needs to be, but can take over a game if necessary. Defending her will not be easy.
Charisma Osborne is the new freshmen star, a 5'9" guard averaging 11 ppg. She is their best three point shooter with 40 makes at 34%. She was 3/7 in their last game against ASU.
Lauryn Miller is a 6'1" junior forward who starts, and Lindsey Corsara is the final starter--a 6'1" guard. Off the bench are a couple of familiar names such as Chantel Horvat and Natalie Chou, who transferred in and has been logging 19 minutes.
UCLA is very deep. They play 10 players in double digits and 2 more come close. They are an athletic, quick team which shoots only 28% from three point range as a team, but also nabs 10 steals a game. They are not that tall in the post but it clearly has not hurt them. They will take the ball to the rim and players like Dean have deadly mid range jumpers. Getting someone who can match up with Onyenwere and someone else to match up with Dean is going to be critical.
Overview:
UCLA played a very close defense that badly discombobulated our scheme, and while Williams had a superb game, she ran down like a spinning top by the fourth quarter when the game was on the line.
Flow of the game:
The coaches warned at the chalktalk that UCLA would be the most physical team we had played, and it is hard to prepare freshmen who have not faced that level of close defense to be ready for it. The way to solve that kind of defense, Kate said, was to take it to the rim. The UCLA defense was suffocating from the start. It was difficult to pass the ball--even to hand it off, and we were not getting lanes to take it to the rim. But in the first quarter, Williams made three treys and Brown and Lacie made one each. At one point we were shooting over 80% of our treys, and even though our offense looked awful, somehow the long range shots were going in, and we finished the quarter up 21-19.
The second quarter was an offensive debacle, with just 9 points, and it would have been even worse if Lacie had not made a trey with 2 seconds left. Lexie was entirely out of sorts and our posts had hardly touched the ball. They closed out fast on Jump, and the halftime stats were revealing. We were down 35-30, we were being grossly outrebounded, and our shooting percentage was about 10 points lower than theirs. All things considered, we were lucky to be withing 5--chiefly because of our three point shooting.
In the third quarter Prechtel began to connect with layups, and Williams put the team on her back. We entered a zone--which failed at first but then tightened up--and clawed our way back to a 45-44 lead six minutes in. But a turnover and a miss on our part rapidly gave UCLA the lead back, and they never relinquished it.
In the fourth, Williams missed 7 shots in a row, and at one point she slammed the floor in disgust after a fall. The happy-go-lucky kid was obviously frustrated. UCLA slowly expanded its lead, and then an endless fouling game began in which they got the better of us. A bright spot was that Jenna Brown relieved the exhausted Williams and acquitted herself very well.
Performances:
Let's begin by pointing out that our defense was ineffective. Onyenwere scored 29 points on an efficient 10/16 shooting, and UCLA shot 46%. At the chalk talk we were told that they were not a great shooting team but made up for it with outstanding rebounding. Somehow we made them into a pretty darn good shooting team.
In the second half we greatly improved our rebounding, so much so that we finished roughly equal for the game in both O-board and D-boards. Imagine how we would have fared had we had that effort in the first half too.
We had 14 turnovers to their 8--this made a significant difference. But in general, what cost us the game was that we took difficult shots and they got more clean looks. Their defense was better than our defense.
As individuals, Williams played her heart out for 38 minutes, and had 25 points, and 4/7 three point shots. But she started 3/3 from three point land, and basically all her offensive energy seems to have been expended in the first three quarters. It is also worth noting that she had 8 assists to 3 turnovers, which was truly outstanding. She also took a spill, and she did not seem to be her old self after the spill
Prechtel had a double double with 10 points and 12 rebounds. Lacie was the better Hull tonight with 12 points; Lexie had 6 and seemed stymied tonight, shooting 2/8. Jenna Brown had one of her better nights, scoring 9 points in 9 minutes. Fingall did not score and played only 18 minutes.
Conclusion:
I think this game gives us an accurate picture of where we are. Without Carrington, Dodson, and Jones we are not really good enough to compete with other elite teams. I expect this won't be the last loss at Maples this year, sadly. To have won this game we would have needed more offense out of Lexie and better defense out of everyone. Let's hope we can defeat SC on Sunday, and do it without sustaining other injuries.
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - TheRicker - 02-06-2020
Given Louisville's home loss to Florida State 67-59 Thursday night, Stanford has a chance (with a weekend sweep), to possibly gain
a #1 seed in the next bracketology.
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - Baez87 - 02-06-2020
Actually the loses this week by UCON and Louisville give Charlie Creme a chance to redeem himself by making Stanford a #1 seed next week. Of course, our women need to win their game against UCLA to be considered for a top tier seeding, but Creme seems to be too dismissive of Stanford. It will be interesting to see if the East Coast bias holds up when two of his teams lose at home by pretty good margins.
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - 81alum - 02-07-2020
(02-06-2020, 11:49 PM)Baez87 Wrote: Actually the loses this week by UCON and Louisville give Charlie Creme a chance to redeem himself by making Stanford a #1 seed next week. Of course, our women need to win their game against UCLA to be considered for a top tier seeding, but Creme seems to be too dismissive of Stanford. It will be interesting to see if the East Coast bias holds up when two of his teams lose at home by pretty good margins.Charlie has in past years been very pro-Stanford, including several years when we did not perform as well as he predicted. Maybe he feels burned by us.
An objective outsider looking at the fact that we graduated our top scorer and are now playing with 2 of our best starters injured, and considering both our two bad losses (bad for different reasons) and several way-too-close wins--and we do not at this point look that impressive. We need to prove ourselves every week, since it seems like every week we have a different team out there. I really don't know how good we are--I have never been more unsure of that in February. I understand the skepticism.
An easy win over UCLA at home tonight would assuage my fears a good deal. Let's see how that goes....
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - 2006alum - 02-07-2020
(02-07-2020, 12:00 PM)81alum Wrote: An easy win over UCLA at home tonight would assuage my fears a good deal. Let's see how that goes....
I share your trepidation both generally, and especially vs. UCLA. In recent years, we have not matched up with them especially well, and this year rebounding has been very inconsistent, which has always been one of their strengths, especially O-boards. If ever there was a game to solidify their coming out parties, this would be the game for Prechtel and/or Belibi to step up big. And for Belibi, the UCLA posts are not actually very tall, so she should be able to go toe to toe with them much better than she has against some of the 6'4"+" posts she's struggled against this season. I think this game will be won in the paint. I'm less worried about Dean, who has been in a bit of a shooting slump, and who I think Williams (and Wilson) should be able to track enough to contain.
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - jonnyss - 02-07-2020
(02-05-2020, 08:28 PM)81alum Wrote: Charisma Osborne is the new freshmen star, a 5'9" guard averaging 11 ppg. She is their best three point shooter with 40 makes at 34%. She was 3/7 in their last game against ASU.
charisma osborne was highly ranked and on a bunch of national all-star teams in high school. she was very interested in stanford and visited. her coach, vanessa nygaard, obviously has a strong stanford connection. so, i was surprised and, well, a bit disappointed that we chose hannah jump (who was certainly good in high school, but maybe not a star) instead as our single true guard (haley plays pg, wing, and forward) in the 2019 recruiting class. we'll get to see how they compare as freshmen.
seems we'll be in great shape when kiana graduates if we get azzi fudd, olivia miles, or rory harmon. if we don't, i sure hope jana van gytenbeek will turn out as good as osborne, even though she isn't as highly ranked.
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - BostonCard - 02-07-2020
Whatever slump Kiana might have been in has ended with a bang. She has 11 points in the first quarter.
BC
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - mbdude - 02-07-2020
Getting killed on offensive boards
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - 2006alum - 02-07-2020
Our post players are 1-8 with 7 rebounds in 20 minutes of basketball. That is NOT a recipe to beat a team like UCLA. Hope Tara has some chess countermoves up her sleeve for the second half...
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - mbdude - 02-07-2020
The hulls and kiana have 9 of our 11 fgs
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - 2006alum - 02-07-2020
At least Jenna Brown made her first three-pointer since, well, forever?
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - Canalejas - 02-07-2020
Dang. And I got all optimistic after regaining the lead.
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - BosCard - 02-07-2020
Tough loss but I did appreciate Prechtel continuing to shoot. She had so many shots that looked good and just kept rimming out. Hopefully this young team will learn from this.
RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Friday 8pm - 2006alum - 02-07-2020
(02-07-2020, 09:17 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Whatever slump Kiana might have been in has ended with a bang. She has 11 points in the first quarter.BC, however good your intentions, temper your urge to tempt the woofing gods in the future - AP notes that Williams finished "1 for 10 with two turnovers down the stretch." We win when Williams starts slow but finishes on a madcap run - not the other way around!
BC
Sigh. I had a bad feeling about this game given our teams' disparities in the paint. Onyenwere more than doubled our entire post production on her own. In terms of silver linings, Prechtel definitely gave it her all, and is increasingly feeling like our next big Big, and Jenna Brown had probably her best overall game in a Stanford uniform. Given that neither of them were even among our top 5 most anticipated players this season, it suggests the future can be very bright.
That said, unless and until Carrington and Jones are announced to be returning, I will chalk this season up to a lot of lost potential and be glad if we can reach the Elite Eight.
RE: WBB: UCLA 79 Stanford 69 - 81alum - 02-08-2020
Write up is done at the top.
Not my favorite to write :(
RE: WBB: UCLA 79 Stanford 69 - qwerty49 - 02-08-2020
It was too good to be real when we were up 21-14, and then we gave up 5 in a row ro close out the first quarter and at one point that turned into a 19-5 UCLA run. Totally abysmal post play by our bigs in the first half, not helped at all when Fingall had to sit with 2 early fouls.
Gosh Lexie had a strange game, forced some really bad-looking shots (or were they passes?)
Brown looked good but Wilson seems to have regressed this year.
Yuck just an ugly performance. We had so many opportunities wasted by turnovers and poor shot selection.
Onyenwere is a great athlete and UCLA just played harder, but actually I think this game was winnable for us. But we are just not very consistent.
I have no inside info but I have no expectations for Dodson, Carrington or Jones returning this year. It's too bad, if only to see just how far a healthy Stanford could have gone this year.
RE: WBB: UCLA 79 Stanford 69 - treetop11 - 02-08-2020
(02-05-2020, 08:28 PM)81alum Wrote: Preview:
Performances:
Let's begin by pointing out that our defense was ineffective. Onyenwere scored 29 points on an efficient 10/16 shooting, and UCLA shot 46%. At the chalk talk we were told that they were not a great shooting team but made up for it with outstanding rebounding.
In the second half we greatly improved our rebounding, so that we finished roughly equal for the game in both O-board and D-boards. Imagine how we would have fared had we had that effort in the first half too.
We had 14 turnovers to their 8--this made a significant difference. But in general, what cost us the game was that we took difficult shots and they got more clean looks. Their defense was better than our defense.
As individuals, Williams played her heart out for 38 minutes, and had 25 points, and 4/7 three point shots. But she started 3/3 from three point land, and basically all her offensive energy seems to have been expended in the first three quarters. It is also worth noting that she had 8 assists to 3 turnovers, which was truly outstanding. She also took a spill, and she did not seem to be her old self after the spill
Prechtel had a double double with 10 points and 12 rebounds. Lacie was the better Hull tonight with 12 points; Lexie had 6 and seemed stymied tonight, shooting 2/8. Jenna Brown had one of her better nights, scoring 9 points in 9 minutes. Fingall did not score and played only 18 minutes.
Conclusion:
I think this game gives us an accurate picture of where we are. Without Carrington, Dodson, and Jones we are really good enough to compete with other elite teams. I expect this won't be the last loss at Maples this year, sadly. To have won this game we would have needed more offense out of Lexie and better defense out of everyone. Let's hope we can defeat SC on Sunday, and do it without sustaining other injuries.
Excellent report and analysis as always by you, except one error - we out rebounded them according to the box score which mildly surprised me.
Fact is as I posted on the CSR site, both MBB and WBB are self-inflicting wounds - and losses - by stupid passes leading to turnovers (and often run outs for the other team) and at the FT line. The stupid passes drive me nuts. Although I hate to see, it's one thing to throw wild passes that bounce off our players' hands or out of bounds, but the number of forced passes that basically are to the opposing defender(s) is maddening; no space for a pass but somehow our players think they can squeeze it in. Second, we are literally getting beat at the FT line. MBB is 11th and MBB is 9th in the conference. And when you look at the box scores of the games, the differential in FTs made is the difference between us winning and losing. Although I may be wrong a game or two, except for the men vs Kansas and the women vs Oregon, both MBB and WBB would be otherwise undefeated. So not just that our percentage is poor, but other teams are getting to the line more often. Can't do that and win games, especially close ones - and we used to be terrific in the past.
Your point about the defense was salient, but it also applies to most of our games post injuries, notably Jones and to lesser extent Alyssa. The women simply are not that good at defense and don't compare to our men. We can't/don't double or trap much at all and as a whole don't pressure much or close out quickly on 3 pt shooters along with the fact that help defense is virtually non-existent. If an opponent beats one of our defenders, we seldom have someone cutting the opponent off - something the men do and do well. And when our defender does a good job defending, no one seems to pick up open opposing player near the basket who gets an easy pass and scores - that happened at least three times tonight that I recall.
I realize that we are short three terrific players who are starters, but the supposed caliber of the rest of the players should translate to better performance in these areas. The only thing that I can think of is that because we had so much depth at the start and lots of players played, we never developed a cohesiveness unit that matches the depth-challenged MBB team.
When Jones went down, I posted that we are probably a sweet 16 team with an outside chance of elite 8 if we got lucky/favorable draws. I wouldn't write off this season, but I would look to get Jones, Carrington, and Dodson back next year and then win the NC next with a strong shot to repeat the year after.
RE: WBB: UCLA 79 Stanford 69 - BosCard - 02-08-2020
Unfortunately we are quite vulnerable to teams that play a very physical close defense. It disrupts Williams and both Hulls which is where most of our offense currently is. And the players who can drive and finish and take advantage of this defense are either injured (Carrington, Jones) or still developing (I hope Belibi will get there).
Help may come with next years freshmen as well. Emma-nnopu is a strong physical slasher and possibly/hopefully Van Gytenbeek and Brink can do so as well. I’m hoping Brink has a game like Satou Sabally (big forward who can drive from the perimeter and finish over/through defenders)
RE: WBB: UCLA 79 Stanford 69 - 81alum - 02-08-2020
I really should not do write ups after late games--I woke up this morning and fixed half a dozen spelling and grammatical errors. I'm just not used to staying up so late, really :P
The rebounds situation was remarkable, and it makes our loss hard to understand. In the first half we were out rebounded 26-15, UCLA had 9 O-boards to our 10 D-boards. They were getting almost half their misses.
But in the second half we turned that completely around. We did out rebound them 30-12. They had only 2 O-boards compared with our 15 D-boards. They were one-and-done almost the whole half. Meanwhile we had 15 O-boards of our own to their 10 D-boards. We were getting MORE than half our misses.
Despite our appalling rebounding in the first half, we were down only 5 points. And despite our superb rebounding in the second half, we fell another 5 points further behind in that half. Why?
It is NOT that we shot worse in the first half. We went from 34% to 39% shooting. So that improved too.
There are only two things I can point to. We went from 5 turnovers in the first half to 9 in the second half. And while our overall shooting improved, our three point shooting plummeted from 6/10 to 2/13.
I actually don't think the coaches anticipated UCLA's shooting being this good. At the chalk talk it was clear that there had been a lot of emphasis on rebounding precisely because they thought there would be a lot of misses out there be had.
I also doubt that we anticipated our own shooting being so poor. Our losses are more typically losses in which we shoot better than the opponent but lose the turnover and/or rebounding wars. Well, last night we took 8 more shots than UCLA did, but made 3 fewer. Our shots were simply of lower quality, which is a testament to UCLA's defense and our lackluster defense.
At the end of the game when Tara was directing the fouling game and doing offensive/defensive subs, it was illuminating that Prechtel was coming out on defense and Belibi was going in. Despite her blossoming on offense, Tara must still see Prechtel as a defensive liability when it comes to defending quicker players like Onyenwere. Dodson would have been perfect to defend Onyenwere. Although Dodson was often offensively challenged, her defense on posts was becoming quite good by the end of last year. Williams plays good defense, but she expends a lot of energy doing so and it takes a toll on her. Carrington had always been one of our very best defenders--strong, quick, and long enough.
UCLA is highly athletic at all positions, and we only had two Hulls to go around.
RE: WBB: UCLA 79 Stanford 69 - martyup - 02-08-2020
UCLA was a very good team that played to win. Our gals played their hearts out. We just got beat. It happens. Agree that without Dodson, Carrington, and Jones this team has an elite 8 ceiling.