WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - Printable Version

WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - Printable Version

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RE: WBB: Stanford @ Cal Sunday 4pm - M T - 01-08-2023

(01-08-2023, 07:36 PM)TheWildJacko Wrote: And yet, if Brink doesn’t hit that 3 we probably lose. If Lepolo doesn’t hit that 3 we probably lose. So, ultimately, not bad shots.

So, if a team shoots the ball as they cross the half court line 30 times in a game, and hits one, they're not bad shots ultimately?

(01-08-2023, 07:51 PM)chimera Wrote: Maybe some of the issue was this was the first road game in a long while and since we beat cal pretty handily at Maples, perhaps the intensity was not quite there. Might help us overall if cal can play tough against our common opponents coming up. Can't focus on us too much if cal is a threat.

Yes, the game was a bit of a trap. But the problem, as I saw it, was our offense wasn't working. Jump didn't get many shots. Jones didn't get too many decent drives. The only thing that was working was to get the ball to Brink in the paint or on the block. Lepolo's drives through the lane (not to shoot, but to get someone open) didn't happen.

Cal did a good job of clogging the paint, and also didn't allow Jump to get shots off.

RE: WBB: Stanford @ Cal Sunday 4pm - martyup - 01-08-2023

I chalk this ugly win up to our team being too complacent. I think our team thought that Cal would just roll over and let us win. We were taking bad shots when we didn't need to. We were making sloppy passes, hoping for the best. We weren't patient on offense. We didn't have any sense of urgency until the final few minutes of the game. I put this on Tara and the rest of the coaching staff. They need to get our team mentally ready to play good basketball. For the rest of the regular season this will be the challenge for our coaching staff.

Credit Brink for doing her part to secure this win. She played hard and smart. I also thought Kiki gave a good effort, despite missing some bunnies.

RE: WBB: Stanford @ Cal Sunday 4pm - jonnyss - 01-08-2023

this game felt like the old tara: put the ball in the hands of your best player and forgot about every other play else. think nneka. today it was put the ball in the hands of your 2 best players: haley and cam. order the others (except hannah, who was tightly guarded) not to shoot.

i thought both agnes and brooke were liabilities. brooke had 2 good plays but also gave up 2 easy 3s. decent post defense, but slow out to the 3-point line. when agnes was in, cal didn't even guard her. it looked to me like tara was using brooke as an echo of haley: stand at the top of the key and try to get the entry pass in to cam or the wing pass to hannah.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - martyup - 01-08-2023

We scored an unlucky 13 points in 3 of the 4 quarters.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - Spiny_Norman - 01-08-2023

This was Stanford's first road game since Hawaii on November 27. We'll see how they do with 2 more on the road next week, @UCLA, then @USC.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - AxeMan89 - 01-08-2023

Steph was there, sitting on the baseline. Any chance that makes us nervous?

RE: WBB: Stanford @ Cal Sunday 4pm - M T - 01-08-2023

(01-08-2023, 08:22 PM)jonnyss Wrote: i thought both agnes and brooke were liabilities. brooke had 2 good plays but also gave up 2 easy 3s. decent post defense, but slow out to the 3-point line. when agnes was in, cal didn't even guard her. it looked to me like tara was using brooke as an echo of haley: stand at the top of the key and try to get the entry pass in to cam or the wing pass to hannah.

Demetre's +/- was 5 in 23 minutes.
Emma-nnopu was 4 in 13 minutes.

In the time they were in the game, Stanford scored a positive differential of at least what the team won by. Whatever good & bad they did, the team did ok compared to when others were in. There were 5 players today with 0 or negative +/-.

Baez87 - Baez87 - 01-08-2023

Driving back to Palo Alto in a light rain after watching a very stressful game! Also reading the Board responses by those of you that enjoy following SWBB. It’s fun to go to the game, it’s fun to read your sometimes oppositional posts, and it’s fun to watch the TV replay when we get back home. I get to reconstruct my inner recording of the game — fouls I got wrong during the game, plays that were even more spectacular the second time through, or other strategic subtleties that got by me the first time through.
My wife and I saw the game a bit differently than some of you. We didn’t see our team come out flat or complacent, rather we saw a well coached cal team come out hungry and aggressive.
As I recall in our first game with CAL, we only outscored them by three points in the last two quarters of play. I’m sure that this was not lost on the cal players and coaches. That probably motivated them all the more for this game. They had a plan and it was well executed. I think that sometimes we, as fans, have an unrealistic expectation of our team. We expect them to be perfect when no team in the country, college or pro, is perfect.
After the initial ragged minutes of tonight’s game, when the score was still 3-3, both team seemed to settled into a very hard/fought defensive struggle. Both teams battled hard and didn’t give an inch. Both were stymied by the other. It was a great effort by both teams, and thanks to our All-American players and their first rate coaching staff, they won a squeaker against a very motivated and balanced team — on a very loud opponent’s home court.
Credit Charmaine’s coaching staff, their game plan, and the Cal team’s execution. But most of all credit Tara, her staff, and her gritty players for showing up ready to do battle for this tough game.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - WBB fan - 01-08-2023

I think that Tara likes Brooke's defense. My non-expert reaction to seeing her come into a game is, why not someone else? Except for one game, her offense is very shaky, but she seems to have a green light to shoot at times that she shouldn't. I'm sure the coaches know more than I do, but still, I wonder, why Brooke? Another question on player selection. Fran played 6 minutes, all in the 1st half. Why didn't she play in the 2nd half? I think she would have helped the rebounding and offense.

One thing I don't recall anyone commenting on was the fact that Cam, who was most definitely the star of the game, not only had 25 points/17 rebounds/3 blocks -- but she also played 29 minutes and had only 3 fouls (one of which I thought was fully bogus -- Cam herself looked as if she couldn't understand it at all)

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - 81alum - 01-08-2023

My first time at Haas, and I have to say it was not a nice place to play. No windows at all and the overhead lights do a good enough job of lighting up the playing area but leave the rest of the gym in a kind of dingy light, really insufficient. Couple that with the dirt and old paint and the dark colors and it feels somewhat claustrophobic--odd for a gym that seats almost twice as many as Maples. It was fun to sit (by chance) next to Cardboarder Pete F, an amiable companion for the game who I discovered was a fellow SLE alum!

As for the game, what an ugly, defensive slug fest. The refs were letting a lot go, and Cal had very smartly changed its defensive focus. We had only 13 fouls and Cal 17, and given the pushing, shoving, hacking, and bodying-up that was too few.

I predicted, if you read my preview, that Cal would adjust defensively and find a way to take out the two players that beat them last game--Jones and Jump, and that others would have to step up. Brink had a bad game against them last time, but this time she scored 25 with 17 rebounds (in 29 minutes). So that part of my prediction came true. Unfortunately, no one else stepped up offensively, leaving the game far too tight. Jones came up with 12 points, but on a very inefficient 3/14 shooting.

The offense looked discombobulated from beginning to end. Cal did exactly what other good defenses have done to us--blanket Jump with a top perimeter defender, and bring an extra defender into the paint to double Brink or Jones by sagging off of our worst three point shooter on the floor. Lepolo was somewhat respected since she made her first trey, but anyone else on the perimeter not named Jump was apt to see their defender sag off and rapidly switch to the paint if the ball came in. It is exactly the kind of defense that Tara would (and does) play. Smith learned well from her.

Tara's adjustments were interesting. She prioritized improving our defense over jump-starting our offense. McIntosh was hot and it was essential to cool her off. She hit 2/5 treys but also slashed around defenders to score in the paint. Our switching-defense frequently left her in mismatches which she punished mercilessly. Furthermore, none of our smaller guards could defend her today. After halftime, Jones apparently got the assignment on her. Meanwhile, Iriafen and Lepolo disappeared from the lineup for long stretches with most of their minutes taken by Emma-Nnopu and Demetre--both inserted I think for defense. These defensive adjustments, however, left our offense really one dimensional. Demetre's shot would not fall, Emma-Nnopu is a reluctant shooter, and Jump, while deadly, needs help getting open. This left the offense to go through Brink and Jones almost exclusively. The points they scored were invariably against double teams, and it is a testament to their skill that the two of them accounted for 37 of our 60 points despite so much defensive focus on them.

Let's give Brink a lot of credit. Playing in front of her god-sibling godfather Steph Curry, she had a banner day with 25 points, 17 rebounds, and she stayed out of foul trouble--winding up with 3 but fairly late so she was never forced to sit. She was 6/7 of her free throws, Jones was 6/6--and that proved to be crucial.

Interestingly, turnovers were not a problem today. We had 11, which was low for us and the same as Cal.

Despite Cal's smart defense limiting access to the paint, we did have 32 points in the paint to Cal's 20, and we had 18 O-boards to their 11. So they limited us on the inside game, but not as well as they needed to for a win.

Frankly, this difficult game is summed up by our 4/20 three point shooting. Other teams often employ the same defensive strategy that Cal used--pack the paint and wait to see if we (anyone besides Jump) can hit treys. We couldn't, and so it became a slugfest. Once Tara saw the way the game was going, she just had the team feed Brink for high percentage shots, which she had to make against double teams. Now if we had started to hit more treys then Cal would have to back off, but we didn't, and so Cal just tightened the defense. Colorado and Arizona have also used this same strategy--we will see it again. Our team needs to figure out a more effective way to counter it than just tossing the ball in to a double-teamed Brink, or Jones taking off balance mid range shots. In a way, Cal did us a favor by teaching our coaches and players that our offense needs some important adjustments.

Highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrIFZifp0kY

Charmin Smith press conference. I am still looking for a Stanford presser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QImYj_cjZmM

Smith's observations are interesting. They cut way down on our transition points compared to the first game, which forced us to work in the half court. That kept the game much closer.

Jayda Curry, their best perimeter defender, was locked onto Jump.

Curry and McIntosh had very very long faces. They so desperately wanted a win over Stanford. Reminds us all that competition can be cruel and our relief at winning is matched with deep disappointment by these two outstanding young women. Their faces say it all.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - UltimateCard - 01-08-2023

(01-08-2023, 09:53 PM)WBB fan Wrote: I think that Tara likes Brooke's defense. My non-expert reaction to seeing her come into a game is, why not someone else? Except for one game, her offense is very shaky, but she seems to have a green light to shoot at times that she shouldn't. I'm sure the coaches know more than I do, but still, I wonder, why Brooke?

Cal was held scoreless for the last 4 minutes of the game, with Brooke on the floor. Tara clearly trusted her defense with the game on the line.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - bl82 - 01-08-2023

Lots of great comments, as usual, by Baez87 and 81alum, among others.

This reminded me of those wars we used to have with ASU when Charli Turner Thorne's teams were relentless and you figured if you could get into the high 50s you'd have a win. Credit Cal for some excellent strategy and execution on both defense and offense. I thought they had many more good looks than we did and had they hit more open shots would have won going away.

Something that has been concerning me the last five games is how cold both Ashten and Brooke have been. During this period, Ashten is 0-10 and Demetre is 1-14 from three. So our two best big deep threats (with apologies to Cam) have been 1-24! Not that defenders are ever going to leave Ashten open, but I noticed that Brooke was getting a little of the Agnes treatment a couple of times when they left her wide open in the right corner. She never used to hesitate and I'm betting Ashten never will, but Brooke seems to be more of a pass-first perimeter option than the former shoot-first-if-open threat. I hope neither of those two are starting to lose confidence in their shot, just as I hope Kiki is not letting the traveling, missed bunnies and blocks deter her from being aggressive down low.

The problem with our bigs getting cold from outside is that it means less room for everyone else to drive in the paint, notably Haley, but also Cam, Hannah on back-door cuts, etc. I love it when our bigs are draining threes from the outside and everyone else has a lane to cut to the basket, but when these shots stop falling, it has a significant impact on how effective our offense can be. Talana being willing to take and hit the three is brobdingnagian. I can't wait until Ashten and Brooke start to heat up again. What I'd really like to see is Elena and/or Indya also become reliable perimeter threats. Unlike Hannah, they are capable of creating their own shot -- and if we can get them to be better defensively, they might be able to give us something that Agnes just doesn't seem destined to be able to pull off.

This was a good game for us -- and a good coaching tool for the staff -- to help prepare us for a trip to LA next week.

RE: WBB: Stanford @ Cal Sunday 4pm - TheWildJacko - 01-08-2023

(01-08-2023, 08:04 PM)M T Wrote:
(01-08-2023, 07:36 PM)TheWildJacko Wrote: And yet, if Brink doesn’t hit that 3 we probably lose. If Lepolo doesn’t hit that 3 we probably lose. So, ultimately, not bad shots.

So, if a team shoots the ball as they cross the half court line 30 times in a game, and hits one, they're not bad shots ultimately?

No—but, equating half court shots to open 3’s in the flow of the offense is a bad comparison. Brink and Lepolo can make those shots; I think it’s ridiculous to suggest essentially that only Jump should be taking threes. We need others to take and make those shots when Hannah can’t get open. And they did.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - CompSci87 - 01-09-2023

I watched the game later on DVR as I was busy all afternoon.

Cal ran their offense very well, hit shots, and really made Stanford work on that end to contain them.

On defense, as others have observed, they got back in transition, locked in on Jump, packed the paint, and dared our secondary 3-point shooters to make shots. Today everyone was ice cold, and that was almost enough for Cal to win it. That won't always happen when teams try that defense, but it's a danger.

It would be good for our offense to have actions to get open midrange looks when the D packs the paint to that extent and the 3s aren't falling.

One thing the Warriors do when the D sags way off Draymond Green or another poor 3-point shooter is for him to quickly set a screen (or do a screening dribble handoff if he has the ball). A quick screen can be very effective when the screener's defender is sagged way off and thus isn't available to switch or show on the screen. It's two on one in favor of the offense until the defense recovers.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - CompSci87 - 01-09-2023

To correct one little point from 81alum's great post, it's Steph Curry's parents who are Cam's godparents, not Steph himself. (Also, Cam's parents are Steph's godparents.) So Steph and Cam are "god-siblings."

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - BostonCard - 01-09-2023

Cameron Brink is your PAC-12 player of the week.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/pac12/status/1612554935773679644?s=46&t=mVH8VQnIanijVqDvN5Go9w[/tweet]

BC

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - RuralFan - 01-09-2023

(01-09-2023, 01:14 AM)CompSci87 Wrote: It would be good for our offense to have actions to get open midrange looks when the D packs the paint to that extent and the 3s aren't falling.

IMO the rest of the season depends on Stanford implementing this suggestion. Now the way to open the midrange is by using jump shots and for many players jump shots are low percentage shots. But for a select few, jump shots are special and win games. Do we have any such players? When I saw Brooke early in her freshman year, she had the best jump shot I had seen, but the shot seems to have left her arsenal. If not Brooke, then who?

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - 81alum - 01-09-2023

Quote:"It's really a game that could be really good for our team in the long run," VanDerveer said. "It felt like a root canal in the short run."

https://gostanford.com/news/2023/1/8/womens-basketball-cardinal-grinds-out-rivalry-win.aspx

As for the mid range jump shot, I know Tara discourages them as per analytics. But I do like the flexibility. Iriafen during the preseason had a wonderful mid range jumper. I'd love to see her at the high post hitting those or passing to Brink at the low post.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - MV72018 - 01-10-2023

I'm pleased for Haley and for the team that she made a tough layup to break the 56-56 tie. Kudos to her for that. But prior to making that shot, she had shot a dismal 2 for 13. It's a shame that Haley doesn't have a good mid-range jumper or a good three-point shot. As it is, her best option is taking it to the hoop and finishing or dishing. But it's tougher to make those drives successful when the defender can afford to play her relatively loosely outside, making it harder to blow by the defender. Her go-ahead drive was interesting in that rather than going down the lane, she took a "great circle route" starting near the free-throw line and ending up near the endline under the basket.

RE: WBB: Stanford 60 -- Cal 56 - 81alum - 01-10-2023

(01-10-2023, 12:45 AM)MV72018 Wrote: I'm pleased for Haley and for the team that she made a tough layup to break the 56-56 tie. Kudos to her for that. But prior to making that shot, she had shot a dismal 2 for 13. It's a shame that Haley doesn't have a good mid-range jumper or a good three-point shot. As it is, her best option is taking it to the hoop and finishing or dishing. But it's tougher to make those drives successful when the defender can afford to play her relatively loosely outside, making it harder to blow by the defender. Her go-ahead drive was interesting in that rather than going down the lane, she took a "great circle route" starting near the free-throw line and ending up near the endline under the basket.

We should give her credit for her 6/6 free throw shooting too, and for generating those fouls, something she does with her creativity around the basket. Also keep in mind that Jones was a focus of the Cal defense, inhibiting her more than usual and giving Brink a little more room to maneuver.

That said, Jones's midrange shot seems to have receded somewhat during the year, much like Iriafen's. It seems to run hot and cold. I agree with the general sentiment that Jones needs to be able to hit the mid range jumper from the elbow, at least. Often she can--with her flat shot. But on those days she is "off" it can be a struggle.