WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - Printable Version

WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - Printable Version

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RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - Hieronymus - 02-20-2023

(02-20-2023, 09:38 PM)martyup Wrote:

Cameron Brink was 15-15 at the free throw line. Just incredible.

I just noticed that Jump had a goose egg for the night, except for 2 rebounds.

She did have 2 steals and a block which for her is filling up the stat sheet. it is a big Jump problem - when she doesn’t score she doesn’t contribute much of anything else.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - Card10Fan - 02-20-2023

Attendance tonight was 5813. Over 6,000 Friday vs USC. Best attendance weekend in many many years. Way to go seniors. You’ve made us all proud and will go down as one of the most impactful recruiting classes in our programs history.

RE: triangle2 - 81alum - 02-20-2023

(02-20-2023, 09:28 PM)triangle2 Wrote: Any hinting re whether any of the seniors might be returning for a fifth year?

In the behind-the-bench session, there were no hints that they would be, while sometimes in the past (Anna Wilson) there have been hints.
1. Jones. We know she is going pro.
2. Prechtel. She earned both a BA and an MA at Stanford in 4 years. She also knows the value of pi to 200 digits, we were told! But if she takes a fifth COVID year I don't think it can be here, given that she already has one masters degree from Stanford.
3) Jump. Brink introduced her and was quite tearful. I doubt there would have been so much emotion if Brink though Jump was coming back.
4) Belibi. My guess is she is the only possibility, but no one hinted that she might be back. Lepolo and Betts introduced her. Lepolo turns out to be a gifted public speaker, with a wry sense of humor that had the crowd going.

RE: WBB: Stanford vs. UCLA Monday 6pm Senior Day - MJinSD - 02-20-2023

(02-20-2023, 09:14 PM)martyup Wrote: Free throws are saving our bacon.

yes that was strange

(02-20-2023, 09:18 PM)old spanish trail Wrote: Awful third qtr. Haley looked like she was slowly wandering around out there. No effort on off rebounds. Really bad. Then, fourth qtr and defense much better, a bit more aggressive, and Brink. Haley takes an energy pill. Refs were fine I thought. Lepolo free throws close it out and Brink block. I'm waiting for Lepolo detractors.

We need big work on rebounding. We don't even try sometimes. Strange.

Yes that was strange. She seemed out of it in the post game press conference too. I wonder if something is going on.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - CompSci87 - 02-20-2023

Haley seemed totally normal speaking at the senior night celebration.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - 81alum - 02-20-2023

Many useful observations by my fellow cardboarders about this game, but let me also note that senior nights, filled with emotion and attended by all the players' friends and family, are often unpredictable.

That said, here are my thoughts:

1) I am getting worried about Jump. I've seen the pattern before, with Karlie Samuelson, with Kiana Williams--even with Lindy LaRocque. Players who are terrific three point shooters early in their careers, and early in their senior season, start to press too hard and suffer from declining accuracy at the end of their senior year. It has happened over and over--why I don't know. I also wonder if Tara's decision to start Jump and play her for nearly 40 minutes in so many games has taken a toll--more psychological than physical. In this game Tara did take her out of the game several times as if to give her a reset, but it did not work. 0 points in 30 minutes. She spent a lot of time defending Londynn Jones, though, who with 14 points on 5/10 shooting was held somewhat in check.

2) Let's celebrate something extraordinary with Cameron Brink. UCLA was attempting Mike Montgomery's strategy against Tim Duncan and just decided to foul her over and over. A year or two ago, this board was filled with concern about Brink's free throw shooting. She was barely a 60% free throw shooter that last couple of years, and sometimes she went into deep free throw shooting slumps which encouraged other teams just to hack her to death. But tonight she was 15/15 from the line and that was more than enough for the victory. Tonight's officials were not Friday's officials, thankfully.

3) UCLA's defense is quite good--not up to USC standards--but more steals and enough quickness to make passing difficult. We were reminded of that with all the turnovers early in the game. However, our defense was better. We shot 47% and held them to 36%, and we did so while committing 14 fouls compared to their 19. UCLA has several top three point shooters, and our own Jump was 0/2. Nevertheless, we shot 36% from three point range while holding UCLA to 28%. In short, chalk this victory mainly up to defense. At the beginning of the year our defense was a weakness, but against good teams late in the year, it is now a strength. That is what a year of coaching can do.

4) As others have noted, this game was only close because we gave UCLA 17 offensive rebounds, compared with only 7 for us. That led to UCLA having 17 second chance points compared to our 2. TWO! Oregon's coach Graves described UCLA's strategy as a "chuck and chase" strategy. By that he meant they took lots of shots early and crashed the boards to get the misses back, not worrying too much about accuracy. The way to punish such a strategy is to make sure that when you do get a defensive rebound you get it out quickly in transition--since if UCLA's 5 players are all crashing the boards then no one should be back on defense. We did get 12 fast break points--which is better than most games--but not enough to compensate for giving them 17 second chances. Brink only had 5 Dboards, Jones only 6. Betts had 5 in 15 minutes--she was our best rebounder tonight.

5) I was frustrated at times tonight with Jones, but looking at the stat sheet has quieted those misgivings. This was actually a good game for her. She was an efficient 7/13 with 18 points. She led with 6 Dboards. I was saddened that she missed two free throws, had 4 turnovers, but she had a couple of assists and 3 steals to help balance it out a bit. Her +/- for anyone who cares was the best on either team, +11. (You will never guess the worst on either team at -17. I was shocked to see Londynn Jones.)

6) Lepolo 3/5 on three point attempts, made herself one of 4 players in double digits. Her friendly rival Nivar had 0 points tonight. Those two seem to go back and forth. But playing against a quick defense that made it difficult to pass, she had only 2 assists to 3 turnovers. She was mainly assigned to defend Osborne, who was held to 3/15 shooting, so I would count that as a major plus for the freshman.

7) Finally, Betts is really coming into her own. I noticed, however, that she did tire after being in for too long a stretch. Her cardio is much better than in the fall, but it has a ways to go before we will see her playing 40 minutes, which she may need to do after Brink graduates. Tonight, her 12 points in 15 minutes with 2/2 free throws, an assist, and 0 turnovers--was actually better than Brink's numbers per minute played. I am delighted to see her coming along so well.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - CompSci87 - 02-20-2023

At halftime we were wondering what the review was at 2:01 in the first half and what UCLA Coach Close was upset about.

The crowd had been booing the call that gave UCLA the ball out of bounds after a missed shot by Cam when it looked like UCLA might have touched it last. But that didn't seem like something the refs would review.

Watching the replay, I see Cam had hit a UCLA player in the face with an elbow coming down from shooting her shot. The refs must have been reviewing that and concluded it was not a foul.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - chimera - 02-20-2023

Rebounding, rebounding - as has been noted in this thread many times, rebounding hurt against USC and again today against UCLA. It was quite frustrating to watch. UCLA out-hustled our players and when we got a rebound they often swiped it away. Fix that and this game is so much easier. We have a consistent turnover problem too, all season, and it probably won't get fixed if it isn't by now. I feel like sometimes the offense tries too hard to get the ball inside, staring down Brink or Betts, with two defenders or more waiting to surround them. Betts is indeed coming into her own. She did a very good job out there and was first big off the bench.

We need to hit some outside shots or the offense just cannot run well, and credit to Lepolo, she took and made enough to make them guard her, as did Demetre. Agree with 81alum that Jump may be pressing. Also agree Lepolo was a great speaker, really funny, in her tribute to Belibi.

If they can start rebounding like they did earlier this season (remember when we had the best margin or close to it in the country?), we should be ok in games like this. Even with the turnovers, the offense did ok. Just have to defend and rebound with more urgency.

At any rate, it was great to see the Funky Four get the win on senior night. It is a rare class that has everyone be a major contributor, and all of the funksters have been starters and major contributors. It is a shame we see so little of Belibi and Prechtel this season. Both are better players than their playing time indicates. I'm not advocating they sit Brink or Iriafen or Betts down, just saying how good Belibi and Prechtel have been in their careers.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - 81alum - 02-20-2023

Highlights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU0cwZR0Ups&t=2s

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - Softball Fan - 02-20-2023

(02-20-2023, 11:31 PM)CompSci87 Wrote: A

Watching the replay, I see Cam had hit a UCLA player in the face with an elbow coming down from shooting her shot. The refs must have been reviewing that and concluded it was not a foul.

That was strange because they continued play briefly after the elbow happened. I think they only stopped the game to review because the UCLA coach was complaining about it. I didn't know you could go back in time to review a play. I thought it had to be at the time it occurred. In any event it sure looked to me like Brink was just doing a normal basketball move.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - treetop11 - 02-21-2023

(02-20-2023, 11:49 PM)WVB Fan Wrote:
(02-20-2023, 11:31 PM)CompSci87 Wrote: A

Watching the replay, I see Cam had hit a UCLA player in the face with an elbow coming down from shooting her shot. The refs must have been reviewing that and concluded it was not a foul.

That was strange because they continued play briefly after the elbow happened. I think they only stopped the game to review because the UCLA coach was complaining about it. I didn't know you could go back in time to review a play. I thought it had to be at the time it occurred. In any event it sure looked to me like Brink was just doing a normal basketball move.

They did do a review about the elbow. But replay clearly showed it was nothing more than Cam lifting her arms to make her shot. The refs did blow the out of bounds call. Replay showed it off the Ucla player.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - Spiny_Norman - 02-21-2023

The announcers mentioned that Stanford was 3rd in the country in defense. I looked it up and it’s true. Stanford is 3rd in the country in FG defense at 32.8%. Stanford is 142nd in the country however in 3 point defense at 30.4%. Another illustration of Brink’s impact on Stanford’s defense.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - CompSci87 - 02-21-2023

(02-20-2023, 11:49 PM)WVB Fan Wrote:
(02-20-2023, 11:31 PM)CompSci87 Wrote: A

Watching the replay, I see Cam had hit a UCLA player in the face with an elbow coming down from shooting her shot. The refs must have been reviewing that and concluded it was not a foul.

That was strange because they continued play briefly after the elbow happened. I think they only stopped the game to review because the UCLA coach was complaining about it. I didn't know you could go back in time to review a play. I thought it had to be at the time it occurred. In any event it sure looked to me like Brink was just doing a normal basketball move.

I think you can review for a so-called intentional foul (=NBA term flagrant foul; doesn't mean you literally intended to foul) at the next stoppage.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - BostonCard - 02-21-2023

The screen and roll with Jones and Betts was… not pretty, but it resulted in an “and one”.

BC

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - treetop11 - 02-21-2023

We won because we followed the formula of relying on our 2 AAs and having them both show up and playing to our strengths - our bigs - instead of trying to match up with the opponent. Lepolo providing offense was also key.

We almost lost because of turnovers and as everyone mentioned - poor rebounding. Our boxing out, awareness of the ball, and lack of hustle hurts us.

81alum and chimera worry about Jump. When was the last time that she didn't score and we won? I think that I was the first one to raise it at least a few weeks ago, possibly earlier, that I think she is pressing. She knows that she is in there for 3 pointers, but is guarded closely. ANd when then team needs points, she seems like she feels that she has to be the one to ignite the offense. And yes, she may have tired legs. Besides all her minutes, she has to do a lot of chasing on D. We need to set more and better screens for her.

I think Tara should consider starting our second halves with us applying full court pressure, especially if we are ahead at half. Tonight, Close obviously fired up her team at half and they had far more aggressiveness in the 3rd Q. Our players looked like the excellent 1st half was good enough and took Ucla for granted starting the 2nd half. To maintain our lead or break open a close game, maybe the intensity of a press might kick start us after the half.

Close clearly had her team play as physical as they could as well as employing the clog the middle and hound Jump. The refs let Ucla get away with a lot of fouls, although we got away with a few ourselves. But I think Ucla got away with more. I don't mind letting them go in regard to bifed bsnging in rebounding or ticky tack fouls. But hitting s shooter needs to alway be called. But really what frustrates me the most are the refs allowing illegal screens. Ucla was illegally screening virtually every possession, sometimes 2 on possessions. Refs need to call those and enfoce the rule or stop ever caling them,

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - 2006alum - 02-21-2023

(02-20-2023, 11:27 PM)81alum Wrote: Many useful observations by my fellow cardboarders about this game, but let me also note that senior nights, filled with emotion and attended by all the players' friends and family, are often unpredictable.

That said, here are my thoughts:

1) I am getting worried about Jump. I've seen the pattern before, with Karlie Samuelson, with Kiana Williams--even with Lindy LaRocque. Players who are terrific three point shooters early in their careers, and early in their senior season, start to press too hard and suffer from declining accuracy at the end of their senior year. It has happened over and over--why I don't know. I also wonder if Tara's decision to start Jump and play her for nearly 40 minutes in so many games has taken a toll--more psychological than physical. In this game Tara did take her out of the game several times as if to give her a reset, but it did not work. 0 points in 30 minutes. She spent a lot of time defending Londynn Jones, though, who with 14 points on 5/10 shooting was held somewhat in check.

2) Let's celebrate something extraordinary with Cameron Brink. UCLA was attempting Mike Montgomery's strategy against Tim Duncan and just decided to foul her over and over. A year or two ago, this board was filled with concern about Brink's free throw shooting. She was barely a 60% free throw shooter that last couple of years, and sometimes she went into deep free throw shooting slumps which encouraged other teams just to hack her to death. But tonight she was 15/15 from the line and that was more than enough for the victory. Tonight's officials were not Friday's officials, thankfully.

3) UCLA's defense is quite good--not up to USC standards--but more steals and enough quickness to make passing difficult. We were reminded of that with all the turnovers early in the game. However, our defense was better. We shot 47% and held them to 36%, and we did so while committing 14 fouls compared to their 19. UCLA has several top three point shooters, and our own Jump was 0/2. Nevertheless, we shot 36% from three point range while holding UCLA to 28%. In short, chalk this victory mainly up to defense. At the beginning of the year our defense was a weakness, but against good teams late in the year, it is now a strength. That is what a year of coaching can do.

4) As others have noted, this game was only close because we gave UCLA 17 offensive rebounds, compared with only 7 for us. That led to UCLA having 17 second chance points compared to our 2. TWO! Oregon's coach Graves described UCLA's strategy as a "chuck and chase" strategy. By that he meant they took lots of shots early and crashed the boards to get the misses back, not worrying too much about accuracy. The way to punish such a strategy is to make sure that when you do get a defensive rebound you get it out quickly in transition--since if UCLA's 5 players are all crashing the boards then no one should be back on defense. We did get 12 fast break points--which is better than most games--but not enough to compensate for giving them 17 second chances. Brink only had 5 Dboards, Jones only 6. Betts had 5 in 15 minutes--she was our best rebounder tonight.

5) I was frustrated at times tonight with Jones, but looking at the stat sheet has quieted those misgivings. This was actually a good game for her. She was an efficient 7/13 with 18 points. She led with 6 Dboards. I was saddened that she missed two free throws, had 4 turnovers, but she had a couple of assists and 3 steals to help balance it out a bit. Her +/- for anyone who cares was the best on either team, +11. (You will never guess the worst on either team at -17. I was shocked to see Londynn Jones.)

6) Lepolo 3/5 on three point attempts, made herself one of 4 players in double digits. Her friendly rival Nivar had 0 points tonight. Those two seem to go back and forth. But playing against a quick defense that made it difficult to pass, she had only 2 assists to 3 turnovers. She was mainly assigned to defend Osborne, who was held to 3/15 shooting, so I would count that as a major plus for the freshman.

7) Finally, Betts is really coming into her own. I noticed, however, that she did tire after being in for too long a stretch. Her cardio is much better than in the fall, but it has a ways to go before we will see her playing 40 minutes, which she may need to do after Brink graduates. Tonight, her 12 points in 15 minutes with 2/2 free throws, an assist, and 0 turnovers--was actually better than Brink's numbers per minute played. I am delighted to see her coming along so well.

81, great write up. Although I attended tonight's game (first, and last, home game of this season!), I'm not sure I have a ton to add to your excellent recap. A few stray thoughts:

Overall, and awesome crowd and environment. Really fun to attend such a packed home game - it felt close to 90% full, and easily the most crowded I can even remember seeing Maples since the heydays of Monty.

Jones did seem to be moving slowly at times - and in a few instances I noticed, it hurt us on the few fast break possibilities where Lepolo was looking to push the ball up in transition but her pass to Jones stopped forward progression and Jones would hold back at midcourt with the ball. Not sure if she's just tired from a season of playing a ton of minutes, but a few times she was noticeably slow in transition and all but foreclosed any possibility of fast break points. Once she was in the paint, as usual, she was her athletic, attacking self, but she seemed slower than usual to start the offensive sets. Also: has she just given up on trying to make treys? She was wide open several times and didn't even seem to consider attempting to launch from outside.

In general, our slowness was something that really struck me in the third: we were so hesitant to look for half court plays, push the tempo, or move the ball around quickly. At times it felt like the Portlandia sketch with the cars at the stop sign: "go! no, you. no, you!" No one wanted to take the damn shot! Politeness does not net you many baskets, it turns out, and it was during this stretch that UCLA was having their way with steals and fast breaks.

UCLAs trio of speedy guards (Jones, Osborne, and Conti) were every bit as hard to handle as I was expecting, and our bad stretch in the third came largely with two or all three of them on the floor, disrupting passes, pressuring our offense, and juking to open up their outside game.

I also noticed that Betts looked gassed after more than 2-3 minutes in at a time. Unfortunately, she doesn't seem to have great quickness getting up and down the floor, so for a team that otherwise likes to push tempo, she can be a liability sometimes. That said, that 6'7" feathery touch is sure lovely to see when it goes in.

Agreed that Jump is forcing too much, but it must suck being the "beneficiary" of everyone's best guard defender, week in, week out. She truly had no open looks that I could see the entire game, so I'm not quite sure what she could do differently. Unfortunately, 81, you're spot on: this has progressed just like Karl's senior season.

I know others think highly of Nivar, and I hold out a lot of promise, but I just didn't see it this game. Lepolo, by contrast, kept hitting shots (treys, free throws) in those clutch moments when the lead could slip away from us. I know she moves more like Sniezek than anyone else, but her game also reminds me a bit of early era Amber Orrange - not overly confident in choosing to take her own shots, but surprisingly accurate when she did. She did seem to get a little rattled by the pressing of the UCLA guards, though.

Did I blink and miss Prechtel? She seemed to barely enter the court. I don't quite know what to make of her decline in playing time over the last two seasons. And even Fran's minutes were pretty limited, and have been all year. I will say, from what I've seen of them this season, I don't even think that's the wrong call given what we get from Brink, Betts, and Iriafen inside, but it must be mildly surreal to be a senior and see three freshman playing more than you are, especially on senior day. At one point Betts, Nivar, and Lepolo were on the floor together for an extended stretch, and yet I don't recall a single moment that the Funky Four were!

Moment of the game for me was the Brink coast-to-coast to open Q4. It showed everything about how much Brink wanted it, and was willing to make it happen herself, if necessary, after coming off a truly desultory 3Q. I've said this before, but at times she and Jump seem to be the only two players who tangibly seem like they would do everything to win. I know we're not supposed to guess as to player motivation, but I just don't see that kind of hunger among several other notable names on our team. If there has been any drop-off from last season, it turns out it hasn't really be in either our defensive prowess or our perimeter shooting - it's been our lack of grit. The Hulls and Wilson were gritty "AF", and we just don't see replacements for those kind of energizer bunnies that motivate the rest of the team by example.

All in all, congrats to our seniors for bringing back the hardware during their time on campus. Their arrival really spelled the beginning of realistic national championship ambitions again after at least a decade drought after the end of the Ogwumike x2 era. I'm grateful to each of them for what they've contributed to our team, and if it turns out none of them is going to take a COVID year, then I'm glad their last "home" game was a big win on national TV.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - 81alum - 02-21-2023

(02-21-2023, 01:21 AM)2006alum Wrote: Jones did seem to be moving slowly at times - and in a few instances I noticed, it hurt us on the few fast break possibilities where Lepolo was looking to push the ball up in transition but her pass to Jones stopped forward progression and Jones would hold back at midcourt with the ball. Not sure if she's just tired from a season of playing a ton of minutes, but a few times she was noticeably slow in transition and all but foreclosed any possibility of fast break points. Once she was in the paint, as usual, she was her athletic, attacking self, but she seemed slower than usual to start the offensive sets. Also: has she just given up on trying to make treys? She was wide open several times and didn't even seem to consider attempting to launch from outside.

I thought Jones slowed down after she took that slip and fall. It look like she overextended a leg and she came out for a couple of minutes. I was surprised and relieved when she came back in, but she did not seem to have quite the same spring in her step at that point. I'll watch the replay later and see if I can find where it was.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - Maple Leaf - 02-21-2023

Got to give Stanford their due credit, they played back-to-back two very tough physical games against two teams with very talented players. These teams know Stanford very well. I remember Alana Smith who said playing a team the second time in the same season is much harder offensively sense they know what to expect.

USC and UCLA take different approaches due to their respective talents, one plays big, long and physical and the other plays small, quick and physical.

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - WBB fan - 02-21-2023

The SF Chron article from the on-line edition -- game was too late to be in the physical paper this am. Much in this about Cam and Haley, plus comments about the after-game senior ceremony -- including fact that all those black 30/Jones shirts had been sent to Haley's friends & family by Nike. If Haley said that last night in her comments, I missed it.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/college/article/haley-jones-cameron-brink-propel-stanford-past-17789509.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2ZjaHJvbmljbGUuY29tL3Nwb3J0cy9jb2xsZWdlL2FydGljbGUvaGFsZXktam9uZXMtY2FtZXJvbi1icmluay1wcm9wZWwtc3RhbmZvcmQtcGFzdC0xNzc4OTUwOS5waHA=&time=MTY3Njk5NTE1MDk2MQ==&rid=M2MxMjcwMWMtZmVlNS00MjQzLWE4MDYtMDkyOTI3OGZiYjY3&sharecount=Mg==

RE: WBB: Stanford 71 -- UCLA 66 - UltimateCard - 02-21-2023

At the risk on fueling the speculation that something was off with Haley, I noticed at the presser that she was drinking from a carton rather than a water bottle - maybe coconut water or some other drink to replenish electrolytes? I’d have to go back to check but I don’t remember seeing a player or Tara drink anything but water at a presser. Whatever the case, it’s a quick turnaround to Thursday’s game - hope Haley and the rest of the team recover fast!