Stanford 49 Ole Miss 54 season ends - Printable Version
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RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - BillBradley - 03-20-2023
(03-20-2023, 08:00 PM)BostonCard Wrote: The Pac-12 was probably stronger than average this season. Our strength of schedule was ranked 7th by Massey, and we played #1 South Carolina, #10 Utah (twice), #14 Tennessee, #15 UCLA (three times), #21 Colorado (twice), #24 Arizona (twice), #27 Oregon (twice), #28 Creighton, and #30 Washington State.Never said it was. Just said there were probably more outliers on the low end.
That's 15 games (out of 35 total) against top-30 teams. That was NOT a creampuff schedule.
BC
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - BostonCard - 03-20-2023
Since you asked, our scoring in Feb/Mar was 72.7 ppg, which is down compared to our average, but only by 3.4 ppg. I don't know how that compares to prior years, but I was actually surprised that the drop wasn't steeper given the brutal stretch to end the year starting mid-February.
BC
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - BillBradley - 03-20-2023
(03-20-2023, 08:05 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Since you asked, our scoring in Feb/Mar was 72.7 ppg, which is down compared to our average, but only by 3.4 ppg. I don't know how that compares to prior years, but I was actually surprised that the drop wasn't steeper given the brutal stretch to end the year starting mid-February.Me too!
BC
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - FarmTeam - 03-20-2023
(03-19-2023, 10:18 PM)chimera Wrote: I am not enjoying all the silly stuff about people "getting run off the board" and all that. If you state an opinion and others disagree, that is not getting run off, that is a discussion board. It's cool if people take positions that are not popular, but they have to also take the pushback from opposing opinions. Stop the martyr stuff. Tara is not a poor coach. The record speaks for itself. She has her strengths and weaknesses, as do we all. I don't think this was one of her better seasons. I imagine she would agree.
I replied with that quote because I think it was the essence of the problem all year - the offense was just not up to Stanford standards. Maybe the reason we had so many games like this game with "silly" turnovers and less involvement from players other than Jones, Brink, and Jump was that the offense was simply not working well and players tried to do too much, make plays that were not there. The team was less than the sum of its parts on offense. That is not the fault of any player. Not Lepolo's fault. Not Jones' fault for trying to take on difficult drives. The player and ball movement was never there. It was a stagnant offense against aggressive, physical defenses. I am not a coach so I have no idea if this was the best way or if there was a better way. All I know is in never looked right. I was not surprised at the way the game played out. Sad for the players, disappointed that the great crowd got no joy, but not at all surprised.
Goodbye Funky Four, may your future endeavors be successful. It's been a pleasure. Good news on Jump. Hope we run an offense that gets her open more next season. Good luck to Belibi at Harvard. If she plays ball there I will be rooting for her and them. Good luck to Jones in the pros. She's been a pleasure to watch. I will be watching her and rooting for her in WNBA. I don't know where Ashten will end up, but if she decides to play somewhere else I will root for her (knock wood it is at somewhere I can do that and root for the whole team too, if she does play another season elsewhere).
Sorry, Chimera, deepest sympathies that you're not "enjoying" my posts. Re "not getting run off," dunno, if you look at my post last year where I called out Tara as a "meh" x's and o's coach (and have thought that forever...I watch plenty of WBB), I was literally called an "a@sh@le", a "$h!t" post, a troll, etc etc. It was a real piling on. Boston Card, who seems to be a moderator and, who has been quick to ban people and/or delete posts for such language, was actually piling on with some of it. (Btw, nice work there, Boston Card. Really good upholding of site standards.) The Tara worshipers on this site are like a cult. She isn't a disaster, but her whole career has been based on having more talent than nearly every other team and doing very little to maximize it. We all know (or should know) that recruiting matters more than actual coaching in terms of being a successful college coach, hence her overall strong record. But it pisses me off on behalf of the players, who deserve MUCH better then being let down by a meh x's and o's coach. You guys are so lost in your worship of her that you can't see it (do you actually watch the games or do you just cheer the scoreboard?). My sympathies to Brink, Jones, etc for the season ending when it didn't have to. Again, she's Haase with better talent.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - Spiny_Norman - 03-20-2023
(03-20-2023, 07:11 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I think where we struggled was in our three point shooting, as we exceeded only 2018 in the last 10 years, which explains why the strategy of packing the paint worked well against us. I think if we were able to shoot a little bit better from three point range, we might have negated that strategy better. Hannah Jump went 100/227 for us (44%), which meant that the rest of the team went 140/467, which is just under 30%. I think if we can get another three point shooter to reliably step up, that should open things up for Brink and Betts inside. We should be looking for Demetre (32/97, 33%), Talana Lepolo (25/67, 37%), Agnes Emma-Nnopu (20/47, 42%), and Elena Bosgana (17/53, 32%) to step up. To be an effective second option, they will need to give us 40+ threes with about a three point shooting percentage in the upper 30's.
It was a tale of 2 parts of the season. Through the first 11 games (which included the loss to South Carolina, the defeats of Gonzaga and Florida Gulf Coast, and a number of unranked opponents), Stanford was shooting 39.1% on 3s. In the remaining 24 games (which included games against Creighton, Tennessee, 20 P12 games and 2 NCAA games), Stanford shot 31.9%.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - 81alum - 03-20-2023
(03-20-2023, 07:49 PM)BillBradley Wrote: Personally, I was quite happy with our offensive output earlier in the season. So many differences back then to where we ended up. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall after that USC game where everything changed.
I think you are right, BB. However, everything changed a bit earlier--after the game at Cal--the one that Tara called the "root canal" game. The fact that we barely won it I think concealed to many fans the seriousness of the issues. We scored 90 points against Cal in December, but barely got to 60 in January, and Cal led with 3 minutes left in the game. One week later USC took Cal's strategy and put it into the hands of more capable players, and we were held to a miserable 46 points.
But the best evidence that our offensive stats for the year were meaningless is Tara herself, in the final press conference, who acknowledged that offense was the problem. Corroborating her view is Massey which computes us as the 3rd best defense in the nation. My goodness, we held Ole Miss to 54 points, which should have been enough not only to win, but to win big.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - Softball Fan - 03-20-2023
(03-19-2023, 10:18 PM)chimera Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:07 PM)81alum Wrote: And, for all those who claim Tara does not take responsibility, she does.
"This last month has been really hard. We tried to rest our team as much as possible. We needed to be playing better than we are right now. I think our offense really struggled, and when that happens people try to do it by themselves, and I saw that throughout the whole game. Both Haley and Cam felt like they needed to do it by themselves and that's on me. We worked really hard every day to run offense, move the ball, set screens, and we struggled with it."
I am not enjoying all the silly stuff about people "getting run off the board" and all that. If you state an opinion and others disagree, that is not getting run off, that is a discussion board. It's cool if people take positions that are not popular, but they have to also take the pushback from opposing opinions.
I disagree. Last season if I posted the slightest bit of criticism I was attacked. I was insulted. Your post is a little ironic. Correct me if I'm wrong. Last season you threatened to permanently leave the board because you didn't want to read criticism about WBB play.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - chimera - 03-20-2023
(03-20-2023, 08:25 PM)FarmTeam Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:18 PM)chimera Wrote: I am not enjoying all the silly stuff about people "getting run off the board" and all that. If you state an opinion and others disagree, that is not getting run off, that is a discussion board. It's cool if people take positions that are not popular, but they have to also take the pushback from opposing opinions. Stop the martyr stuff. Tara is not a poor coach. The record speaks for itself. She has her strengths and weaknesses, as do we all. I don't think this was one of her better seasons. I imagine she would agree.
I replied with that quote because I think it was the essence of the problem all year - the offense was just not up to Stanford standards. Maybe the reason we had so many games like this game with "silly" turnovers and less involvement from players other than Jones, Brink, and Jump was that the offense was simply not working well and players tried to do too much, make plays that were not there. The team was less than the sum of its parts on offense. That is not the fault of any player. Not Lepolo's fault. Not Jones' fault for trying to take on difficult drives. The player and ball movement was never there. It was a stagnant offense against aggressive, physical defenses. I am not a coach so I have no idea if this was the best way or if there was a better way. All I know is in never looked right. I was not surprised at the way the game played out. Sad for the players, disappointed that the great crowd got no joy, but not at all surprised.
Goodbye Funky Four, may your future endeavors be successful. It's been a pleasure. Good news on Jump. Hope we run an offense that gets her open more next season. Good luck to Belibi at Harvard. If she plays ball there I will be rooting for her and them. Good luck to Jones in the pros. She's been a pleasure to watch. I will be watching her and rooting for her in WNBA. I don't know where Ashten will end up, but if she decides to play somewhere else I will root for her (knock wood it is at somewhere I can do that and root for the whole team too, if she does play another season elsewhere).
Sorry, Chimera, deepest sympathies that you're not "enjoying" my posts. Re "not getting run off," dunno, if you look at my post last year where I called out Tara as a "meh" x's and o's coach (and have thought that forever...I watch plenty of WBB), I was literally called an "a@sh@le", a "$h!t" post, a troll, etc etc. It was a real piling on. Boston Card, who seems to be a moderator and, who has been quick to ban people and/or delete posts for such language, was actually piling on with some of it. (Btw, nice work there, Boston Card. Really good upholding of site standards.) The Tara worshipers on this site are like a cult. She isn't a disaster, but her whole career has been based on having more talent than nearly every other team and doing very little to maximize it. We all know (or should know) that recruiting matters more than actual coaching in terms of being a successful college coach, hence her overall strong record. But it pisses me off on behalf of the players, who deserve MUCH better then being let down by a meh x's and o's coach. You guys are so lost in your worship of her that you can't see it (do you actually watch the games or do you just cheer the scoreboard?). My sympathies to Brink, Jones, etc for the season ending when it didn't have to. Again, she's Haase with better talent.
So you write a post that calls other posters "Tara worshippers" and "a cult," say posters are "lost in worship" and wonder why your posts are not well received? If your post last year was similar I have no doubt you got some heated responses. Takes work to get people mad enough to call you an a-hole. Nice going! I do not remember it because you know, this is just a silly message board, nothing very important, and our opinions affect nothing, mean nothing outside this small group.
(03-20-2023, 09:43 PM)Softball Fan Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:18 PM)chimera Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:07 PM)81alum Wrote: And, for all those who claim Tara does not take responsibility, she does.
"This last month has been really hard. We tried to rest our team as much as possible. We needed to be playing better than we are right now. I think our offense really struggled, and when that happens people try to do it by themselves, and I saw that throughout the whole game. Both Haley and Cam felt like they needed to do it by themselves and that's on me. We worked really hard every day to run offense, move the ball, set screens, and we struggled with it."
I am not enjoying all the silly stuff about people "getting run off the board" and all that. If you state an opinion and others disagree, that is not getting run off, that is a discussion board. It's cool if people take positions that are not popular, but they have to also take the pushback from opposing opinions.
I disagree. Last season if I posted the slightest bit of criticism I was attacked. I was insulted. Your post is a little ironic. Correct me if I'm wrong. Last season you threatened to permanently leave the board because you didn't want to read criticism about WBB play.
I find it hard to believe the slightest bit of criticism caused you to be attacked. and insulted, unless you and I differ as to what attacked means. I have no memory of your posts at all so I don't know what happened. We have mods so can't be all that terrible. Getting strong rebuttals by multiple posters is not an attack. There are numerous posts all over the board right now that are critical. Nobody is getting attacked. This is a discussion or a debate. You can make a point strongly or disagree strongly without it being an attack. You just disagreed with me. Should I be insulted or feel attacked? If one poster calls you an insulting name or whatever, they shouldn't do that, but one poster doing a bad thing doesn't mean you run off the board. That would be the majority of posters calling you names.
You are wrong. I was thinking hard about leaving not because I don't want to read any criticism. A fair bit of what is on here is critical to some degree. If you read anything I've written on here recently you would see I post some criticisms myself. I was thinking hard about leaving due to the tone, which was ugly and seemed to come more from a place of hunting for reasons to be ultra-negative too often. It was not fun, got really boring, and did not allow for nuanced discussion. I may have left for a while. I don't even remember. This just a message board. This is not serious.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - spike5882 - 03-20-2023
(03-20-2023, 09:48 PM)chimera Wrote:(03-20-2023, 08:25 PM)FarmTeam Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:18 PM)chimera Wrote: I am not enjoying all the silly stuff about people "getting run off the board" and all that. If you state an opinion and others disagree, that is not getting run off, that is a discussion board. It's cool if people take positions that are not popular, but they have to also take the pushback from opposing opinions. Stop the martyr stuff. Tara is not a poor coach. The record speaks for itself. She has her strengths and weaknesses, as do we all. I don't think this was one of her better seasons. I imagine she would agree.
I replied with that quote because I think it was the essence of the problem all year - the offense was just not up to Stanford standards. Maybe the reason we had so many games like this game with "silly" turnovers and less involvement from players other than Jones, Brink, and Jump was that the offense was simply not working well and players tried to do too much, make plays that were not there. The team was less than the sum of its parts on offense. That is not the fault of any player. Not Lepolo's fault. Not Jones' fault for trying to take on difficult drives. The player and ball movement was never there. It was a stagnant offense against aggressive, physical defenses. I am not a coach so I have no idea if this was the best way or if there was a better way. All I know is in never looked right. I was not surprised at the way the game played out. Sad for the players, disappointed that the great crowd got no joy, but not at all surprised.
Goodbye Funky Four, may your future endeavors be successful. It's been a pleasure. Good news on Jump. Hope we run an offense that gets her open more next season. Good luck to Belibi at Harvard. If she plays ball there I will be rooting for her and them. Good luck to Jones in the pros. She's been a pleasure to watch. I will be watching her and rooting for her in WNBA. I don't know where Ashten will end up, but if she decides to play somewhere else I will root for her (knock wood it is at somewhere I can do that and root for the whole team too, if she does play another season elsewhere).
Sorry, Chimera, deepest sympathies that you're not "enjoying" my posts. Re "not getting run off," dunno, if you look at my post last year where I called out Tara as a "meh" x's and o's coach (and have thought that forever...I watch plenty of WBB), I was literally called an "a@sh@le", a "$h!t" post, a troll, etc etc. It was a real piling on. Boston Card, who seems to be a moderator and, who has been quick to ban people and/or delete posts for such language, was actually piling on with some of it. (Btw, nice work there, Boston Card. Really good upholding of site standards.) The Tara worshipers on this site are like a cult. She isn't a disaster, but her whole career has been based on having more talent than nearly every other team and doing very little to maximize it. We all know (or should know) that recruiting matters more than actual coaching in terms of being a successful college coach, hence her overall strong record. But it pisses me off on behalf of the players, who deserve MUCH better then being let down by a meh x's and o's coach. You guys are so lost in your worship of her that you can't see it (do you actually watch the games or do you just cheer the scoreboard?). My sympathies to Brink, Jones, etc for the season ending when it didn't have to. Again, she's Haase with better talent.
So you write a post that calls other posters "Tara worshippers" and "a cult," say posters are "lost in worship" and wonder why your posts are not well received? If your post last year was similar I have no doubt you got some heated responses. Takes work to get people mad enough to call you an a-hole. Nice going! I do not remember it because you know, this is just a silly message board, nothing very important, and our opinions affect nothing, mean nothing outside this small group.
(03-20-2023, 09:43 PM)Softball Fan Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:18 PM)chimera Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:07 PM)81alum Wrote: And, for all those who claim Tara does not take responsibility, she does.
"This last month has been really hard. We tried to rest our team as much as possible. We needed to be playing better than we are right now. I think our offense really struggled, and when that happens people try to do it by themselves, and I saw that throughout the whole game. Both Haley and Cam felt like they needed to do it by themselves and that's on me. We worked really hard every day to run offense, move the ball, set screens, and we struggled with it."
I am not enjoying all the silly stuff about people "getting run off the board" and all that. If you state an opinion and others disagree, that is not getting run off, that is a discussion board. It's cool if people take positions that are not popular, but they have to also take the pushback from opposing opinions.
I disagree. Last season if I posted the slightest bit of criticism I was attacked. I was insulted. Your post is a little ironic. Correct me if I'm wrong. Last season you threatened to permanently leave the board because you didn't want to read criticism about WBB play.
I find it hard to believe the slightest bit of criticism caused you to be attacked. and insulted, unless you and I differ as to what attacked means. I have no memory of your posts at all so I don't know what happened. We have mods so can't be all that terrible. Getting strong rebuttals by multiple posters is not an attack. There are numerous posts all over the board right now that are critical. Nobody is getting attacked. This is a discussion or a debate. You can make a point strongly or disagree strongly without it being an attack. You just disagreed with me. Should I be insulted or feel attacked? If one poster calls you an insulting name or whatever, they shouldn't do that, but one poster doing a bad thing doesn't mean you run off the board. That would be the majority of posters calling you names.
You are wrong. I was thinking hard about leaving not because I don't want to read any criticism. A fair bit of what is on here is critical to some degree. If you read anything I've written on here recently you would see I post some criticisms myself. I was thinking hard about leaving due to the tone, which was ugly and seemed to come more from a place of hunting for reasons to be ultra-negative too often. It was not fun, got really boring, and did not allow for nuanced discussion. I may have left for a while. I don't even remember. This just a message board. This is not serious.
Pretty legit post prior. People on this board don't like criticism of Tara, plain and simple. Open your eyes a bit. That's all that's being asked. And it's coming from people who watch just as much basketball as the next.
I watch the majority of the games of those teams in the top 15 all year long. Yet, I refrain from posting much here because of the responses people have to opinions that aren't hoorah Stanford. And I am a diehard Stanford fan and alum; and I donate plenty.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - chimera - 03-20-2023
(03-20-2023, 10:06 PM)spike5882 Wrote:(03-20-2023, 09:48 PM)chimera Wrote:(03-20-2023, 08:25 PM)FarmTeam
Sorry, Chimera, deepest sympathies that you're not "enjoying" my posts. Re "not getting run off," dunno, if you look at my post last year where I called out Tara as a "meh" x's and o's coach (and have thought that forever...I watch plenty of WBB), I was literally called an "a@sh@le", a "$h!t" post, a troll, etc etc. It was a real piling on. Boston Card, who seems to be a moderator and, who has been quick to ban people and/or delete posts for such language, was actually piling on with some of it. (Btw, nice work there, Boston Card. Really good upholding of site standards.) The Tara worshipers on this site are like a cult. She isn't a disaster, but her whole career has been based on having more talent than nearly every other team and doing very little to maximize it. We all know (or should know) that recruiting matters more than actual coaching in terms of being a successful college coach, hence her overall strong record. But it pisses me off on behalf of the players, who deserve MUCH better then being let down by a meh x's and o's coach. You guys are so lost in your worship of her that you can't see it (do you actually watch the games or do you just cheer the scoreboard?). My sympathies to Brink, Jones, etc for the season ending when it didn't have to. Again, she's Haase with better talent.
So you write a post that calls other posters "Tara worshippers" and "a cult," say posters are "lost in worship" and wonder why your posts are not well received? If your post last year was similar I have no doubt you got some heated responses. Takes work to get people mad enough to call you an a-hole. Nice going! I do not remember it because you know, this is just a silly message board, nothing very important, and our opinions affect nothing, mean nothing outside this small group.
[hr' Wrote:(03-20-2023, 09:43 PM)Softball Fan Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:18 PM)chimera Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:07 PM)81alum Wrote: And, for all those who claim Tara does not take responsibility, she does.
"This last month has been really hard. We tried to rest our team as much as possible. We needed to be playing better than we are right now. I think our offense really struggled, and when that happens people try to do it by themselves, and I saw that throughout the whole game. Both Haley and Cam felt like they needed to do it by themselves and that's on me. We worked really hard every day to run offense, move the ball, set screens, and we struggled with it."
I am not enjoying all the silly stuff about people "getting run off the board" and all that. If you state an opinion and others disagree, that is not getting run off, that is a discussion board. It's cool if people take positions that are not popular, but they have to also take the pushback from opposing opinions.
I disagree. Last season if I posted the slightest bit of criticism I was attacked. I was insulted. Your post is a little ironic. Correct me if I'm wrong. Last season you threatened to permanently leave the board because you didn't want to read criticism about WBB play.
I find it hard to believe the slightest bit of criticism caused you to be attacked. and insulted, unless you and I differ as to what attacked means. I have no memory of your posts at all so I don't know what happened. We have mods so can't be all that terrible. Getting strong rebuttals by multiple posters is not an attack. There are numerous posts all over the board right now that are critical. Nobody is getting attacked. This is a discussion or a debate. You can make a point strongly or disagree strongly without it being an attack. You just disagreed with me. Should I be insulted or feel attacked? If one poster calls you an insulting name or whatever, they shouldn't do that, but one poster doing a bad thing doesn't mean you run off the board. That would be the majority of posters calling you names.
You are wrong. I was thinking hard about leaving not because I don't want to read any criticism. A fair bit of what is on here is critical to some degree. If you read anything I've written on here recently you would see I post some criticisms myself. I was thinking hard about leaving due to the tone, which was ugly and seemed to come more from a place of hunting for reasons to be ultra-negative too often. It was not fun, got really boring, and did not allow for nuanced discussion. I may have left for a while. I don't even remember. This just a message board. This is not serious.
Pretty legit post prior. People on this board don't like criticism of Tara, plain and simple. Open your eyes a bit. That's all that's being asked. And it's coming from people who watch just as much basketball as the next.
I watch the majority of the games of those teams in the top 15 all year long. Yet, I refrain from posting much here because of the responses people have to opinions that aren't hoorah Stanford. And I am a diehard Stanford fan and alum; and I donate plenty.
So what if people don't like like criticism of Tara? And what should be done about it? If you post that you think Tara is an over-rated coach or whatever, and someone responds by saying that's wrong, she has done this, that and the other so well, what just happened? You posted your opinion and someone responded with theirs. If few posts agree with you and many disagree, what does that mean? Not that you are attacked. Not that you will be stopped from posting your opinion the future. No, it means that most people disagreed with you, that's all. If you don't like being in a minority opinion and wish to stop posting, that is up to you. So what should happen? Should people not be allowed to disagree? Should only the first two disagreeing posts be allowed, none after?
If you post unpopular opinion, especially if you post them in an extremely negative way, you will find that people who disagree will post and some will post strongly worded disagreements. Such is life on a message board. Say what you want. Take the heat if you get any, as long as it is done civilly. How did this devolve into posting about previous posts? This is sorta why I sometimes hate message boards.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - spike5882 - 03-20-2023
(03-20-2023, 07:11 PM)BostonCard Wrote: As others have noted, our problems with guards have come down to failure to sign the top ones. Page Bueckers (HG #1, PN #1), Azzi Fudd (HG#1, PN #1), Olivia Miles (HG #8, PN #4), Kiki Rice (HG #2, PN #2), and next year, Judea Watkins (HG #1, PN #2), were all elite guards who had Stanford in their top 2-3 but elected to sign elsewhere. Having any one of them on the team (and healthy, as I note that Bueckers, and Miles are both out of the tournament with injuries, and Fudd has been injured much of the year), probably is the difference between a very good season and an exceptional season.
You can, of course, criticize Vanderveer for failing to close the deal on them; at the end of the recruiting buck ends with her. But I don't think you can really say that she has neglected recruiting elite guards. Moreover, it is hard to know if the choices reflect an undercurrent or if they each represent unique circumstances.
A few other miscellaneous observations:
For all the handwringing about our offense, we averaged 76.1 ppg this year, which is one of the better offensive years in recent memory. Only in 2021 (77.7 ppg) and 2014 (76.7 ppg) have we scored more in the past 10 years. Going back further, only in 2011 (79.3 ppg), 2006 (78.6 ppg), 2005 (77.8 ppg) and 2002 (80.3 ppg) have we exceeded our scoring output in this century. This season wasn't a barn buster, but it was clearly above the median in scoring for Stanford.
Our shooting percentage (.455) was also better than most years (excepting 2021 and 2014 in the last 10).
I think where we struggled was in our three point shooting, as we exceeded only 2018 in the last 10 years, which explains why the strategy of packing the paint worked well against us. I think if we were able to shoot a little bit better from three point range, we might have negated that strategy better. Hannah Jump went 100/227 for us (44%), which meant that the rest of the team went 140/467, which is just under 30%. I think if we can get another three point shooter to reliably step up, that should open things up for Brink and Betts inside. We should be looking for Demetre (32/97, 33%), Talana Lepolo (25/67, 37%), Agnes Emma-Nnopu (20/47, 42%), and Elena Bosgana (17/53, 32%) to step up. To be an effective second option, they will need to give us 40+ threes with about a three point shooting percentage in the upper 30's.
BC
It goes well beyond those recruits. It goes to Hannah Hidalgo. Deja Kelly. Rori Harmon. Those are only a few that were on the radar and slipped away. They were PGs that know how to run an offense; how to create an offense.
There seems to be a common denominator -- Tara doesn't like to let guards run an offense as they see fit. She wants it her way, and only her way. It's resulted in negative recruiting efforts that have proved effective, and with reason. She has no flexibility to let a PG shine. Name the last PG who did. And Williams did not shine; she just did the best she could as a cog in Tara's machine.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - BillBradley - 03-20-2023
(03-20-2023, 09:42 PM)81alum Wrote:Yep, you're right 81. It did start with the Cal game, and the USC loss probably reinforced some deep dark fears that the offense wasn't good enough. That was where the fate of the season was determined. From that point, whatever changes were put in didn't really work. Instead of sticking with the same lineup and tweaking things, she probably should have gone with a lineup that wasn't so ultra-reliant on Cam/Haley/Hannah. That seemed to be the downfall in the end - just no help from anyone else. I thought more of Demetre would have helped a lot, others have asked for Bosgana, more of Nivar, less of Lepolo, etc. I wonder if she could go back in time if she would have tried different personnel or not.(03-20-2023, 07:49 PM)BillBradley Wrote: Personally, I was quite happy with our offensive output earlier in the season. So many differences back then to where we ended up. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall after that USC game where everything changed.
I think you are right, BB. However, everything changed a bit earlier--after the game at Cal--the one that Tara called the "root canal" game. The fact that we barely won it I think concealed to many fans the seriousness of the issues. We scored 90 points against Cal in December, but barely got to 60 in January, and Cal led with 3 minutes left in the game. One week later USC took Cal's strategy and put it into the hands of more capable players, and we were held to a miserable 46 points.
But the best evidence that our offensive stats for the year were meaningless is Tara herself, in the final press conference, who acknowledged that offense was the problem. Corroborating her view is Massey which computes us as the 3rd best defense in the nation. My goodness, we held Ole Miss to 54 points, which should have been enough not only to win, but to win big.
Just for fun, I went back and looked at some of the posts from that time. Here are a few snippets of what posters were seeing back then (yes, 2 months ago):
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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"....<another poster> "IMO the rest of the season depends on Stanford implementing this suggestion."
"Right now our 1Q offense is dump the ball into the post while the post player Brink/Iriafen is double teamed with the secondary defender sagging off Jones, Lepolo or Brink/Iriafen or all of those defenders sagging off. While Iriafen is clearly the better player, starting Demetre may put our All-Americans Brink and Jones in a better position to score."
"Tara will need to find a way to jumpstart our offense and adjust when facing this defensive scheme. When teams are denying your All-Americans with double or triple teams, that should leave others with the space they need to attack and we haven't done that."
"Our weakness had been exposed. Double team brink inside, blanket jump, funny allow Jones to drive, and or offense is in turmoil. Tara needs to figure out the antidote to this ailment to have a chance at the championship."
"...is it realistic to think that Tara and her staff will put some tweaks in our offensive game that might make a positive difference, or do you believe we're going to see more of the same and hoping the team will play with some grit?"
"After a pathetic game against USC, it's time for Tara to step up and make some serious changes in the O. Just tinkering with the status quo is not acceptable if she wants to make a run for the Championship....Let's see if there are personnel shifts, new strategies, and a significant improvement in caliber of play..."
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - GK3 - 03-21-2023
(03-20-2023, 11:40 PM)BillBradley Wrote:(03-20-2023, 09:42 PM)81alum Wrote:Yep, you're right 81. It did start with the Cal game, and the USC loss probably reinforced some deep dark fears that the offense wasn't good enough. That was where the fate of the season was determined. From that point, whatever changes were put in didn't really work. Instead of sticking with the same lineup and tweaking things, she probably should have gone with a lineup that wasn't so ultra-reliant on Cam/Haley/Hannah. That seemed to be the downfall in the end - just no help from anyone else. I thought more of Demetre would have helped a lot, others have asked for Bosgana, more of Nivar, less of Lepolo, etc. I wonder if she could go back in time if she would have tried different personnel or not.(03-20-2023, 07:49 PM)BillBradley Wrote: Personally, I was quite happy with our offensive output earlier in the season. So many differences back then to where we ended up. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall after that USC game where everything changed.
I think you are right, BB. However, everything changed a bit earlier--after the game at Cal--the one that Tara called the "root canal" game. The fact that we barely won it I think concealed to many fans the seriousness of the issues. We scored 90 points against Cal in December, but barely got to 60 in January, and Cal led with 3 minutes left in the game. One week later USC took Cal's strategy and put it into the hands of more capable players, and we were held to a miserable 46 points.
But the best evidence that our offensive stats for the year were meaningless is Tara herself, in the final press conference, who acknowledged that offense was the problem. Corroborating her view is Massey which computes us as the 3rd best defense in the nation. My goodness, we held Ole Miss to 54 points, which should have been enough not only to win, but to win big.
Just for fun, I went back and looked at some of the posts from that time. Here are a few snippets of what posters were seeing back then (yes, 2 months ago):
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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"....<another poster> "IMO the rest of the season depends on Stanford implementing this suggestion."
"Right now our 1Q offense is dump the ball into the post while the post player Brink/Iriafen is double teamed with the secondary defender sagging off Jones, Lepolo or Brink/Iriafen or all of those defenders sagging off. While Iriafen is clearly the better player, starting Demetre may put our All-Americans Brink and Jones in a better position to score."
"Tara will need to find a way to jumpstart our offense and adjust when facing this defensive scheme. When teams are denying your All-Americans with double or triple teams, that should leave others with the space they need to attack and we haven't done that."
"Our weakness had been exposed. Double team brink inside, blanket jump, funny allow Jones to drive, and or offense is in turmoil. Tara needs to figure out the antidote to this ailment to have a chance at the championship."
"...is it realistic to think that Tara and her staff will put some tweaks in our offensive game that might make a positive difference, or do you believe we're going to see more of the same and hoping the team will play with some grit?"
"After a pathetic game against USC, it's time for Tara to step up and make some serious changes in the O. Just tinkering with the status quo is not acceptable if she wants to make a run for the Championship....Let's see if there are personnel shifts, new strategies, and a significant improvement in caliber of play..."
Since Tara arrived at Stanford, the women's game has changed greatly. More speed, athleticism and contact than in the beginning. Now, like in the men's game, if your guards lack the quickness and speed of their opponents, you are in trouble, particularly on defense. Tara's flow offense, whatever that is, has not worked well against quick and aggressive teams. We are struggling to recruit the kind of guards we need. We can't rebuild overnight as Miss St did via the portal. So, recruiting is even more important. Women's basketball is beginning to have the same problems that Football and Men's Basketball have.
I had hoped that we would have made a deep run so Tara, if so inclined, could ride off into the sunset on top. I see coaching at this level as a younger persons game, so I wonder how it will all work out for Tara to whom women's basketball owes so much.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - jonnyss - 03-21-2023
(03-19-2023, 11:33 PM)81alum Wrote: I'm inclined to think Tara recruits the best players she can regardless of position, and then tries to mold the offense around whoever she gets. We sometime forget it is Stanford--and it is not football--meaning there are no allowances in WBB for players who can't meet the highest academic standards. We can get great players, but we can't pick and choose them by position. So in recent years she has hit the jackpot with big players and struck out on the elite guards (I would count Jones as a wing, personally)--Osborne, Rice, Watkins. Apparently we came close in each case. This has created an imbalance of talent on this team--a much stronger frontcourt than backcourt.
i generally agree with your point, but i believe (with some indirect evidence) that we did not strike out on osborne. it's my understanding that we had 5 great options for 4 spots (haley, fran, ashten, hannah, charisma) and chose the first 4. charisma was my favorite player coming out of high school, and i posted several times that this choice would come back to bite us because we did not have a top point guard to replace kiana. i was asked to pipe down and did until now.
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - 81alum - 03-21-2023
(03-21-2023, 08:23 AM)jonnyss Wrote:Interesting if true that it may have been our choice and not her choice. I have no inside information--that would be BobK's province ;) And in hindsight each of the funky four we got has been crucial to our success at one point or another, so second-guessing is hard. What are Osborne's plans after this year? Going pro? Any interest in an MA?(03-19-2023, 11:33 PM)81alum Wrote: I'm inclined to think Tara recruits the best players she can regardless of position, and then tries to mold the offense around whoever she gets. We sometime forget it is Stanford--and it is not football--meaning there are no allowances in WBB for players who can't meet the highest academic standards. We can get great players, but we can't pick and choose them by position. So in recent years she has hit the jackpot with big players and struck out on the elite guards (I would count Jones as a wing, personally)--Osborne, Rice, Watkins. Apparently we came close in each case. This has created an imbalance of talent on this team--a much stronger frontcourt than backcourt.
i generally agree with your point, but i believe (with some indirect evidence) that we did not strike out on osborne. it's my understanding that we had 5 great options for 4 spots (haley, fran, ashten, hannah, charisma) and chose the first 4. charisma was my favorite player coming out of high school, and i posted several times that this choice would come back to bite us because we did not have a top point guard to replace kiana. i was asked to pipe down and did until now.
Recruiting seems so messy to me. I've always wondered about the order of commitments and all the informal conversations that must take place (during the allowed time periods, of course.) I know Tara has made commitments to players in the past that she has honored, even when someone "better" may have come available. And I know she has held spaces open for some elite players who do not come, and by the time they do decide it is too late to use the slot on another elite player. I suspect a lot of the "head-scratchers" in recruiting have to do with admissions, how quickly the elite player decides, and the patience of other players to wait while a "higher priority" target is deciding, the need to fill a slot with a very good player rather than risk it waiting for an elite player, etc. I'd want nothing to do with that side of the game.
RE: Stanford 49 Ole Miss 54 season ends - BostonCard - 03-21-2023
For example, we held a spot open for Watkins in the class of 2023.
Does anyone still have the scholarship tracker?
BC
RE: Stanford 49 Ole Miss 54 season ends - BobK - 03-21-2023
We have one opening for 2023
We have 4 openings for 2024.
The openings for 2024 are Jump and the current opening, Cam and Agnes.
The 2023-24 season is the last for a covid year
Osborne will be a high draft choice. Interesting Osborne was not honored academically by the Pac 12 last year which means something but maybe nothing to do with admissions at Stanford for her
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - treetop11 - 03-21-2023
(03-20-2023, 08:25 PM)FarmTeam Wrote:(03-19-2023, 10:18 PM)chimera Wrote: I am not enjoying all the silly stuff about people "getting run off the board" and all that. If you state an opinion and others disagree, that is not getting run off, that is a discussion board. It's cool if people take positions that are not popular, but they have to also take the pushback from opposing opinions. Stop the martyr stuff. Tara is not a poor coach. The record speaks for itself. She has her strengths and weaknesses, as do we all. I don't think this was one of her better seasons. I imagine she would agree.
I replied with that quote because I think it was the essence of the problem all year - the offense was just not up to Stanford standards. Maybe the reason we had so many games like this game with "silly" turnovers and less involvement from players other than Jones, Brink, and Jump was that the offense was simply not working well and players tried to do too much, make plays that were not there. The team was less than the sum of its parts on offense. That is not the fault of any player. Not Lepolo's fault. Not Jones' fault for trying to take on difficult drives. The player and ball movement was never there. It was a stagnant offense against aggressive, physical defenses. I am not a coach so I have no idea if this was the best way or if there was a better way. All I know is in never looked right. I was not surprised at the way the game played out. Sad for the players, disappointed that the great crowd got no joy, but not at all surprised.
Goodbye Funky Four, may your future endeavors be successful. It's been a pleasure. Good news on Jump. Hope we run an offense that gets her open more next season. Good luck to Belibi at Harvard. If she plays ball there I will be rooting for her and them. Good luck to Jones in the pros. She's been a pleasure to watch. I will be watching her and rooting for her in WNBA. I don't know where Ashten will end up, but if she decides to play somewhere else I will root for her (knock wood it is at somewhere I can do that and root for the whole team too, if she does play another season elsewhere).
Sorry, Chimera, deepest sympathies that you're not "enjoying" my posts. Re "not getting run off," dunno, if you look at my post last year where I called out Tara as a "meh" x's and o's coach (and have thought that forever...I watch plenty of WBB), I was literally called an "a@sh@le", a "$h!t" post, a troll, etc etc. It was a real piling on. Boston Card, who seems to be a moderator and, who has been quick to ban people and/or delete posts for such language, was actually piling on with some of it. (Btw, nice work there, Boston Card. Really good upholding of site standards.) The Tara worshipers on this site are like a cult. She isn't a disaster, but her whole career has been based on having more talent than nearly every other team and doing very little to maximize it. We all know (or should know) that recruiting matters more than actual coaching in terms of being a successful college coach, hence her overall strong record. But it pisses me off on behalf of the players, who deserve MUCH better then being let down by a meh x's and o's coach. You guys are so lost in your worship of her that you can't see it (do you actually watch the games or do you just cheer the scoreboard?). My sympathies to Brink, Jones, etc for the season ending when it didn't have to. Again, she's Haase with better talent.
So how do you explain the survey of WBB coaches asking which WBB coach was best at x and o's and Tara was by far named the best?
RE: Stanford vs. Ole Miss Sunday 6:30 - 81alum - 03-21-2023
(03-21-2023, 06:07 PM)treetop11 Wrote: So how do you explain the survey of WBB coaches asking which WBB coach was best at x and o's and Tara was by far named the best?Yes, that was in the Athletic 7 days ago. Anonymous interviews with 30 WBB coaches. An interesting article about a lot of stuff.
Best for Xs and Os:
1) Tara Vanderveer
2) Geno Auriemma
3) Jeff Walz
4) Bill Fennely
5) Karl Smesko
Quote:“She rarely will lose to a team more than once. She’s so difficult to coach against. Even when her teams on paper aren’t the best, they’ll still be a top-three or top-four team. You watch her players develop. They get better. Tara has just been doing it for so long. And a lot of coaches can’t change with time. And while I think that her system is good, watching her and coaching against her, she’s adaptive."
Quote:“She’s so level-headed and doesn’t get rushed. They get great players, but they also teach them how to play the game.”
Quote:As Stanford’s head coach for nearly 40 years, VanDerveer simply has a bigger playbook to pilfer from than most other coaches. But the all-time winningest coach in women’s college basketball has had to evolve her style as the game itself has changed. She’s managed to maintain her program’s success throughout, winning championships 29 years apart and making the Final Four in four consecutive decades.
RE: Stanford 49 Ole Miss 54 season ends - BostonCard - 03-21-2023
Behind a paywall, but here’s the link: https://theathletic.com/4297500/2023/03/15/womens-basketball-best-coach-poll/?amp=1
BC