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WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 - Printable Version

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WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 - 81alum - 11-27-2015

Overview

Stanford beat an inferior but scrappy Missouri State team on the basis largely of a barrage of three point shots.  We made 15 treys on 45% three point shooting.  Karlie was an amazing 5/7, Brianna 4/6, Lili 5/11 and led the team with 26 points.  I'm pleased we won, but am also always skeptical when winning mainly on the basis of treys, since they seem to be unreliable.  Good defense in the first half turned into not-so good defense in the second half, and we never did get our inside game reliably working.

Flow of the Game:

At the end of the first quarter, it is Stanford 22 Missouri State 16.  Tara started the usual five, substituted Alanna for Bird and Kailee for Kaylee.  Marta and McPhee with playing time too.  Kailee is getting a lot of play.  We have shot badly from inside, but rebounded very well, especially on the O-boards.  Good three point shooting has been our strength early in the game--Lili, Karlie, and Bri have made shots.  Missouri State is playing man--I am shocked they did not try to imitate the Santa Clara 2-3 zone.  We are only ahead, though, due to 60% three point shooting and much better offensive rebounding.  One nice pick and roll from Lili to McCall--but almost nothing else inside so far.

At halftime it is Stanford 44 Missouri State 30.  Missouri State finally switched to a 2-3 zone midway through the quarter and it did seem to discombobulate our offense at the end.  During the man defense, we ran many passes to a pick and roll.  This left a lot of three point shooters open to pass back to, and they made 8/18.  Tara has been using Kailee, McCall, Kaylee, Alanna, and even Coffee all in seemingly equal measure--it is clear that she is searching for posts who will be more aggressive.  We have a 27-16 rebounding edge, but Missouri State is a very poor rebounding team.  So far just 8 turnovers by us, so somewhat better than the Santa Clara debacle.  We are shooting 43% to their 33%, so our defense appears to be competent.  The post inside-game is just not there.  Posts collectively are 2-9 so far.

After three quarters, it is Stanford 66 Missouri State 52.  Coming out in the second half, Karlie was hot, hitting 4/5 from three point range, and we have opened a 20 point lead.  Great three point shooting conquers all, I guess.  But we have created a lot of open shots, at least.  But as the quarter ground along, our defense seemed to suffer lapses.  We left open several dribble-drives to the basket for easy layups, allowing Missouri State to shrink the lead back down to 12.  Lili keeps draining baskets, though, keeping our mid teen margin intact.

In the final quarter our defense got sloppy, especially as Tara subbed in numerous bench players.  Missouri State continued to get dribble drives to the basket.  They also dramatically closed the rebounding gap, ending with only a 42 to 40 rebounding margin.  Despite all of that, our three point shooting continued to be good enough to keep the margin fairly even until the final buzzer.  15 made three point shots on 45% three point shooting will be enough to beat most teams. 

Performances:

Karlie, Bri, and Lili I have mentioned already.  The announcers also remarked on our excellent guard play--not just good shooting but good defense from them. 

Erica wound up with 9 points and 10 rebounds, on 4/7 shooting.  Her baskets were on put-backs and a rare pick and roll.  Still not much sign that she could manufacture points on her own.  She still is our only post who shows an aggressive instinct around the basket, though, going for the O-boards and trying to score from them.

The other posts had offensive games to forget.  Kailee got a lot of minutes.  She took two three point shots and missed them, and only one other attempt and missed it.  Only two rebounds and two turnovers.  Kaylee had 5 points and three nicely blocked shots, and 8 rebounds--not at all bad defensively.  Alanna was 0/3 with three rebounds.  Coffee was 0/1.  The post game simply did not work much to our advantage.

Marta had 4 points, 3 steals, and 3 assists in her time.  She also had a couple of ill advised turnovers as she tried to force the ball inside.  McPhee got significant playing time, earned 5 points including a trey, three rebounds, an assist, and a steal with no turnovers.  A good day's work. 

Conclusion:

Dayton is up next, which is an excellent team that knocked off Louisville in the NCAAs last year.  It may be the best team we have faced so far.  I don't think our performance today tells us a single thing about how we are doing.  Our offense did succeed in manufacturing a lot of open three point shots--but that is because the Missouri State team was unable to contest them as capably as Santa Clara.  I don't think we can count on 46% three point shooting going forward on a regular basis.  Our defense and rebounding regressed in the second half today, our offense was one dimensional.  Still, it could have been worse.  It could have been Santa Clara.  Hopefully this will build a little confidence, and we are going to need it to beat the likes of Dayton and Louisville in the next couple of days.


Re: WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 - fullmetal - 11-27-2015

I would love to watch games being able to hear Tara's instruction :)  Also, that would mean both teams could hear me if I were loud enough...

Re: WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 final - 81alum - 11-27-2015

(11-27-2015, 02:15 PM)garvin link Wrote:Whether in zone or man to man, Missouri State seemed to concentrate on clogging the lane. The reason those threes were dropping so well was that most of them were wide-open looks. If you discount threes taken by the end of the bench and post players with delusions of grandeur, we hit 54 percent from out there.

It's a good thing the threes were on, because our post players mostly got pushed around a lot. Missouri State, though smaller, outrebounded us by a horrifying 40-26, and the various Kailees and Kaylees contributed only five points total. (McCall, as 81alum noted, looked a lot better on offense.) I'm not sure what the points in the paint totals were, but I'll bet they favored Missouri State heavily.

Can't agree with 81alum on Dayton, though. The flyers were an excellent team last year, but they lost a lot to graduation. This year they look more like a very young team -- eight freshman and sophomores on the roster -- with irregular flashes of talent. They played excellent defense today against Maine -- the Black Ursines rarely got a good look at the basket and broke 30 only with a scoring flurry the final two minutes en route to a 58-37 victory. Player to watch: Guard Amber Deane, No. 5, whose surprise slashes to the basket always seemed to catch Maine by surprise.

Random notes:

** Kailee Johnson was walked to the locker room between the third and fourth quarters. After a while, she returned to the bench, but I don't think I saw her in the game again. There was no obvious incident on the court in which she might have been hurt.

** I don't understand the economics of some of these November tournaments at all. There were less than 200 fans in the arena (small but nice, with a capacity of around 8,000) for the Dayton-Maine game, probably right around 200 for Stanford-Missouri State, and perhaps less than 100 by the end of the session. With no ticket sales and no TV, how does this thing make any money?

On the other hand, perhaps this was atypical. Several arena workers told me the men's tournament early in the week drew very well. And a Connecticut fan sitting near me said that last year, when UConn played in the women's tourament, there were several thousand people in the stands.

Such a tiny crowd, with no cheerleaders or bands, led to some odd moments. Some of the Maine players did organized cheers. And Tara's shouted instructions to her team could occasionally be heard in the stands on the opposite side of the court, where I was sitting.

Probably no more than a dozen people were cheering for Stanford. But from somewhere the arena obtained a recording of the LSJUMB version of All Right Now and played it several times, including at the end of the game as the players walked off the court. When it was played during pre-game warmups, I saw Kate Paye quietly clapping along.
Thank you Garvin for your eyewitness account!

With regard to Dayton, I was operating off of Graham Hayes's write up as reported over at the Fast Break Club:
http://fbccardinalnews.blogspot.com/2015/11/fear-flyers.html
Dayton is significantly taller in the post than we are, and apparently has an experienced backcourt.  Hayes thinks they are the best mid-major team.  But since you had a chance to see them play, I feel some reassurance.  But why do I feel like this is a Chattanooga type situation? 

Re: WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 final - chimera - 11-27-2015

(11-27-2015, 02:15 PM)garvin link Wrote:Whether in zone or man to man, Missouri State seemed to concentrate on clogging the lane. The reason those threes were dropping so well was that most of them were wide-open looks. If you discount threes taken by the end of the bench and post players with delusions of grandeur, we hit 54 percent from out there.

It's a good thing the threes were on, because our post players mostly got pushed around a lot. Missouri State, though smaller, outrebounded us by a horrifying 40-26, and the various Kailees and Kaylees contributed only five points total. (McCall, as 81alum noted, looked a lot better on offense.) I'm not sure what the points in the paint totals were, but I'll bet they favored Missouri State heavily.

Can't agree with 81alum on Dayton, though. The flyers were an excellent team last year, but they lost a lot to graduation. This year they look more like a very young team -- eight freshman and sophomores on the roster -- with irregular flashes of talent. They played excellent defense today against Maine -- the Black Ursines rarely got a good look at the basket and broke 30 only with a scoring flurry the final two minutes en route to a 58-37 victory. Player to watch: Guard Amber Deane, No. 5, whose surprise slashes to the basket always seemed to catch Maine by surprise.

Random notes:

** Kailee Johnson was walked to the locker room between the third and fourth quarters. After a while, she returned to the bench, but I don't think I saw her in the game again. There was no obvious incident on the court in which she might have been hurt.

** I don't understand the economics of some of these November tournaments at all. There were less than 200 fans in the arena (small but nice, with a capacity of around 8,000) for the Dayton-Maine game, probably right around 200 for Stanford-Missouri State, and perhaps less than 100 by the end of the session. With no ticket sales and no TV, how does this thing make any money?

On the other hand, perhaps this was atypical. Several arena workers told me the men's tournament early in the week drew very well. And a Connecticut fan sitting near me said that last year, when UConn played in the women's tourament, there were several thousand people in the stands.

Such a tiny crowd, with no cheerleaders or bands, led to some odd moments. Some of the Maine players did organized cheers. And Tara's shouted instructions to her team could occasionally be heard in the stands on the opposite side of the court, where I was sitting.

Probably no more than a dozen people were cheering for Stanford. But from somewhere the arena obtained a recording of the LSJUMB version of All Right Now and played it several times, including at the end of the game as the players walked off the court. When it was played during pre-game warmups, I saw Kate Paye quietly clapping along.

I just watched the video after the fact.  It is still up if anyone wants to view it, link on Stanford FBc site among other places.  Where did you get that reboudning number?  Official stats say we won the board battle, though not by much, and we certainly did for much of the game, when things were still a bit in doubt.  Rebounding was not great.  Needs to be better, but was not horrible, and many of theirs were the team variety, way more than ours.  My eyeballs were not that unhappy watching the boards so I'll count it as maybe minor progress?  We need to secure the ball better for sure. 

Kailee did play in the middle of the 4th quarter so she seems to be ok.  Considering that we were subbing like mad, presumably due to the three games in three days tournament format, it was not too bad of a game.  I don't love how reliant we were on threes but then again we do have at least three fairly reliable shooters in Lili, Bri (now that her offense has gotten going) and Karlie, so we should use them.  I'm not super worried that Missouri State caught up a bit at the very end when we had deep subs in either.  Save the legs. 

Re: WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 final - 81alum - 11-27-2015

(11-27-2015, 02:15 PM)garvin link Wrote:Can't agree with 81alum on Dayton, though. The flyers were an excellent team last year, but they lost a lot to graduation. This year they look more like a very young team -- eight freshman and sophomores on the roster -- with irregular flashes of talent. They played excellent defense today against Maine -- the Black Ursines rarely got a good look at the basket and broke 30 only with a scoring flurry the final two minutes en route to a 58-37 victory. Player to watch: Guard Amber Deane, No. 5, whose surprise slashes to the basket always seemed to catch Maine by surprise.

I just watched the Dayton/Maine game, which is also still available.  You are right--Dayton does not look terribly threatening.  Then again, neither did Santa Clara.  Let's just hope for a good game tomorrow and that our team shows that it is learning and improving.

Re: WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 final - 81alum - 11-28-2015

(11-27-2015, 02:15 PM)garvin link Wrote:** I don't understand the economics of some of these November tournaments at all. There were less than 200 fans in the arena (small but nice, with a capacity of around 8,000) for the Dayton-Maine game, probably right around 200 for Stanford-Missouri State, and perhaps less than 100 by the end of the session. With no ticket sales and no TV, how does this thing make any money?
I have wondered this about all the early season tournaments we have played in.  The Puerto Vallarta one, the Hawaii one, the Bahamas.  Do the teams pay a fat entrance fee?  Are these tournaments mainly about filling up a hotel? Eight teams all in the same hotel must generate some business.  But clearly it is not the normal model of TV or ticket sales.

Re: WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 - M T - 11-28-2015

Don't the early season tournaments allow the teams to play 1 or 2 more games in the season (over a single game against an OOC opponent)?  Isn't that enough reason for some of the teams to want to be a part, even if it costs them some money (one travel & set of hotel rooms for 2 or 3 games is less expensive per game)  Most teams would take more preseason games.

The expenses for the organizers include the facility (but that may be minimal).  Maybe most of the teams don't really need any money, or maybe only the marquee teams get any support.  WBB games on this particular weekend would have trouble getting TV time.

Garvin, if you're going again today, are you going to be visible in the stands?  Some of us will be watching on the live stream.  A big piece of cardboard that says "CARD" on it would probably make you stand out.

Re: WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 - BobK - 11-29-2015

I think I saw you yesterday.    :)

Re: WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 - M T - 11-29-2015

The camera view was always toward the benches.  There were 3 Stanford supporters (M, F, M) first row, right on the midcourt line during the halftime.  One of the men seemed to leave but the other 2 were there throughout the 2nd half (why?  did he have something to go watch on TV or something?)

Thanks for cheering them on today!  (And, I'm glad no one called in a possible axe murder at your room last night.)


Re: WBB: Stanford 82 Missouri State 65 - BobK - 12-01-2015

Older gentleman with a beard??? 😜