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WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - Printable Version

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WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - 81alum - 02-29-2012

The crowd was a bit thin and flat, and the team was too at first.  Nevertheless, the usual stellar play of Nneka (8-11 with 11 rebounds and 19 points) and Chiney (6-11 with 8 rebounds and 18 points) set the pace and we cruised to a solid if not spectacular victory.  This was Nneka, Lindy, and Grace's last game at Maples, and I absolutely hated the way it was scheduled.  It seemed anti-climactic after senior day and drew rather poorly.  I think the crowd and the team both felt it.  I thought there was more energy at the Bakersfield game.

One nice thing--we shot 100% of our free throws tonight!

This game was not the blow-out easy tune-up game that some of us expected.  Seattle is much shorter at most positions, but they have a winning record and came well coached and ready to play.  They played a quick, swarming/trapping defense and often frustrated our efforts to pass the ball in to the paint.  We had 17 turnovers, many of them lazy passes on the perimeter or forced passes to the interior.  While I never thought the outcome was in doubt, the game was tied 15-15 8 minutes into the game, and we were only ahead by 4 points towards the end of the first half. 

Our offense was working fairly well--but mainly because we shot 50.9% against much shorter players,  and not because we were executing our offense particularly well--although there were a few spectacular plays.  It seemed to me that we were working harder than usual to "get it to Nneka." 

On defense we had a number of breakdowns--giving up some fast break points after lazy passes were intercepted, etc.  Seattle looked like a decidedly better offensive team than the two Oregon schools or Colorado or Utah--at least they scored more points than our opponents in the last four games.  They caught us napping a couple of times with fast breaks after they beat us down the court after we made a basket.

My greatest concern was not about what happened in the game but about who didn't play.  Taylor was absent again.  Her pulled hamstring has been serious enough to keep her out of two games now.  With her out that makes 5 players unavailable and our depth could become a serious issue in the tournaments ahead.  Let's hope that Tara is just being extra cautious and that we will see Taylor against soon. 

Amber continues to be a wonderful bright spot.  She had 9 assists to 5 turnovers.  She is becoming a regular offensive threat, with a combination of mid range jumpers (and one with her foot on the 3 point line) that usually touch only net, and some very impressive dribbling through traffic to the basket.  She finished with 10 points and even had 5 rebounds.  She made a few mistakes, but she never looks flustered and has great presence, which is what you want from a point guard.  He defense seems very good. 

Bonnie finally broke out of her shooting slump today, with 4 threes.  She got 27 minutes--by far the longest this year.  Tara seems determined to get her experience, which makes me think Tara is aware that Taylor may remain iffy and that Bonnie will have to carry a greater load.  Bonnie doesn't rebound much and she had no assists--which is something that Tara likes to see out of a 3, so Bonnie is still a work in progress.  But hitting 4-8 from three point range will be a big confidence booster and could provide an important additional dimension for our offense.

Toni has been a bit off the last couple of games.  She had no points tonight and just 2 assists.  She plays tenacious defense, though.

Lindy was 1-2 from three point range.  She passed up numerous open looks.  In practice she was sinking 80% of her three point shots, so it looks to me as if her confidence is just rattled a bit in-game.  In the radio interview after the game Bonnie called her "Coach Lindy."  Perhaps that is her future?  In any case, I've heard Tara say the same thing--that Lindy is very intelligent and always helping her teammates learn the system, the game, the tendencies of other teams, etc. 

Joslyn had a good, solid, all around game.  She went 5-12 with 6 rebounds and 14 points in just 26 minutes.  She sank 2-3 threes.  She also had a couple of assists and a block.

To sum up the storyline for the last game at Maples this year, I think I would emphasize Nneka and Chiney's continued dominance, the impressive development of Amber, and the recovery of Bonnie's three point shot.




Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - sheriand - 02-29-2012

Like 81alum, I am very concerned about our bench strength going into the post season.  Heck, just going into the Cal game!  The last two home games I've noticed Toni, when she's not on the court, is on a bicycle on the sidelines.  Not sure what's bothering her but it's clear that something is.

I was also pleased with Amber's contributions.  She is very tenacious on defense and really went after the ball.  Great to see her get some scoring.  Bonnie got a lot of game time, and looked very exhausted towards the end, but it was really good for her to stick with it.

One of the fans behind me had gone to the Chalk Talk before the game and reported that Coach Paye had said that Taylor has a hurt hamstring and that they're hoping it will be better by the tournament...  GACK. 

Unrelated, but nice,  Coach Shaw was at the game with his little boy on his lap.  Great to see him there.  Bowlsby was there too. 


Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - CompSci87 - 02-29-2012

I went to the FBC postgame, where Seattle's coach Joan Bonvincini was the special guest. She and Tara go way back -- they even played against each other in their playing days. She had a lot of interesting comments about the Pac-12, Seattle University and its journey from D-I to D-III and back to D-I, and some good stories to tell. When Tara got there, the two of them were like a well-oiled comedy team. Hopefully someone will write up some of the stories...

On the injury front, someone in the front row asked Tara about all the injured players, but I couldn't hear the questions very well from the back, so I'm not 100% sure what answers went with whom. I believe Tara said that Boothe is expected back next week for the tournament, and that Taylor's injury is not too bad and she could have played today if needed.

Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - 81alum - 03-01-2012

Thanks, WBB and Compsci for the information about injuries.  Jake Curtis also has noticed Toni's slump and so now every opposing team will be testing her, I imagine.
http://www.examiner.com/stanford-cardinal-basketball-in-san-francisco/a-hidden-concern-emerges-stanford-s-easy-victory-over-seattle-women?CID=examiner_alerts_article

I checked attendance figures for the season and last night was not the worst crowd of the year at Maples.  3379 showed up, which was better than WSU, Bakersfield, Davis, and Old Dominion--but not much better.  I think the problem was as much a lack of energy as lack of numbers.

This year we averaged 4250 a home game.  Last year we averaged 4839 a home game.  Part of that is the first two rounds of the NCAA that we hosted last year, but those two games don't account for all of the drop off.  I think we did not have as appealing a schedule of non-league games at Maples this year--compared with Rutgers, Xavier, Texas, and Connecticut last year, Tennessee was the only big draw this year.

Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - Leftcoast - 03-01-2012

I'm not worried about the drawing power of the WOMEN'S team.



Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - FarmDad.01 - 03-01-2012

To garvin's point: Perhaps overplaying Jayne Appel in inconsequential late-season games was a lesson learned.

Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - M T - 03-01-2012

A variety of thoughts about the game:
Attendance... Considering that tickets could be had for free, I thought more would be there.  I guess weeknights keep the families who bring kids away.  I wonder if it would help to move the game a half hour earlier when it is not on Friday or Saturday? 

Seattle U:  I thought they played really well.  They don't have the talent, but they played better than I expected.  Congrats to the coach for preparing the team very well. They hustled and scrambled and played with an intensity that I've too infrequently seen Stanford have.  By the way, the summary misstated that there were 8 Stanford turnovers before half.  It was 9 (4x Amber, 2x Nneka, 2x Jos, 1x Lindy)

The KZSU announcer again said that Jasmine has played 1 too many games to get an extra season. I was worried that they may have been told something by the Athletic Department, so I looked into it myself.  I agree with the assessment previously given here that she can get a medical hardship. She's played in 8 games.  I can't quite follow the NCAA wording, but it seems that the number of games possible include all tournament games (even if the school doesn't make the tournament or doesn't play the maximum number of games).  Stanford had 29 regular season games; PAC-12 tourney adds 4 games (even though Stanford can only play at most 3); NCAA tourney adds 6.  That's 39 games.  30% of that is 11.7.  30% of 29 is 8.7, so she hasn't played even 30% of the regular season games, but I think she could have played 11 and still been eligible.

Stanford's play:  Way too many lazy passes.  This has been something that Stanford seems worse at than most top caliber teams.  (Do we have a really slow-reaction group of practice players?)  I'm glad Stanford got burned with them in this game.  Maybe they'll learn and sharpen things up for the remaining games. 

I hope Stanford learns from the hustle plays by Seattle.

Stanford was standing around a lot late in the game.

I was glad to see some 3's return.  That's two good games with 3ptrs in the last five.  I was glad to see Bonnie get more playing time, not because I think she's ready to play regularly, but because it will help when we put her in for 3pt offense.

Free throws have been a bright spot this season.  Currently we're at 75% as a team.

At one point, about midway through the first half, Seattle was shooting at a 71% clip and DOWN by 4 points.

At half time, 5 Stanford players had 9 +/- 2 points.  That balance was good to see.  The fact that Bonnie was one of them was great.  At half time, Toni had not taken a shot and Lindy had taken only one. 

I agree that it sounds like Toni may have some minor injury.  She only played 15 minutes.  I'm glad that Amber is making good use of her playing time. I hope that the extra time for her is why Toni played so little.

Congrats to the Senior Class ladies for defending the home court.  I wish them the best to win the final game of their college career!

I presume we're hosting UConn next year.  I hope we can finish that year with a perfect home record too.



Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - CompSci87 - 03-01-2012

(03-01-2012, 03:20 PM)MT link Wrote:I presume we're hosting UConn next year.  I hope we can finish that year with a perfect home record too.

I lurk a bit on the UConn fan board (http://the-boneyard.com), and some folks there have that game marked down as a UConn win already, based on their great incoming recruiting class (the #1 and #2 players). I wasn't going to argue with them on their board, but those players will nonetheless be freshmen with very few college practices and games under the belts at that point. So I like our chances.


Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - FarmDad.01 - 03-01-2012

Boneyard.com is probably less biased than ESPN hacks Carolyn Peck, Rebecca Lobo (a Geno alum whom Coach VanDerveer kept benched for most of the '96 Atlanta Olympics) and bracketmeister Chollie Creme (who keeps insisting UNC deserves a March Madness bid). As the song goes, "All the kids in Bristol are sharp as a pistol / When they do the UConn stomp."

Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - Viking_Guy - 03-01-2012

As I recall, the story running around was that Lobo was forced on Tara in place of some more deserving players, Val Whiting among them, because USA Basketball wanted the publicity carry-over from ESPN's relentless promotion of the UConn women during their undefeated 94-95 season.  I've always thought that period was really critical, when ESPN being part of the UConn media market combined with Tara's absence from Stanford really enabled the growth of the Evil Empire (Blue Edition).  The thing people forget is that the Huskies were really not much of a national championship factor from 1996 to 2000, losing in the semis in 96, Elite Eight in 97 and 98 and Sweet Sixteen in 99.  But ESPN still played a ton of their games, and the loss of the Hartford Whalers in 1997 left no major league professional teams in the state.  And that publicity enabled UConn's historic signing class in 1998.  I'll always wonder what could've been if Machinguana had been called for the foul on Jamila in the semi in 97.

Having grown up in Hartford, I can testify, there is nothing else to do during the winter but follow UConn basketball.

VG




Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - FarmDad.01 - 03-01-2012

Viking, wasn't ESPN also involved in the Tenn/Summitt-UConn/Auriemma recruiting kerfluffle over Maya Moore? btw, a son of ESPN's founder went on to start the right-wing Rasmussen polling firm. Anyway, on the bright side, you survived Hartford.

Re: WBB: Stanford 76 Seattle 52 in last home game - Viking_Guy - 03-02-2012

Yep, one of the issues was UConn arranging a tour of the ESPN campus in Bristol on Moore's recruiting visit, which was deemed a secondary recruiting violation.

Hoping that the new Pac-12 TV deal will bring some more balance to the broadcast landscape, but the era of ESPN as THE one place for women's college basketball coverage, combined with the network's home base location, has IMO given UConn a serious advantage for the last 16-17 years; it would be interesting to track appearances on ESPN by each team, especially during those eras when Connecticut wasn't #1 all the time (the late 90s, 2005-07).

VG