Preview:
This is one of the marquee games in the Pac 12 this year. Oregon has had a shock since it beat Team USA—losing to Louisville, then to ASU, and then narrowly getting past Arizona who cut it to a single possession with 38 seconds left. Working in our favor is that our players know that Oregon is not superhuman but can be beaten by other Pac 12 teams. Working against us--any sense of complacency or entitlement is long gone from the Oregon players, and they will be highly motivated to avenge their Pac 12 tournament loss to us, cheered on in their own sold-out 12,000 seat arena.
Oregon is now 13-2, ranked 6th in the latest poll, ranked 5th by the computers. The only ranked team they have beaten was Syracuse, who we also beat, and who has turned out to be not very good this year. But there was that exhibition in which they beat team USA!
Oregon plays what our coaches call a funky zone, and thus our Princeton won’t be much on display. We need to make three point shots from the baseline, or mid range jumpers from the elbow, or need to be able to generate fouls on drives—to be able to beat this zone. There will be a LOT of passing around the perimeter to get the zone to move back and forth until it opens up a hole for a shooter. One thing is for sure—we won’t beat them the same way we did in the tournament, in which Carrington scored 22, Smith 20, and everyone else 22. The points will have to come from other people.
If we win there is one way it will resemble the tournament game—it will be low scoring. Can our defense be better than their offense? In that game we barely slowed down Ionescu who finished with 27 points. Hebard had 13, Boley 10, and Sabally 5. Unfortunately, this year they have Minyon Moore to add to that all-star cast, grad transferring in from USC. And we lack Alanna Smith’s defense. I predict that Fingal will be on Hebard, Jones on Sabally, Wilson/Lacey/Lexie on Ionescu, and Williams on Moore. Who gets Erin Boley? I am not sure—I think she was Carrington’s assignment last year, but can’t quite remember.
Somehow we need to get Jump into the game to kill the zone—but who will she defend? Prechtel could really be used on offense, but can she defend Hebard? How about Belibi? Prechtel seems like she would be better against the zone than Belibi. But is there a way to cut down on Heberd's 69% shooting without leaving someone else wide open?
We will find out soon enough.
Overview:
We were competitive and showed the ability to fight back from Oregon surges--up until midway through the 3rd quarter. But then our offense went cold and Ionescu got hot, and Oregon stretched their lead out to a 32 point thrashing.
Flow of the game:
We led through most of the first quarter on the basis of a good defense that held Oregon to 13. We were unable to contain the Oregon offense the rest of the way, giving up 23 to our 13 in the second to allow Oregon a 36-30 halftime lead. We started the 3rd quarter very well on a 7-0 run, but then Oregon roared back with 29 points in the last 7 minutes of the quarter, keyed by Ionescu. The fourth quarter was a painful exercise in waiting to get out of town. Ionescu broke her single game scoring record with 37 points, and she broke the Oregon all-time scoring record in this game too. A whole lot of satisfaction for the Oregon fans tonight, and precious little for Stanford.
Performances:
Tara obviously did not trust her freshmen very much in this game in hostile territory. She started Lacey for the first time in a long while, and the two Hulls and Williams were all way over 30 minutes. Jones had 29, Fingall just 21 even though she looked very effective. It was strange that Anna Wilson, who was a major reason Ionescu was somewhat slowed down in our tournament victory, got only 7 minutes. Belibi had 11 and Prechtel 15--but outside the 5 position we played essentially 4 players for all the meaningful minutes of the game.
As a team, we shot 44% which is not too bad, but Oregon shot a scorching 49%, so our defense can be said to have been...ineffective. We were also badly outrebounded. Oregon had 10 O-boards and we had 4. Turnovers also badly hurt us. We had 18 to their 7. Many of those turnovers were on inside passes into the paint that Oregon was ready for. A net -11 in turnovers and -6 in Oboards is going to sink any team, especially when the other team is shooting nearly 50%. In short, it was a debacle.
Individually, Lacy Hull was outstanding, going 4/5 shooting and leading the team with 4 assists. Tara seems to have been right to start her.
Fingall seemed to me to have done well, especially in the first half, and Prectel did fairly well in the second half--they both shot 50%. Neither one could defend Hebert 1 on 1, but who can?
Williams showed flashes of brilliance and was 3/6 from three point range, but she never caught fire in the way we needed her too, and she had 2 assists to 4 turnovers--a couple of them bad passes into the paint.
Jones was too quiet, except in the 2nd quarter when she drove down the center of the paint three times to score. But she did not duplicate that performance in the other three quarters, which we badly needed.
Conclusion:
No one game is the season. We have a big game against Oregon State on Sunday and many more after that. But I think it is clear that as wonderful as our freshmen are, we have not yet found a way to replace Smith and Carrington. Tara worked a miracle by getting her team to come back from a 40 point loss last year to defeat Oregon in the Pac 12 championship, and it will take another such miracle to defeat Oregon at Maples.
In the meantime, our team looks like a talented but inexperienced team that is going to lose some more games this season as it learns and improves. A win at OSU would go a long way to getting that stretch off to a good start.
This is one of the marquee games in the Pac 12 this year. Oregon has had a shock since it beat Team USA—losing to Louisville, then to ASU, and then narrowly getting past Arizona who cut it to a single possession with 38 seconds left. Working in our favor is that our players know that Oregon is not superhuman but can be beaten by other Pac 12 teams. Working against us--any sense of complacency or entitlement is long gone from the Oregon players, and they will be highly motivated to avenge their Pac 12 tournament loss to us, cheered on in their own sold-out 12,000 seat arena.
Oregon is now 13-2, ranked 6th in the latest poll, ranked 5th by the computers. The only ranked team they have beaten was Syracuse, who we also beat, and who has turned out to be not very good this year. But there was that exhibition in which they beat team USA!
Oregon plays what our coaches call a funky zone, and thus our Princeton won’t be much on display. We need to make three point shots from the baseline, or mid range jumpers from the elbow, or need to be able to generate fouls on drives—to be able to beat this zone. There will be a LOT of passing around the perimeter to get the zone to move back and forth until it opens up a hole for a shooter. One thing is for sure—we won’t beat them the same way we did in the tournament, in which Carrington scored 22, Smith 20, and everyone else 22. The points will have to come from other people.
If we win there is one way it will resemble the tournament game—it will be low scoring. Can our defense be better than their offense? In that game we barely slowed down Ionescu who finished with 27 points. Hebard had 13, Boley 10, and Sabally 5. Unfortunately, this year they have Minyon Moore to add to that all-star cast, grad transferring in from USC. And we lack Alanna Smith’s defense. I predict that Fingal will be on Hebard, Jones on Sabally, Wilson/Lacey/Lexie on Ionescu, and Williams on Moore. Who gets Erin Boley? I am not sure—I think she was Carrington’s assignment last year, but can’t quite remember.
Somehow we need to get Jump into the game to kill the zone—but who will she defend? Prechtel could really be used on offense, but can she defend Hebard? How about Belibi? Prechtel seems like she would be better against the zone than Belibi. But is there a way to cut down on Heberd's 69% shooting without leaving someone else wide open?
We will find out soon enough.
Overview:
We were competitive and showed the ability to fight back from Oregon surges--up until midway through the 3rd quarter. But then our offense went cold and Ionescu got hot, and Oregon stretched their lead out to a 32 point thrashing.
Flow of the game:
We led through most of the first quarter on the basis of a good defense that held Oregon to 13. We were unable to contain the Oregon offense the rest of the way, giving up 23 to our 13 in the second to allow Oregon a 36-30 halftime lead. We started the 3rd quarter very well on a 7-0 run, but then Oregon roared back with 29 points in the last 7 minutes of the quarter, keyed by Ionescu. The fourth quarter was a painful exercise in waiting to get out of town. Ionescu broke her single game scoring record with 37 points, and she broke the Oregon all-time scoring record in this game too. A whole lot of satisfaction for the Oregon fans tonight, and precious little for Stanford.
Performances:
Tara obviously did not trust her freshmen very much in this game in hostile territory. She started Lacey for the first time in a long while, and the two Hulls and Williams were all way over 30 minutes. Jones had 29, Fingall just 21 even though she looked very effective. It was strange that Anna Wilson, who was a major reason Ionescu was somewhat slowed down in our tournament victory, got only 7 minutes. Belibi had 11 and Prechtel 15--but outside the 5 position we played essentially 4 players for all the meaningful minutes of the game.
As a team, we shot 44% which is not too bad, but Oregon shot a scorching 49%, so our defense can be said to have been...ineffective. We were also badly outrebounded. Oregon had 10 O-boards and we had 4. Turnovers also badly hurt us. We had 18 to their 7. Many of those turnovers were on inside passes into the paint that Oregon was ready for. A net -11 in turnovers and -6 in Oboards is going to sink any team, especially when the other team is shooting nearly 50%. In short, it was a debacle.
Individually, Lacy Hull was outstanding, going 4/5 shooting and leading the team with 4 assists. Tara seems to have been right to start her.
Fingall seemed to me to have done well, especially in the first half, and Prectel did fairly well in the second half--they both shot 50%. Neither one could defend Hebert 1 on 1, but who can?
Williams showed flashes of brilliance and was 3/6 from three point range, but she never caught fire in the way we needed her too, and she had 2 assists to 4 turnovers--a couple of them bad passes into the paint.
Jones was too quiet, except in the 2nd quarter when she drove down the center of the paint three times to score. But she did not duplicate that performance in the other three quarters, which we badly needed.
Conclusion:
No one game is the season. We have a big game against Oregon State on Sunday and many more after that. But I think it is clear that as wonderful as our freshmen are, we have not yet found a way to replace Smith and Carrington. Tara worked a miracle by getting her team to come back from a 40 point loss last year to defeat Oregon in the Pac 12 championship, and it will take another such miracle to defeat Oregon at Maples.
In the meantime, our team looks like a talented but inexperienced team that is going to lose some more games this season as it learns and improves. A win at OSU would go a long way to getting that stretch off to a good start.
