[Papa John]

A little over a week ago, Stanford was at 8-7 in the conference with home games coming up against the mountain schools. Win those two, the latter of which was Senior Night, and Stanford would have an outside shot at claiming a first-round bye in the conference tournament. Alas, it was the mountain schools that swept their Bay Area roadies, and Stanford at 8-9 is now in 8th place and sinking fast in the standings. Stanford is a woeful 4-6 in its last 10 conference games, and the Cardinal visit the desert schools next week, where Arizona is one of the best teams in the nation and ASU has risen like the phoenix. A loss tomorrow and Stanford is pretty much guaranteed a(nother) losing conference record.

Fortunately for Stanford, their opponent on Saturday is even more woeful. Cal is 2-8 in its last 10 conference games, the only wins coming, somehow, on the road against the Oregon schools. In fact, Cal is riding a 7-game home losing streak. Stanford defeated Cal at Maples a couple of weeks ago, 57-50, but, with the goals of the aforementioned first-round bye in the conference tournament and an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament out of reach, the Cardinal are now only playing for pride, as even a bid to the NIT feels unlikely.

Back to Cal: The Bears are dead-last in conference play in scoring (Stanford is 9th) at 62.9 ppg and 7th in scoring defense (Stanford is 5th) at 68.4 ppg. The Bears obviously miss 2x all-conference player Matt Bradley, who transferred to San Diego State, and forward Andre Kelly, who was injured vs USC in late January and is out for the remainder of the season. Their leading scorer is senior G Jordan Shepherd, who is averaging 14.6 ppg, but takes a lot of shots--and misses a lot of shots--to achieve said average. However, Saturday's game will be the final home game for Shepherd and Grant Antecivich, another starter. We'll see if Cal conjures up some Senior Night magic, something that Stanford was unable to do in its previous game vs Colorado.

To add injury to insult, ESPN's BPI gives lowly Cal a 55.8% probability of defeating Stanford. Even the computers have given up on the Cardinal. Yet in the words of FDR, “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts today.” And tomorrow, Stanford plays Cal, and that's all that matters.

Beat Cal!

[Papa John]

A little over a week ago, Stanford was at 8-7 in the conference with home games coming up against the mountain schools. Win those two, the latter of which was Senior Night, and Stanford would have an outside shot at claiming a first-round bye in the conference tournament. Alas, it was the mountain schools that swept their Bay Area roadies, and Stanford at 8-9 is now in 8th place and sinking fast in the standings. Stanford is a woeful 4-6 in its last 10 conference games, and the Cardinal visit the desert schools next week, where Arizona is one of the best teams in the nation and ASU has risen like the phoenix. A loss tomorrow and Stanford is pretty much guaranteed a(nother) losing conference record.

Fortunately for Stanford, their opponent on Saturday is even more woeful. Cal is 2-8 in its last 10 conference games, the only wins coming, somehow, on the road against the Oregon schools. In fact, Cal is riding a 7-game home losing streak. Stanford defeated Cal at Maples a couple of weeks ago, 57-50, but, with the goals of the aforementioned first-round bye in the conference tournament and an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament out of reach, the Cardinal are now only playing for pride, as even a bid to the NIT feels unlikely.

Back to Cal: The Bears are dead-last in conference play in scoring (Stanford is 9th) at 62.9 ppg and 7th in scoring defense (Stanford is 5th) at 68.4 ppg. The Bears obviously miss 2x all-conference player Matt Bradley, who transferred to San Diego State, and forward Andre Kelly, who was injured vs USC in late January and is out for the remainder of the season. Their leading scorer is senior G Jordan Shepherd, who is averaging 14.6 ppg, but takes a lot of shots--and misses a lot of shots--to achieve said average. However, Saturday's game will be the final home game for Shepherd and Grant Antecivich, another starter. We'll see if Cal conjures up some Senior Night magic, something that Stanford was unable to do in its previous game vs Colorado.

To add injury to insult, ESPN's BPI gives lowly Cal a 55.8% probability of defeating Stanford. Even the computers have given up on the Cardinal. Yet in the words of FDR, “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts today.” And tomorrow, Stanford plays Cal, and that's all that matters.

Beat Cal!