03-03-2023, 10:08 PM
Oh come on, UCLA doesn't go as deep as Stanford does and Close is no genius at subbing. I don't see the times played in the stats yet but against UA, UCLA played their starters over 30 minutes and this was game three for them. They went to over time in their first game. Stanford has gone deeper than them most games. There is no reason anyone on our team should be all that tired, certainly not more tired than UCLA. Jones and Jump play a lot, probably a bit too much, but sitting another minute or two shouldn't make a vast difference. This isn't UConn where he rides his starters plus one sub for 40 minutes.
I do totally agree that the one possession where it looked like we were running down the clock on purpose with a three point lead and 3 minutes to go was really, really bad. I hated that at the time, and it shows why we lost the game. That wasn't tiredness, it was passiveness and playing not to lose. We stopped doing what worked on offense and totally collapsed on defense. There were plenty of fresh legs in the game. Defense should not have struggled that much. But again, UCLA took and made tough shots. We did not.
I do totally agree that the one possession where it looked like we were running down the clock on purpose with a three point lead and 3 minutes to go was really, really bad. I hated that at the time, and it shows why we lost the game. That wasn't tiredness, it was passiveness and playing not to lose. We stopped doing what worked on offense and totally collapsed on defense. There were plenty of fresh legs in the game. Defense should not have struggled that much. But again, UCLA took and made tough shots. We did not.