[Hieronymus]

The other way to look at it is that ND is probably the second best team in the country (and was the top team for much of the year).  I like it much better when we talk about Stanford's relative weaknesses against top-10 teams than, for example, the football team, which struggled  against one of the worst teams in the country.  Even the volleyball team will probably be an underdog against #3 Pitt on Friday.

Winning a national title will be hard, and I think it is more likely than not that Stanford will fall short at some point along the way.  But I think we are still the favorites.  Not a bad spot to be in going into the tournament, warts and all.

BC

Definitely take this as deep analysis of Stanford against 2 of the top 4 other teams in the country. The first half today was an incredibly high level of play for both teams.

The women are clearly a contender, but definitely not an overwhelming favorite. They will have to be able to control play better against faster opponents to win the last 2 games in the tournament, and not have a bad finishing day in the rd 16/rd 8 games. It would also be nice to not have an ACC team in the r16/r8 games. I will be very unsurprised if it’s an all ACC college cup again this year.

[Hieronymus]

The other way to look at it is that ND is probably the second best team in the country (and was the top team for much of the year).  I like it much better when we talk about Stanford's relative weaknesses against top-10 teams than, for example, the football team, which struggled  against one of the worst teams in the country.  Even the volleyball team will probably be an underdog against #3 Pitt on Friday.

Winning a national title will be hard, and I think it is more likely than not that Stanford will fall short at some point along the way.  But I think we are still the favorites.  Not a bad spot to be in going into the tournament, warts and all.

BC

Definitely take this as deep analysis of Stanford against 2 of the top 4 other teams in the country. The first half today was an incredibly high level of play for both teams.

The women are clearly a contender, but definitely not an overwhelming favorite. They will have to be able to control play better against faster opponents to win the last 2 games in the tournament, and not have a bad finishing day in the rd 16/rd 8 games. It would also be nice to not have an ACC team in the r16/r8 games. I will be very unsurprised if it’s an all ACC college cup again this year.