The CardBoard
Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - Printable Version

+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament (/thread-6851.html)

Pages: 1 2 3

Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - jeboody - 03-12-2014

It IS possible to teach players how to box out right?  Right??

Frustrating to watch.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - BostonCard - 03-12-2014

Ummm... wow.  We are not a tournament quality team.  How are we down 50-47 to WSU.

BC

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - scorecard - 03-12-2014

(03-12-2014, 10:16 PM)jeboody link Wrote:It IS possible to teach players how to box out right?  Right??

Frustrating to watch.

I believe all our available practice time was spent trying to teach our 7 footers to take charges.   

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - CrazedZooChimp - 03-12-2014

(03-12-2014, 10:21 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Ummm... wow.  We are not a tournament quality team.  How are we down 50-47 to WSU.

BC

Sure doesn't look like it based on the past 5 games or whatever, even if we win this.  How are we so damn inconsistent.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - BostonCard - 03-12-2014

Somehow we've gone on a 16-4 run and are now leading by 9.

BC

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - FarmBoy - 03-12-2014

It's a good thing the tournament committee is mostly asleep for this. They'll see the boxscore and think Stanford took care of business and not realize how we played down to the competition.

I don't think this team is appreciably better than last year's, but all the "experts" are saying we're in, so who am I to argue...

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - BostonCard - 03-12-2014

74-63 the final.  We end the game on a nice run, going 27-13 in the last 10 or so minutes.  As painful as it was to watch, I have to give the team credit for stepping it up when it counted.  Of course, we should have never been down 50-47, but certainly better that than being ahead and blowing the lead.

BC

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - JohnR34231 - 03-13-2014

Not a big basketball follower, but I think you have to keep your expectations down with this team. They are not going to suddenly transform into world beaters, so just be happy for them when they win (or unhappy if you want Dawkins fired and you are afraid too many victories will prevent that). If you expect a lot of style points along with the victory you are probably going to be disappointed.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - burger - 03-13-2014

I hate to disappoint the pessimists, but I'm virtually certain that we're in the Tournament now.  The current consensus has us as 10 seed.  The only way I see us missing out now would be if several autobids to go to teams that would not be at-large selections and several teams below us on the projected s-curve (like Xavier, Tennessee, Nebraska, and Arkansas) advance to their conference tournaments' title games.

It seems like some folks on this board are so fixated on having Dawkins fired that they've lost sight of something more important--rewarding the players for their hard work and sacrifice.  Our coaching might be (okay--is) bad, but the players have surely worked their butts off, with little to show for it except a nice run in the NIT 2 years ago.  Even if we get blown out in the first round of the Tourney, Powell & Huestis & Randle & everyone else on the team deserve a little taste of what every Stanford men's basketball player got for years under Monty and Johnson.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - FarmBoy - 03-13-2014

Count me as a pessimist who will not be disappointed if we get into the NCAA. I am hopeful that Muir is smart enough to recognize that we've underachieved and make a change at the top, even if we do make the tournament. I guess that will smack of lack of trustworthiness after publicly saying things that would lead one to believe that NCAA = Dawkins stays, no NCAA = Dawkins is gone. But he has to see that the team could be so much better than it is. Still, I stayed up until 2AM EST to watch them scratch out a win against one of the worst teams in the league. I root for our boys no matter the circumstances. But I'm still hoping for a change.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - washingtonismoney - 03-13-2014

I think it's a little simplistic to imply pessimists have lost sight of what's important with regards to the four graduating seniors. Let's accept for the sake of argument (though there's not much of one these days), that Dawkins is a poor coach who -- going forward -- will have a similar ratio of non-appearances to tournament appearances as he has in the beginning of his career.

Looked at from this perspective, what's important here? Why should the four graduating seniors have such a great claim to enjoy March Madness that it deprives incoming freshmen of potential tournament appearances -- to say nothing of foregone professional and personal opportunities? There are very few free lunches and everything involves trade-offs; if we need to miss the tournament to lose Dawkins, I feel bad for the graduating seniors -- who seem to be hard-working and fine citizens -- but that's what we need to do.

Of course, it really doesn't need to be this way. Regardless of the ultimate end to this season, Dawkins should be fired, and we shouldn't let a few bounces of the ball distract us from the trajectory of the program.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - washingtonismoney - 03-13-2014

(03-13-2014, 09:59 AM)garvin link Wrote:ps: Don't kid yourselves. If he makes the tournament, Dawkins is certainly coming back. Muir said he wanted to see the team in the NCAAs. Moving the line further back will make potential applicants skittish.

Hard to say whether your first sentence is accurate, but Muir said he was seeking contention for conference title before the season.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - washingtonismoney - 03-13-2014

(03-13-2014, 10:06 AM)garvin link Wrote:The team finished in a tie for third place in the conference. That's arguably playing for the championship, especially if we subsequently make the tournament. As I've said before, Muir likes Dawkins, which is why he wasn't fired last season. I wish I was wrong about all this, but I'm afraid that you'll be seeing, very soon, that I'm not.

The definition Muir applies and whether that means he's bringing Dawkins back is one debate. But that's immaterial to the point I was making, which is that the sentence "Muir said he wanted to see the team in the NCAAs" is inaccurate.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - 76lsjumb - 03-13-2014

I don't know whether the measuring stick that Muir is using is NCAA tourney v. no NCAA tourney, but, if it is, it seems to me clearly to be focusing on the wrong metric.  The metric that should be used to judge the quality of a coach and staff, especially at a place like Stanford, is whether players individually -- and, to the extent the same players are still around, those players collectively as a team -- are getting better over time, that is, fulfilling their potential.  Individually, are "freshman mistake" moments consistently, even if gradually, morphing into "senior leadership" moments?  As a team, are "unforced errors" over time turning into smoothly run plays?  If so, the odds are fairly high that you've got good coaches who are effective teachers and motivators. 

So, the question that Muir should be asking [other than, of course, how many more games at Maples can I stand where opposing fans not only greatly outnumber the 6th Man Club but also make substantially more noise than the ever-decreasing cadre of Stanford fans?] is whether this year's group of seniors has improved as much over four years as a good coach [i.e., "professor of basketball"] should and would have enabled and inspired them to improve over that time period.  Regretfully -- for the sake of those seniors and because Dawkins seems like a genuinely good guy -- I think the answer to that question is negative.  [And, just to be clear, I'm not discounting the value of being a good guy.  There are a number of coaches with successful teams that certainly come across as jerks, but I'm not promoting that style, either.]

Whether or not we make the tourney this year will likely be determined as much by wholly extraneous factors -- e.g., Colorado losing Spencer Dinwiddie, whether or not Nebraska makes a deep run in the B1G tourney, and the like -- as by our own play, but whether those other things break our way or not is obviously not a proper measure of whether Dawkins is a good coach or should be retained.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - FarmBoy - 03-13-2014

Surely Muir knows how to operate a DVD/VCR player and has someone on staff to whom he can turn for old game film. I would think it would be pretty easy for him to sample a few games over the years to get a feel for what things are like. Heck, the marketing staff must have a promotional video of our big wins against UCLA, UA and others that clearly show what Maples can be like with a winning team. Hopefully there's staff who have been there going back to Monty's time to give the perspective as well, if he just wants to pick up the phone. Heck, those ticket takers are probably the same ol' dudes from Adam Keefe's time on the Farm. He can just strike up a conversation with them.

If Muir is mystified (where's your evidence of this?) why fans are upset over this long run of no NCAA, then we have big problems on our hands.

EDIT: If Muir needs another testimonial, perhaps he can talk to the newly appointed Deputy Commissioner and COO for the Pac-12, Jamie Zaninovich, who was Director of Men’s Basketball Operations & Marketing at Stanford University (1996-1999). Jamie essentially ran the 6th man club back in the heyday.

http://pac-12.com/article/2014/03/13/pac-12-names-zaninovich-deputy-commissioner-and-chief-operating-officer

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - teejers1 - 03-13-2014

On the Bowlsby hire of Dawkins:

That whole thing was a cluster bomb, starting with Trent's determination that he wasn't wanted (and thereby bolting for LSU) continuing with Bowlsby stumbling through the search (was pretty obvious BB who had no "short list" to replace the guy he allegedly did not want); sort of concluding with the hiring of Dawkins; and really concluding with (a) the release of the elder Plumlee from his LOI, and (b) Dawkins' ill-thought-out decision to help Coach K in his Olympics endeavor [And really, Coach K, how could you LET Dawkins even do that, knowing he was a rookie thrust into running his own program?  . . . Oh, that's right, it's because you don't give a rat's a$$ about anything other than yourself/Duke basketball, and having Dawkins join you was "win/win" from that perspective].

But the point of this post is not to rehash the truthfulness of the above - I'll concede that it is only my opinion of what went down; rather, the point is to remind everyone of the rumor that Bowlsby was supposedly close to bringing Larry Brown to The Farm.  Others thought it scandalous to hire the peripatetic Larry Brown, but I thought it would have been genius.  And how about SMU under the Old Guy?

Ahhhh, what could have been . . .

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - Spiny_Norman - 03-13-2014

As much as we are frustrated with the team's performance under Dawkins, it could have been worse.  Stanford could have hired Ben Braun.

http://www.chron.com/sports/rice/article/Rice-basketball-coach-Ben-Braun-out-after-six-5314431.php

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - 76lsjumb - 03-13-2014

(03-13-2014, 01:23 PM)Spiny_Norman link Wrote:As much as we are frustrated with the team's performance under Dawkins, it could have been worse.  Stanford could have hired Ben Braun.

http://www.chron.com/sports/rice/article/Rice-basketball-coach-Ben-Braun-out-after-six-5314431.php

Or Andy Enfield, for that matter...

garvin, if Muir wants to get some information on the way things used to be, all he has to do is talk to the guy who sits about six or seven [generally empty] seats over from him at every game...John Arrillaga.  The guy knows at least something about basketball.  As for assessing whether our players have improved, the past two seasons have provided ample opportunity to do that.



Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - Stymie - 03-13-2014

(03-13-2014, 01:53 PM)76lsjumb link Wrote:[quote author=Spiny_Norman link=topic=9669.msg85481#msg85481 date=1394742223]
As much as we are frustrated with the team's performance under Dawkins, it could have been worse.  Stanford could have hired Ben Braun.

http://www.chron.com/sports/rice/article/Rice-basketball-coach-Ben-Braun-out-after-six-5314431.php

Or Andy Enfield, for that matter...

garvin, if Muir wants to get some information on the way things used to be, all he has to do is talk to the guy who sits about six or seven [generally empty] seats over from him at every game...John Arrillaga.  The guy knows at least something about basketball.  As for assessing whether our players have improved, the past two seasons have provided ample opportunity to do that.
[/quote]

Ou est l'Arrillaga d'academie?

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - FarmBoy - 03-13-2014

I think there's a better than 50/50 chance that Dawkins comes back if we make the NCAA. But I wouldn't say it's a sure thing and if Muir is watching the same team we are, he should know better.