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WBB: Stanford 72 WSU 50 - Printable Version

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Re: WBB: Stanford 72 WSU 50 - Yellowlab - 03-04-2013

I just saw the new AP poll and Kal is at 5, with Duke dropping to 6.

Re: WBB: Stanford 72 WSU 50 - M T - 03-04-2013

Maybe, like with the football team, this is just one of those rebuilding years that we fans endure while waiting for everything to click next year.

This year: Sophomore point guard, junior star, losing only one senior (one I'll miss), ...  Sounds promising for next year.

Next year, Baylor won't have that tall player, what's the name?  (Do you know any other team that puts a link on the team's page to an individual player's web site??  Simms will be back, but they do lose players that play a bit over 50% of their game time)
Unfortunately, UConn will lose "only" Kelly Faris.
Notre Dame will lose Diggins.



Re: WBB: Stanford 72 WSU 50 - CompSci87 - 03-04-2013

I'm excited about next year -- especially if Toni is back and healthy, and Ruef is back. UConn will be the team to beat. The other usual suspects should be good too.

Quote:Maybe, like with the football team, this is just one of those rebuilding years that we fans endure while waiting for everything to click next year.

Heh, actually I didn't get the above subtle joke at first. The football team won the Rose Bowl in their rebuilding year! So maybe we are too pessimistic about WBB's chances this year.  ;D

Re: WBB: Stanford 72 WSU 50 - 81alum - 03-04-2013

I would have to agree that this year has exceeded my expectations.  If you look at last summer's posts you will find that I got very pessimistic when we learned that Ally Beebe was out for another year.  I had hoped that she would help replace at least some of Nneka's minutes.  And if we had known that Toni would struggle with illness all year long, hindering her play or knocking her out entirely, then I think our expectations would have been lower yet.  And of course back then we did not really know that Ruef or Green or Camp would successfully overcome the injuries from the prior year.

That said, there is much left to be determined about this team's legacy.  If we win the Pac-12 tourney and find a way to get back to the Final Four I will hail this as one of the more miraculous coaching jobs in Tara's tenure.  If we lose to Cal and get knocked out in the 3rd or 4th round I will conclude that we did as well as we could with less talent than usual.

The "miracle" that Tara has wrought has been that she has fielded the best defensive team in Stanford history.  Our size and length and good coaching have been enough to overwhelm all the "lesser" teams we were supposed to beat.  We have been remarkably consistent--which meant that even on an off night we never lost to a truly inferior team.  That is what our defense has provided.

How have we done against teams with similar size and skill?  So far, I'd say we are 2-2.  Against Cal, Connecticut, and Baylor our defense did not prove to be nearly as effective as it obviously was against the rest of the pack.  Tennessee and South Carolina seemed like good wins at the time, but it is becoming clear that they are not up to Cal's level this year.  Against the top teams, when our offense got hot we won, and when it went cold we lost. 

This is the reason for my reservations about our current success.  I would love to see more consistent offensive play against top teams.  We will need more efficient scoring, better perimeter shooting, crisper passing.  But are these players capable of that?  Perhaps Tara has gotten all she can out of them--that is what we do not yet know.  I guess I still feel traumatized by the UConn loss, and when I see Notre Dame defeat UConn twice I am left wondering what went wrong for us.  I  will feel much better when I see this group run an efficient offense against the likes of Cal, UConn, or Baylor a second time. 

Re: WBB: Stanford 72 WSU 50 - meos - 03-05-2013

Overall grade, exceeds expectations -- to this point, end of the regular season.
Kudos to the team and coaches for that.

On individual player evaluations, let's take the Stan-Uconn game as an example. How much of those  performances were the individuals vs the coach's instruction/system? "All Chiney all the time" didn't work very well.

I've been encouraged that the coaches seem to have opened the offense up to more  individuals since then (but there are still old imposed habits to break). We'll see what happens when the pressure is on; will things stay open, or will panic set in, and we go back into the shell - of "All Chiney ... all the time".