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

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Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - yvonne - 03-14-2014

Thanks, and happy birthday!

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - FarmBoy - 03-14-2014

It will be intereating to see how much motivation the guys have tomorrow. Have they been playing this week to get into the NCAA or to win the Pac12 Championship? If the former, all the pundits are saying this game sealed it for them, so we may see some lack of focus or energy out there. If the latter, these guys can be dangerous and have already proven they can beat UCLA.

Looking forward to another 2AM bedtime...

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - StanfordMatt - 03-14-2014

Viking_Guy: I believe Sendek took Bachynski out of the game precisely because of Powell's comfort level handling the ball outside the arc. When Bachynski couldn't matchup with Powell out there and Nastic was on the bench in foul trouble, there wasn't a big body down low for Bachynski to guard and so Sendek chose to go another route. Now, why he didn't switch to a zone or find another way to keep Bachynski on the floor, I don't know.

In my opinion, as long as Powell is driving to the rim and not settling for outside jumpers, I have no problem if he catches the ball in the post or at the top of the key. He's still taking advantage of his height, speed and ball handling when he receives the ball on the perimeter and takes his defender off the dribble. If anything, he's probably more successful attacking the rim in this fashion as opposed to posting up with his back to the basket.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - 76lsjumb - 03-14-2014

A few thoughts. 

First, Wow! A game that was fun to watch...something of a rarity this season. 

Second, it's pretty clear that Jahii Carson must be a Jedi, given his ability to convince the refs "That is not the travelling call you are looking to make!"  On a routine move he covers twice as much ground without dribbling as LeBron can ever hope to on his best move. If the ball had spent any more time on Jahii's shoulder he would have needed a backpack.

Third, Nastic deserves at least a little shout out.  The same refs who apparently couldn't see Jahii racking up all those frequent flyer miles [okay, I'll let it go...] managed to call Nasty at least once for simply looking sideways at somebody.  He's not the most graceful guy out there, but still, he gets beaten up pretty badly by the Bachynskis, Terzcewskis, and the other -skis that make up this year's contigent of Pac-12 posts, and doesn't seem to get anywhere near the same level of love from the refs as the others do.  Oh, and don't look now, but I think he is something like 12-for-12 from the field over our last 3 games.

Finally, given that I believe our chances of defeating Arizona [if we won tonight] are about the same as my chances of winning Warren Buffet's Bracket Challenge, and given that we really are pretty much relying on about 5 or 6 guys who have been playing a lot of late night basketball for 2 nights running, and given that a win tonight still probably wouldn't drastically change our seeding, and given my fear that our long absence from the Tourney has relegated us back to being one of the teams likely to get stuck in an early Thursday slot all the way across the country so the more rest we can get at this point, the better, and given that I would really like to win that first round game [regardless of what it means for the whole coaching thing]...I'm thinking that a defeat tonight [as long as it's not really ugly] might not be the worst outcome in the world.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - Leftcoast - 03-14-2014

Hungry teams with something to prove and a chip on their shoulder the size of Texas are the type of teams that win Pac 12 tournaments.  Stanford needs to be that kind of team.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - 76lsjumb - 03-14-2014

(03-14-2014, 08:57 AM)garvin link Wrote:To my absolute shock, 76lsjumb, I absolutely don't agree with you. This team needs to develop an urgency to win, and it needs to do that right now. Winning the tournament -- four games in four days, with a tight rotation -- is wildly improbable. But we've seen these guys shrug their shoulders after a promising win. If we lose tonight, I certainly won't kill myself. But it will reinforce my already strong conviction that any visit we make to the NCAAs will be nasty, brutish and short.

I will readily concede that my perspective may result from the scars I still bear from having pretty good seats in North Carolina almost exactly 25 years ago today to watch an obviously exhausted squad get taken out by Siena early on a Thursday morning... after having lost the Pac-10 championship game to Arizona only a few days before.

I didn't say I wouldn't be rooting for them to win tonight.  I just said a "respectable" loss might have a silver lining...

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - burger - 03-14-2014

Garvin and 76, I agree with both of you, and not just because of the rest issue.  A win tonight, and I think we're an 8 or 9 seed, which means an east coast or midwest subregion (we won't be put in Arizona's subregion) and, if we advance, a chance to get blown out by a #1 seed playing a virtual home game (like Florida at Orlando).  A 10 seed would mean an infinitesimally harder first-round game followed by an easier second-round game, plus a chance to play a bit closer to home or, hopefully, farther from our opponent's fan base.

Either way, of course, I'll be rooting for the good guys tonight.  I always enjoy seeing UCLA lose.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - Papa John - 03-14-2014

I'm not at all into playing the "seeding" game. Where we end up depends on a lot of factors, most of them outside of our control. Maybe if we beat UCLA, we're a 7 seed, and if we lose we're a 10 seed. Maybe not.

I don't care that it's mid-March; it's not too late until the season is over. The Stanford men's basketball team needs to grow a chip on its collective shoulder and play every possession like it is pissed off for greatness.

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - BostonCard - 03-14-2014

I'm with Garvin.  Losing tonight wouldn't be the end of the world since at this point, we are near-locks.  However, I would really like to go into the tournament as a "hot" team, which would involve beating UCLA and Arizona.  That would make us the kind of team that no top team would want to play, and would give me hope that we could be on the other side of a top-seed upset in the second time round.

Plus, I always root for us to win, full stop.  No reason to over think this.  Making the p12 tournament finals or winning the tournament would be a nice accomplishment. And winning some games in the tourney would be as well.

BC

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - Papa John - 03-14-2014

I also take exception to the idea that playing four games in four nights will affect the team's play next week. Eight out of the last 10 national champions played in their conference tourney's championship games. The positives taken from defeating conference foes in a one-and-done contest far outweigh the negatives, IMO.

Although, next week is final's week at Stanford, right? I think Lou Holtz would agree that exams make a much better excuse for why athletes are worn down [NB: this is a cryptic reference written with good-natured sarcasm].

Re: Not sure why I am, but Pac-12 tournament - 76lsjumb - 03-14-2014

(03-14-2014, 01:44 PM)Papa John link Wrote:I also take exception to the idea that playing four games in four nights will affect the team's play next week. Eight out of the last 10 national champions played in their conference tourney's championship games. The positives taken from defeating conference foes in a one-and-done contest far outweigh the negatives, IMO.

And how many of those teams opened the tourney playing on Thursday morning, 1000's of miles away from campus, against a better [or, at least, better-seeded] team?  Without checking, I'm guessing not many [actually, probably none]. 

I hope I'm wrong and we get a great seed for a Friday evening game in San Diego...but I wouldn't bet on it.  Of course, I will readily concede that actually defeating both UCLA AND Arizona would markedly increase the chance of the latter scenario, so you might have a point there. 

I'm just not optimistic about a win over Arizona, even if we do get past UCLA.  And, to be fair, if you're considering the positives of those potential victories, you ought also factor in the negatives of a potential blow-out loss to Arizona, which, in my opinion, would be more than just the fatigue element.

But, one more time just to be clear, I'm rooting big-time for a win tonight AND a win tomorrow, regardless of the potential after effects [after all, it's easy for me to say that they shouldn't be tired from having to play four game in four days...I'm not the one having to guard Gordon!  ;D ]