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WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - Viking_Guy - 01-21-2011

And not as close as even that large of a margin of victory.

Stanford absolutely outclassed the Bruins tonight, throttling them on defense and making the UCLA press look silly for the vast majority of the game.  That said, they gave back a bit too much at the end of the game, and I think the team in powder blue might have a rather large chip on their shoulder and a bit of payback on their minds come the game in Pauley in a few weeks.

This was one of the ugliest big wins I\'ve ever seen.  I mean, this is a matchup between #4 and #8 in the country, the biggest Pac-10 matchup in years, and no TV or major coverage of any kind?

Not only that, the peripherals of the game were bad.  First off, the scoreboard/timekeeping was malfunctioning - LSJUMB ended up playing about a 10 minute version of Swingtown when they couldn\'t get the clock right at the start of the game, and it had issues throughout.

Pair that with the Pac-10\'s C or D officiating crew.  I mean, I hate the fact that Missy Barlow tries to inject herself into the game all the time, but most of her calls are okay; she just needs a few moments of me-time with her whistle each outing. Tonight\'s officials were just mystifyingly inept.  Beginning at the opening whistle.

The biggest thing missing from this game?  The UCLA offense.  Or any semblance thereof.  The Bruins were just awful, no rhythm or apparently offensive plays at all.  A lot of dribbling the ball around the perimeter, tossing it back and forth, then trying to run clear outs so that players could go 1v1 at the basket.  Stanford didn\'t bite.

How bad was it?  Well, their first offensive possessions were: miss, miss, two missed FTs, miss, miss, turnover, miss, miss, miss.  They didn\'t score until after the first media timeout, while Stanford clawed their way out to an 8-0 lead.  I do mean clawed - the Bruin defense grabbed, clutched, held and raked at the ball every chance they got, but the Cardinal managed to keep scoring.  And the Jr High School refereeing crew didn\'t seem to see any fouls (they ended the first half of a very physical basketball game having called a total of 9).

I thought UCLA might have righted the ship and would get back into the game when they scored a few points in the middle of the half to cut the lead to 22-13 at around the 6 minute mark.

Then they scored exactly 2 points in the last 6 minutes of the half.

Meanwhile, Mel Murphy got her first minutes of the season, Stanford went small with Mel and Toni in the game to help with the press break and running the offense, and Stanford got a couple of nice layups from Chiney.  And led at halftime 32-15.

You would think it couldn\'t continue.  But a strange thing happened.  Nikki Caldwell held the Bruins in the locker room pretty much the entirety of the intermission; they never came out to warmup for the second half, and didn\'t take a single shot - ever, in pregame or at halftime - at the hoop at the north end of Maples.  Um, for a team that was having trouble putting the ball in the basket, maybe not the best idea?

Because they then proceeded to score exactly 1 point in the first 4 minutes of the second half.  And 1 point in the next 3+ minutes.  At the 13 minute mark of the second half, 27 minutes into the game, the score was Stanford 46-17.  The Bruins then hit their first field goal of the second half, and another one fairly quickly.

And then didn\'t score again until about 8 minutes were left, when the score was 56-21.  And Mel Murphy had apparently replaced Jeanette for the duration.

Oh, and the referees who called 9 fouls in the entirety of a physical first half?  They\'d called 15 in the first 12 minutes of the second. The last being a "flagrant" high elbow call on Sarah Boothe that had all of us scratching our heads - it was called off the ball on offense, and not on any rebounding opportunity.  And the referees had to go to the monitor to determine it.  I\'m not sure I like the high-elbow emphasis calls this year - at one point, Kayla got hammered by three different Bruins as she rebounded, but couldn\'t bring the ball up and turn, because she would\'ve nailed one of them with an elbow.  And the refs eventually called a held ball, bailing out on what should\'ve been a foul.

The last 8 minutes were a ragged and disappointing affair, as the Bruins kept the pressure on and a lot of their starters in, and made the final score more respectable than it really should\'ve been, while Mel tried to fit in with the subs and the freshmen committed too many TOs.

Prior to the game, I told one of my compatriots we would win if Stanford had less than 16 TOS and outrebounded the Bruins.  Woo-hoo! The Card ended with 15 TOs (a lot in garbage time) and outboarded UCLA by a dominating 44-27, including 13 offensive boards.  Given how many shots UCLA missed, I\'m shocked they didn\'t have more rebounds.

More in a second...

VG


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - Viking_Guy - 01-21-2011

The stat of the game?  UCLA\'s "shooting."  If you can call it that.  How about 15-51 from the field for under 30%, 2-9 from 3 pt range against a Cardinal team that packed it into the paint and only 50% from the FT line?  Yikes.  One player especially, a tiny 5\'4" guard, was left wide open time and again on the perimeter with Kayla sagging off her into the paint, and didn\'t dare to take a shot.

Speaking of Kayla, she had her strongest game in weeks.  Not so much the outside shooting, although she did hit her first three in recent memory, 6-9 from the field, 5-6 from the line for 18 pts, 10 rebounds, and her typical hustle plays, although a few too many TOs. Strong game from Chiney with 11 boards as well, although the best of the game was Nneka flying in for one of her offensive board/stickback layup in one motion without coming down in the first half.

More generally, UCLA did disrupt the offense - Stanford only had 11 assists, which is VERY low for them.  Basically, the Bruins were denying entry passes, which led to a lot of Stanford tossing the ball around the perimeter, and then trying to drive and finish or drive and dish.  And Jeanette especially did not have a great shooting game, finishing 2-11.  The Bruins were great at guarding players 6\'1" and shorter; they just have no height.

One caveat: I\'m a bit concerned by that last 8 minutes.  I think the Cardinal didn\'t do a good job of "stomping on them when they\'re down," and what could\'ve been an utterly demoralizing loss for the Bruins instead turned into a "boy, if we could\'ve only played like we did in the last 8 minutes the whole game" lesson (even though they were playing against the Stanford bench, giving them a little confidence after the whuppin\' they received may be a bad combination).

One other piece of interesting WBB news: Samarie Walker, really the only athletic post player on the UConn roster and the one who had the most success trying to defend Stanford\'s inside game, left the Huskies today.  Their razor-thin bench just got thinner - I think they\'ll really be playing a 6-player rotation for a lot of the rest of the season.

Now on to Hangin\' with Michael Cooper on Saturday.

VG


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - CompSci87 - 01-21-2011

It seemed to me the long delay to check the video and call the elbowing foul on Boothe when Stanford was already way up really took the air out of the game. The crowd and players were a bit sluggish after that. The officials made a few other headscratching calls and non-calls around the same time that helped UCLA make up some of the points, too.


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - pepper1 - 01-21-2011

More excellent game analysis by VG.  I too thought it was a remarkably ugly, though decisive, victory.  UCLA\'s pressure defense (you could see the Pat Summitt influence) was fairly effective against the Cardinal for several stretches and will give Tara something to work on with the team.  Inconsistent PG play still makes Stanford vulnerable to that style.  Hopefully by March Toni will have increased her ratio of flashes of brilliance to bonehead freshman mistakes & Mel can contribute as well.

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - meos - 01-21-2011

Efficient effort overall by all.  Many good trends of progress visible out on the court during play. Even in prior 2 games, progress on getting to the foul line if one\'s shot isn\'t falling that night. Comprehensive. Nice to see so many taking advantage of this time to get better, and deliver that during game-time, before March madness hits.

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - Leftcoast - 01-21-2011

Ok ..... but what does this say about UCLA?  

Were they worthy of a #8 ranking?   If so, then is the gap between the top 5 in the country and the next five really THAT gapingly big?   My concern for some years has been that the "soft" Pac 10 does not adequately prepare Stanford for the tests it will see in the NCAA\'s.

I like that Stanford had to play through an aggressive, physical defense but other than that UCLA fell short just as ASU did earlier.  This wasn\'t the test for Tara\'s team that I was hoping for.  

Too negative a viewpoint?

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - Viking_Guy - 01-21-2011

Lefty--

I think it\'s more a gap between the top 5 (Baylor, UConn, Stanford, Duke, UT) and everyone else. UCLA did beat Notre Dame on their home court, after all, where the Irish only lost to UConn by 3.  They\'re not nearly as bad as Stanford made them look last night.

More than that, I\'m wondering if the standard "corrections" for home court advantage might not be big enough for women\'s basketball.  I said, among my other prognostications to friends last night, that we were probably about 15-18 points better than UCLA at home, about 10 on a neutral court, and about 4-5 at their place (making that game a tossup).  After last night, and watching the difference in Stanford\'s performance level on the road and at home (not final scores, but the trouble we had putting away weak WSU and UW teams for the first 30 minutes), I\'m wondering if the "home court edge" should be more like a 12 point swing than a 6 point swing for WBB.

A couple of other observations:
- It wasn\'t the UCLA press or trap that was the problem last night; it was their perimeter pressure.  Stanford\'s gotten too used to being able to hand the ball off uncontested from a post to a circling guard at the wing, and the Bruins were good at disrupting that.  I was really hoping we would move Kayla to that position and keep the posts down low, with a shooter in the corner to balance out the triangle.  Instead, we often had Nneka, Chiney and Sarah out there, none of whom are a threat to turn and shoot at that distance, although Nneka and Chiney did turn and drive when both their mark and the guard\'s defender went after the ball over the top rather than dropping below.

- I really liked that a lot of the team got strong minutes last night: Boothe, Tinkle, Kokenis, Ruef all got time under pressure against a strong opponent that was still playing its starters.  Lindy didn\'t see much time, but it wasn\'t a good matchup for her; the Bruins are quick enough to deny her set shot 3-pointer, and she wasn\'t comfortable driving against them.  Toni, on the other hand, needs to work on her finishing off the drive; she\'s not been able to get the ball up over the rim on a number of drives under pressure in the last few games; I think she\'s not getting it out of her hands and up on the glass soon enough, but that\'s a shot she\'s got to be able to make at least more dangerous.  Right now, it just looks wild.

Lefty, to adduce more information - North Carolina (albeit they have a tradition of being overranked) got trounced by UConn at home by 30+ when they were ranked #12 last week.  So I\'m not certain UCLA was overrated by that much.  Although I\'m betting they\'ll drop in the rankings much more than the Tar Heels will, given the continuing perceived weakness of the Pac-10 (another reason the blowout last night was maybe not the best outcome; we really need a couple more strong programs in the conference to boost its reputation).

Oh, and to the top-5, add Texas A&M on the periphery.  They\'re good but haven\'t faced one of the powerhouses yet.  They play Baylor at some point soon.

VG


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - Viking_Guy - 01-21-2011

Another addendum: RPI-wise, there is a substantial gap between the top-6 (Duke, UConn, Tennessee, Stanford, TAMU and Baylor) and the next set of teams.

Duke has benefitted from a lopsided schedule: they\'ve played 5 of their 6 games against the RPI top-25 at home, the sole exception being Florida State in their last game.  We\'ll see how they fare at UConn Jan. 31.  That being said, they are undefeated against the top-rated SOS.

TAMU and Baylor also play one another in College Station on the 31st.

Stanford\'s SOS jumped from #7 (after playing UW and WSU back to back) back up to #2 after the UCLA win.  We\'ll see what happens after we play RPI #22 SC on Saturday.

More generally, I think the big difference this year in WBB is which teams can score (which is why I\'m somewhat skeptical of Duke and VERY skeptical of Xavier - I\'m not sure either of them have enough offensive firepower and options if their defense isn\'t generating transition).  UCLA and ASU are good teams, but when they run into teams that don\'t allow their defense to provide them easy offense, they really struggle.  Stanford (with their balance), UConn (with Maya Moore) and Baylor (with the sheer physical advantage of Griner) all have offensive options that are nearly impossible to completely take away.

VG

Technical Foul - meos - 01-21-2011

Hard to say how much real contact was involved in Boothe\'s "elbow" technical (looked like a lot of arm and a lot of acting for emphasis by the UCLA player). But if safety and sending a message to all players is the concern, I can go with it.

However, if refs are going to the monitor for this kind of borderline technical play, I don\'t understand why refs (and the league) allow players to undercut (take out an opposing player\'s feet) -- with no technical foul.

To me, the undercut is much more deserving of an automatic technical foul, and you rarely need a monitor to verify it. But it seems like if you put the phrase "going for the ball" in front of a undercut play, there is never a technical called -- and too often no foul called. The safety standard is missing there. (Kayla was the victim of one of those undercuts several games back; and I cringe every time I see that undercut play in any game, against any team.)

So if the refs (and the league) are going to have an automatic technical rule for safety, I\'d like to see them quickly add the \'undercut\' to those rules that they already have for the \'elbow\'.

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - Viking_Guy - 01-21-2011

Soem--

Fully agree on the undercut; dangerous to knees, ankles if you get there while the feet are planted, and dangerous to the back of the head/neck if they\'re not.  Another example I remember clearly is one by a Washington Husky on Jennifer Azzi in 89 or 90 at Maples - Azzi jumped to catch a pass and had her legs taken out from under her by a defender "going for the ball" - which was three feet above where she hit Jennifer.

On the elbowing emphasis - the other thing that needs to be clarified is the amount of permissible contact when trying to "tie up" a rebounder, the case in point being the Pedersen tie up I mentioned before.  She had the ball at chest height, but before she could clear it, she was surrounded tightly by three Bruins slapping at it.  If she raises her arms up in almost any fashion, she\'s going to hit one of them in the head with an elbow.

And the player who undercut Kayla was Maya Moore, so I\'m surprised any foul was called.  As an aside, in watching her I\'ve noticed a remarkable proclivity for what would be called in another level of player "cheap shots" - the forearm to Nneka\'s face, as well as a semi-deliberate trip of a Notre Dame player behind the play in their game in South Bend.  So I really wish ESPN would back off on her beatification.  She\'s a great player, in the same way and with some of the same traits (not all of them good) as Michael Jordan, but she is not an all-star Mother Teresa.

Sorry for the rant,

VG


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - BobK - 01-21-2011

Very nice VikingGuy.    I thought the stat of the game, Stanford 13 steals, UCLA 10.  But we are slow. LOL  And to the cal fan above, you can call our PG inconsistant, but many of us call Jeanette Pohlen The First Team All American Point Guard.  

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - CompSci87 - 01-21-2011

I think BobK was referring to ghsfcal as a Cal fan.

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - yvonne - 01-21-2011

I think ghsfcal is a Stanford fan. The SFCAL page probably has to do with where he or she lives.

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 38 - treefan - 01-22-2011

nice recap as always VG. The lead ref was Brenda Pantoja, who also did the UConn game. Melissa Barlow has gotten better over time and compared to the crew that did the UCLA game, I\'d prefer her over Brenda.  I thought the clock issue and other game stoppage for the foul on Boothe, which was total BS, ruined some the flow of the game. Not to mention not scoring for 9 min. Ugh

How do they NOT call the UCLA player leveling Chiney on her perfect pick at mid court? This what what kills me in women\'s bball, the obvious plays are missed (a lot pushing by Dixon in the paint), but ticky tack calls are made.

Tara wasn\'t happy with our lack of execution and TOs, but UCLA D and playing a lot of players led to the inconsistent play.