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WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - Viking_Guy - 03-12-2011

Toni.  Toni. Toni.

With the Pac-10 player of the year having her worst game in recent memory, Toni Kokenis led Stanford back from their worst half of basketball with a career-high 17 points, including 10 straight to turn a 48-47 deficit into a 57-48 lead, and the Cardinal hung on to win the final Pac-10 championship.

More in a second, while I order my thoughts.

VG


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - Viking_Guy - 03-12-2011

UCLA outhustled, outworked and outphysicaled Stanford in the first half.  Their 2-3 zone was disrupting the passing lanes, and Jeanette Pohlen had her worst single half of the year, going 0-5 from the field with 3 assists but 3 turnovers, and in general not making anything happen against the Bruins\' harassing defense.

It didn\'t start out that way.  Lindy LaRocque hit a three to open the scoring, and Stanford got out to a 7-2 lead with Chiney hitting a couple of buckets.  But there were warning signs.  Jeanette turned the ball over and committed a soft foul that let Doreena Campbell complete a 3 point play.  More troublingly, Stanford seemed content to toss the ball around the outside of the 2-3 zone, before getting late in the shot clock and tossing up a three pointer.  None of which were falling.  No one was driving into the lane to force the zone to rotate; no one was getting to the free throw line to receive a high-post entry pass and get in the "hole" in the zone.  It was one of the least effective zone-offensive displays, and points out a major vulnerability of this Stanford team - the lack of a slasher/scorer.  Part of that is personnel, but part of it is also the sacred triangle.  Playing the triangle against a 2-3 zone is, well, not the most effective set - the offensive triangle is matched up against a defensive triangle.

Defensively, the Cardinal was playing well, but Lindy was losing her player (Campbell or Darxia Morris) off simple baseline screens, and Stanford and Tara showed her continually frustrating unwillingness to pack in a zone against a team that I believe has the second-fewest three pointers made in Division I.  And when the Bruins discovered the key to beating Stanford\'s switches was a simple high-post pick and roll with a bounce pass to the roller, they turned a 16-9 Stanford lead into a 21-18 deficit, with the only basket being Toni getting into the lane for her short pull-up jumper, a shot that I really love.

And then Chiney picked up her second foul, and sat.  And Stanford fell apart.  NINE consecutive trips down the floor ended in five bad late three point shots and four turnovers.  They couldn\'t get the ball inside, and settled for long shots that weren\'t falling.

Stanford went the final EIGHT minutes of the half hitting one shot, a three by Kayla that was absolutely critical.  Meanwhile, with Chiney sitting, the Bruins kept running the same play, high post screen and either a roll to the basket or a 15 foot pull up jumper.  Markel Walker finally hit a three point jumper, and Stanford, with the last possession of the half, trailed 30-21.  And again, we don\'t have a good last possession, with no one initiating any offense, and Kayla hoisting a horrible three-pointer at the buzzer.

Pretty much everything that could go wrong did.  Stanford shot 2-15 from 3 point range, and took nearly 70% of their shots from beyond the arc.  Jeanette, again, went 0-5 with 3 turnovers, and Stanford as a team had 10 turnovers.  Chiney was on the bench with foul trouble.

One other thing.  Missy was out there.  And the "let them play" mentality was in effect.  There were a total of 8 fouls called in the first half, 6 on Stanford.  Albeit UCLA was in a zone, the amount of contact that was allowed to go on rebounding, especially the Bruins guards crashing into the Cardinal posts, was astonishing.  And the second foul call on Chiney seemed to be in direct response to Nikki Caldwell\'s complaints midway through the half.  The officials didn\'t decide the game, but that one call very definitely changed its nature.

The second half started about the same, which was really frustrating.  Two consecutive missed threes let UCLA score again to give themselves an 11-point lead.  And the Cardinal still wasn\'t defending particularly well.  But with Chiney on the floor, they were able to get the ball inside, and were at least trading baskets, keeping the lead at 9 or so.

Jeanette then had her only real impact on the game, hitting back to back 3s to cut the lead to 5 at 40-35.  And Toni, into the game because Lindy was having trouble keeping her mark in front of her, came up with a steal and fastbreak layup to cut it to 3.  But she was just getting started.

The big change - Kokenis was keeping up with her perimeter mark, and UCLA was not finding the same success in the pick-and-roll in the second half; the Ogwumikes were getting their hands down in the bounce-pass lane and knocking it away.  And the Bruins, when forced to take long jump shots, are just not that effective.

That being said, their 2-3 was still giving Stanford fits.  Kayla had a couple of great efforts, one a spectacular nearly instantaneous tip shot that she got over the rim while falling to the floor off a weak-side rebound of a Pohlen miss.  Her free throws cut the lead to 46-42, then a Nneka layup off a great out-of-bounds play cut it to 2.  Then came an absolutely critical possession, all about the elder Ogwumike and "want to."

more...


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - Viking_Guy - 03-12-2011

Two consecutive offensive rebounds by Nneka led to two consecutive fouls on Jasmine Dixon, UCLA\'s top threat off the drive, the second an and-1 opportunity that Ogwumike finished to give Stanford its first lead since 18-17 in the first half at 47-46.  Dixon had to sit, and while her replacement Christina Nzekwe got a couple free throws off a good post possession and gave the Bruins the lead back, UCLA\'s offense didn\'t look nearly as effective with Jasmine on the bench.

And then came the magical Toni run.  A Kayla Pedersen steal off a Walker drive into a crowded lane led to a Kokenis pull-up jumper (and yes, I LOVE that shot) on a 2v2 break.  Then Kokenis herself took the ball the length of the court off a board, scoring a transition bucket.  Finally, with Stanford pumped up, Kokenis got a great screen from the Ogwumikes under the basket against the zone, launched a corner three, and saw it take three bounces on the rim before finally settling through.  And Stanford, struggling all game offensively, had scored 7 points in 56 seconds, all by their freshman guard, and had a 6-point lead with just over four minutes remaining.  Oh, and then she hit another three pointer.  9 point lead, under 3 minutes.

It\'s hard to overstate how brobdingnagian that sequence was.  UCLA was battling, clawing, scratching, and Stanford looked content to let them do it.  Chiney and Nneka were battling every time down the court to get post position against the zone, and Stanford\'s perimeter seemed content to toss the ball around and never make the entry pass, or penetrate the zone to force it to rotate.  Toni was the only one willing to drive against the zone (which led to a bad turnover once when she tried to go behind her back in the lane), and her two brobdingnagian threes on 4 attempts went some way toward redeeming the absolute tragedy that was the starting guards THREE FOR SIXTEEN from three point range (Pohlen 2-9, LaRocque 1-6).

With a nine-point lead and the clock running down, it turned into free throws for Stanford against a desperate Bruins team trying to drive inside.  It worked on a couple of occasions, and the lead didn\'t feel safe when Walker converted an and-1 and cut the lead to 6 with about a minute left.  But then they fouled Jeanette, she calmly hit both ends of the 1 and 1, and Stanford came up with consecutive steals that ran the clock.  I was surprised that the Bruins backed off and didn\'t foul in the last 45 seconds, but without a really viable three point threat, they couldn\'t really cut into the lead very fast.

Whew.  Absolutely scary.

Game ball?  Is there really a question?  Kokenis had 17 points on 7-9 shooting, 2-4 from 3, 2 assists and 2 TOs, a critical steal, and the game-changing play.  Kayla, as always, for her effort, especially defensively and on the boards.  Nneka for fighting through the UCLA zone to score 15 while getting almost no solid entry passes.  And Chiney made the most of her limited minutes.

On the down side?  Jeanette has had two bad shooting games back to back, and today compounded it with some really bad turnovers, trying to pass through a crowded lane from one wing to the opposite corner, or lofting in absurd lobs to a double-teamed Ogwumike.  4 assists but 5 turnovers.  Compound that with Lindy\'s limits both offensively and defensively, and this game gave a lot of teams a blueprint as to how to defend and attack Stanford.

There were also a couple of tactical questions.  Beyond the endless "Can we please force a poor shooting team to shoot from outside?" of playing zone for all of about 1.5 minutes in the first half, offensively the triangle has real issues against a 2-3 zone.  I\'m betting we\'ll see an awful lot of them in the NCAA tourney.

But the effort was there, at least for the second half.  Stanford, after being played even on the boards by the much smaller Bruins in the first half, outrebounded them by 5 in the second, especially on that key Nneka sequence midway through.  And after 10 first half turnovers, and 4, including consecutive Pohlen gaffes that set back the Stanford comeback and let a 40-38 game get back out to 46-40 Bruins, they didn\'t turn the ball over (mostly with Kokenis doing the ball-handling) from about 10 minutes left in the game until a couple of late turnovers against a desperate UCLA defense in the last couple of minutes.

And to be fair to Missy, she didn\'t make the call I most feared, when Jasmine Dixon basically ran into a Kayla elbow in the lane in the second half.  Pedersen had her arms spread at shoulder height with good post position, and Dixon tried to get around and front her, but ended up running her face into Kayla\'s outstretched arm.  I was really concerned that Missy, in her typical effort to exert herself on the game, would make the incorrect call of a high elbow.  Again, the officiating left something to be desired, especially in the amount of hacking let go against Stanford rebounders, but there were no really egregious bad calls.

More...

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - Viking_Guy - 03-12-2011

Watched the Baylor-TAMU game earlier, and Griner is a beast.  But TAMU had a shot at them.

The seeding will be interesting.  It\'s fairly certain UConn #1 in Philadelphia, Tennessee #1 in Dayton, Baylor #1 in Dallas and Stanford #1 in Spokane.  But the real question will be the #2s and how they are distributed.  TAMU and Duke are by far the strongest 2-seeds, and the S-curve would probably send them to Dayton and Spokane.  But the committee has given the "geographic proximity" reason for not following the S-curve before (I actually think it\'s about minimizing travel costs, whether for the NCAA or, more generously, for the fans).  I really don\'t want to see Duke seeded against UConn - the Blue Devils got destroyed by the Huskies, and I don\'t think that will change.  And TAMU will get moved out of Dallas, which will thankfully spare us a 4th rematch with Baylor.

My expectation?  I\'m betting Duke will get sent to Philadelphia,  TAMU to Spokane against Stanford, Xavier in Dayton (which will be interesting as a potential homecourt advantage), and either UCLA or Notre Dame in Dallas (I\'m hoping UCLA, given their victory over Notre Dame, will get the nod).

More interesting will be who gets sent to play sub-regionals on opponent\'s home floors, especially who gets sent to the subregional in Spokane against Gonzaga.


Again, all in all, whew.  Survive and advance.  Six more times.

VG


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - Pastor - 03-12-2011

Great write-up as usual VG.

I thought it was a good tune-up for Stanford and I hope it scared them...they made several careless plays in the first half that should scare them.

Just put us on the other side of the bracket from Baylor and let them and UCon (pun intended) fight it out.

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - M T - 03-12-2011

It is good to get a challenge.  It\'s even better that Stanford won it.  I think the game helped both teams. I hope Stanford learns what doesn\'t work.

Here\'s a PxP of the last half of the first half.

9:29 Long UCLA rebound on a Stanford missed 3ptr leads to a 1 on 2. JP declines to challenge the shooter allowing an uncontested layup.  Must have been under orders to do that.
9:06 JP throws a pass to the inside shoulder of KP at the free throw line. KP doesn\'t handle it.  
8:59 Ensuing fast break layup is muffed. JP gets a good rebound under the basket but is sandwiched by UCLA. She either loses the ball or a weak pass to KP gets tipped. UCLA gets the ball, misses the shot.  TK gets the ball  in the corner and is trapped. IMO, Tara should have called a timeout. TK gets sandwiched, resulting in a tie ball.  UCLA coach has the audacity to complain that Stanford isn\'t getting called for fouls.
8:45 Chiney commits a freshman foul reaching in. JTinkle replaces her. I think it is critical that JT never gets into a low block position so Stanford doesn\'t get two targets inside.
8:19 After passing it around the perimeter amongst the 4 players, JT gets in trouble. TK breaks to the open spot, gets the ball, and makes a shot.
7:57, Nneka overcommits on a switch on a pick & roll and lets the picker player get free to the basket. JT can\'t rotate in time so it is an easy layup.
7:30 Stanford has 4 players on 3pt line and one inside.  We can\'t rotate the ball fast enough to get the ball in and only TK tries cutting.  But she gets called for a off. foul that appears to be a phantom foul.
7:22 Pick&roll gets a player open as KP and TK stay on the same player, but no pass.
7:19 NO\'s slight overcommitment on a pick & roll.  KP almost rotates in time.
6:43 Stanford passes around the 3pt line and force a last second long range pass.
6:13  UCLA pick & roll, with TK getting too far off the player who picked her, but she apparently deflects the pass. JP had left her player and was waiting there. We turn them over.
6:11 KP isn\'t looking and runs into TK, forcing her to fumble the ball. The refs call a foul rather than a tie ball.
5:47 4 players play catch on 3pt line.  Open, but poor 3pt TK attempt.
5:24 Good cut by UCLA lets her stop & pop. UCLA leads 19-18
5:09 JP tries a quick 23ftr. We are in position for a rebound. Ball out off UCLA. I think this was a good idea.
5:05 KP throws a weak inbound play to JP (should have gone out to TK)  She is sandwiched on sideline. JP pass to KP is ok, but KP is sandwiched on the end line and never gets possession.  KP winds up being called for a foul as she falls. Good UCLA defense.
4:44 We have 3 defenders on 2 players down low, UCLA gets a good shot from 18ft.
4:17 Passing around the perimeter again. JT fumbles on the sideline but gets it out to LL who tries a 24ftr. We are 3 on 4 for the rebound, but UCLA gets it,
4:06 Resulting fast break is thwarted by LL who almost gets a charge.  Then LL recovers to break up a pass to an open player. Turnover.
3:55 Stanford is quickly down the floor and NO gets the ball at 7\', but when she puts it down to take a dribble, a defender gets it from her.
3:48 3 on 2 UCLA break results in a 18\' missed shot. JP boxes out and Stanford gets the ball out of bounds.
3:33 MMurphy & SBoothe are now in.  SB sets up in the post and NO wanders the baseline.  Offensive motion happens, but a pass goes right through MM\'s hands and results in a back court call.
3:05 MM disrupts a pass which results in a UCLA turnover.
2:35 NO sets up  on the elbow with SB down low.  MM\'s lob to SB is too low and deflected out of bounds.  MM throws a pass into SB without making eye contact. Unexpected pass sails out of bounds.
2:22 MM gets picked, JP doesn\'t rotate. SB is too late moving out. 12ft basket.
2:10 NO tries a quick 19\' shot.  Only SB under the basket. The 3 UCLA rebounders get it.
1:59 NO, SB, KP all guard 1 player. UCLA gets the ball out for an open 19\' basket.
1:41 We are getting separation on offense.  MM almost throws the ball away on a no-look pass to KP. KP hits a 3ptr.
1:11 SB steps out on a pick&roll. JP tries to go on top of the pick. NO is fighting her player and winds up facing the wrong way and can\'t rotate.  Easy UCLA layup.
0:44 SB clumsily runs into a UCLA player and is called.
0:15 KP plays off her player too much, allowing her player  to get off a 3pt basket.
0:06 MRuef can\'t see anywhere to pass and just holds the ball until 0:02.0 and hands off to KP. (MR continues to just watch)  A 3pt contested shot at 0:00.1 doesn\'t go in.

We played ok with 2 players in position inside the 3pt line, and poorly with only one.


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - M T - 03-12-2011

Chiney showed her immaturity in the game, esp. with fouls #2 and #5.  Why was Stanford fouling in the last 90 seconds?  But I trust she\'ll learn.

I hope that Tara will learn too.  I\'m sure the other teams will learn from this one.  Thankfully, UCLA didn\'t have the 3pt shooters as well.

As for seeding of the four #1s, consider that UConn beat Baylor who beat Tenn who beat Stanford who beat UConn.  I\'m sure they will line up the teams that haven\'t played each other.  So the semis should be Stanford-Baylor and UConn-Tenn.  

Based on the committee\'s past performance, I wouldn\'t be surprised if they seed teams so DePaul is in Stanford\'s regional.  I bet UCLA and Xavier will not be.  It would make more sense to put A&M or Duke against Stanford.  On second thought, I\'ll bet they wind up putting two of those (DePaul &, say, A&M) in our path to the final four.

Don\'t forget that UConn had a challenge from then #7/#8 Notre Dame, and wound up winning by 9 pts also.  UConn was playing at Hartford, not at North Bend, while Stanford was playing at LA, not Stanford. (But, as we know, there was no home crowd for UCLA.  Attendance was 2618.)

By the way, in case someone on the team or staff sees this, I noticed that UConn\'s center Dolson has a problem with the midcourt line when being used to break a press.  If Stanford pulls out a press against them, I\'d suggest putting someone on her with then intent of getting a stumbling back court call.


Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - meos - 03-12-2011

Win or go home time now. Stanford had to solve some puzzles in this one, coming back from a sizable half-time deficit.

UCLA (with their defensive alignment) decided a perimeter player from Standford was going to have to hurt them to win, and finally a Stanford perimeter player stepped up -- and hurt UCLA.

When Pohlen\'s shots were falling better earlier in the season, her feet were moving like dancers feet. On her toes with many, many adjustment steps. Hope she finds those dance steps again soon.

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - treefan - 03-13-2011


Great recap VG. I was screaming to go zone as well. Toni definitely gets the game ball. We need more penetration and high/low to find creases in the zone. Her threes were brobdingnagian, especially the one that hung on the rim. I was also losing a lung about the fouls on boards and all the grabbing and slapping. Nikki learned to coach that at TN too, she knows the harassing play really disrupts our flow.

Agree with your pts about Pohlen, but she hits some big shots when needed. Chiney made some frosh mistakes on fouls and D, but I think she\'ll learn from it. Nneka was quoted it felt like there were 2 players on her all the time, so it hurt big time to have Chiney on the bench for 11 min. as Nneka didn\'t have any help.

Liked how we settled down in the 2nd half, but we also stepped up our D, which helped our O. Also, 13-15 FTs was key to the win too.

If 1 seeds (and locations)  go accordingly, we will play Baylor in semis in Indy. UConn and TN would be in the other bracket, but I actually think Duke or ND will knock off the Voles.

I agree we\'ll get Depaul in Spokane and I say bring it on baby. They do not play nearly as well away from their home court and we\'ll have Kayla.

Go Card!

Re: WBB: Stanford 64 UCLA 55 - fullmetal - 03-14-2011

It\'s worth mentioning again how awesome these recaps are.  Thanks all!