"I watched large portions of UT-UM, UConn-ISU, MSU-UVA, UK-UL, SDSU-UA, Bay-Wisc, UD-SU, and a little bit of UCLA-UF. The thing that stood out to me after watching all those other teams play is Stanford had the fewest number of good players of all of them. The Friday night games particularly stood out."
Outsider, I'll give you UK and Arizona and maybe Michigan as having more better raw athletes than Stanford. But what stood out most to me in watching last night - especially the UVA-MSU game - was how incredibly well those teams play. I mean UVA-MSU was a defensive masterpiece by both sides. The man defenses moved their feet; hedged on high picks and recovered; switched sometimes; and boxed out on every shot (or almost every shot). I mean, it was an incredible thing to behold. And THAT is excellent coaching and drilling in practice, to the point that it becomes second nature for those teams to do "all the little things" correctly. I don't think either MSU or UVA has better athletes than Stanford, I just think they have superior coaching that prepares them to play at a consistently high level.
That should be the ideal for Stanford. Maybe Dawkins gets there - or at least closer to that goal - but I think it's safe to say there is work to be done on that front.
Outsider, I'll give you UK and Arizona and maybe Michigan as having more better raw athletes than Stanford. But what stood out most to me in watching last night - especially the UVA-MSU game - was how incredibly well those teams play. I mean UVA-MSU was a defensive masterpiece by both sides. The man defenses moved their feet; hedged on high picks and recovered; switched sometimes; and boxed out on every shot (or almost every shot). I mean, it was an incredible thing to behold. And THAT is excellent coaching and drilling in practice, to the point that it becomes second nature for those teams to do "all the little things" correctly. I don't think either MSU or UVA has better athletes than Stanford, I just think they have superior coaching that prepares them to play at a consistently high level.
That should be the ideal for Stanford. Maybe Dawkins gets there - or at least closer to that goal - but I think it's safe to say there is work to be done on that front.