by Morris Phillips

 

BERKELEY–You know it’s interesting after the game last Thursday at Stanford I had a chance to question both coaches–Mike Montgomery from Cal, and Johnny Dawkins of Stanford—and both downplayed the fact that Stanford operates without a traditional, past-first point guard.

 

The decision was made at the beginning of this season that Stanford’s Aaron Bright was going to come off the bench allowing Dawkins to play a bigger, more defensive-leaning lineup.  Bright became the sixth man, but then he was lost for the season when he separated his shoulder in practice.  Bright gave Stanford a facilitator of a structured, half court offense with the opportunity to get some easy baskets out of their sets.   Fast forward to Thursday night, and the Cardinal registered a season-low seven assists (against 10 turnovers), and they took a bushel of tough, off-balance shots with Cal players hanging off their shoulders.

 

Montgomery put it best: the Stanford game plan was to attack the basket relentlessly, and get the rebound if they missed.  The strategy was passable in the first half—the Cardinal shot 48 percent in the first 20 minutes—but the efficient shooting didn’t continue in the second half even as Cal fell into some serious foul trouble.  As for rebounding, Pac-12 conference leader Richard Solomon grabbed 13 rebounds in 32 minutes, and Cal won the battle, 37-35.

 

What’s disappointing is Stanford saw the strategy pay dividends in their big upset of Connecticut with 6’9” Dwight Powell acting as a playmaking point forward. That night Stanford’s 2-3 zone look with the big bodies on the baseline really frustrated UConn, but offensively their 53 points was just enough, and not a desired total for sustained success.  This time out, the defensive effort was good, not great, and fell short in the final minutes when Cal’s Justin Cobbs took over late, scoring 11 of Cal’s final 17 points.  

 

Cobbs played a beautiful floor game–super under control and he made plays when needed, often by forcing his way into the lane.  Montgomery would prefer he would shoot a little bit more and take a greater offensive load like he so masterfully accomplished in the final five minutes against Stanford.  Surrounded by Cardinal defenders, he laid off a beautiful pass to Solomon for a dunk right one possession after he canned a short jumper in the lane. Cobbs had the type of game Chasson Randle needed to have for Stanford, and that might have spelled the difference as one star player gets the job done, while the other team’s star struggles.

 

Looking back at that second game of the year, in which Stanford fell 112-103 to BYU you can see why the decision was made to bring Bright off the bench.  BYU shot 53 percent from the field and put up 112 points at Maples Pavilion despite missing 15 free throws.  The ESPN announcers picked up on it right away: when you play Randle and Bright together your back court is too small, and deficient defensively to get it done BYU really took advantage of them.  Bright not only struggled defensively, but shot 0-5 in 18 minutes of action as well.

 

Stanford remains a tremendously interesting team. They possess size, depth and athleticism, but their reputation is on too many nights they don’t shoot the ball well enough to win.  That’s not just the story this year, but the story of the last three years.  They haven’t qualified for the NCAA tournament under Dawkins and now—after losing the conference opener to Cal—they could be staring at a 0-3 start in conference with the trip to Oregon State and No. 12 Oregon up next. 

 

If they want to play with the bigger lineup and without a traditional point, they need to rebound better, make foul shots at a higher clip, and possess a better assist-to-turnover ratio.  Right now, they’re not maximizing their strengths and getting beat by their weaknesses. 

 

 

Morris Phillips and Michael Duca cover Cal basketball for Sportstalk radio