by Matt Harrington

STANFORD–The Stanford Cardinal (7-3) host the UAPB Golden Lions (3-10) on Monday night at Maples Pavilion. The Cardinal are coming off an overtime win against the Texas Longhorns (10-2) 74-71 in an upset win that was played in Austin last Tuesday the Cardinal’s last game. A big performance by Chasson Randle who scored 22 points, Anthony Brown led Stanford with 25 points in that game. The win was the statement of this season so far to this point.

Arkansas is coming in Monday night with that 3-10 record and it’s one of those games that’s going to be hard to get out of bed for in a sense. Stanford had struggled a little bit with Denver which they won 49-43 earlier in the year they were trailing for most of the game in that one. They just beat Loyola Marymount (3-6) 67-58 who didn’t have as strong of a record as some of the Pac 12 teams their going to be playing. The one thing that head coach Johnny Dawkins always says as he lines up teams in the non conference schedule that play a similar style to other Pac 12 teams it will be interesting to see what kind of school Pine Bluff is going to be to a Pac 12 school.

Washington State (5-6) and Washington (11-0) are coming to Maples on the weekend of January 2nd and 3rd it will interesting to see how Stanford does for the start of Pac 12 conference action. Also it would be interesting to see what school that Dawkins uses as a model for Pac 12 play as they head into conference play especially against a team like the Huskies coming to open. The Huskies might have the same style as the Cougars in time for Stanford to get ready for Pac 12 play.

When you look around the Pac 12 right now Stanford and the bottom five and their records after non conference play which is a whole lot different when you see schools like Oregon State and Utah above them. It’s going to be a strong conference. It was really a case of BYU where it was frustration where the shots were falling in the last minute Randle hit a couple of threes to tie but Stanford lost it 79-77. The Cougars knew that game was winnable, Randle didn’t get to the line much and shot two out of three free throws in that game.

The Cardinal are a team that are going to live and die by the free throws, they work really hard on the free throw shooting when they go to practice and in warm ups. If your missing the free throws it is going to hurt you and that will be a key role in scoring points. Brown didn’t have a strong game against Texas, it was one of those things that their guards produce now. The game against Denver Randle has only nine points scored. The Cardinal struggled for most of the game and found a way to pull it out and get the victory.

Against BYU with Brown he struggled and they weren’t able to find the victory, the Texas game however Randle and Brown combined their 47 points that was the difference right there. You know the Cougars Tyler Haws is going to hit you with 15-20 points and he got 24 and maybe he would get ten on another night. So it’s about the production level from the guards, Randle was on that BYU game with the 24 points and it looked like Brown was struggling a little bit who finished with six points.

Listen to Matt’s analysis of Stanford below on his podcast. Matt Harrington covers Stanford basketball for http://www.sportsradioservice.com