Category: Stanford Cardinal

By: Ben Leonard

Follow @ben___leonard

The state of Washington has not treated the #15 Stanford Cardinal very well, although Stanford escaped with two victories. The Cardinal needed another comeback to beat an obviously inferior Washington State Cougars team, one that sits eighth in the Pac-12. The Cardinal’s 86-76 victory in overtime was the program’s 58th consecutive victory over Washington State, but Stanford looked nothing like the team that has won fourteen straight Pac-12 championships.

Stanford fell behind at the half for the second consecutive game, this time 33-28. The Cardinal shot well enough, making 38% of their shots, but turned the ball over too much, nine times to the Cougars’ zero in the period. Stanford was 2-4 overall when down at the half this season, but managed to pull off their third such comeback victory, down eleven points as late as 13:24 to go in the second half.

Amber Orrange’s shooting prowess was a big reason for the comeback. The 5’7″ senior guard did not score in the first half, but really turned things around in the second half and overtime, scoring nineteen points on 9-20 shooting. Orrange also pitched in with five assists and pulled down four rebounds.

The momentum swung in the Cardinal’s favor when Dawnyelle Awa “fouled” Stanford forward Bonnie Samuelson with 1:09 left in the game. Stanford was down 67-66, and when Awa dove for a loose ball, Samuelson essentially fell on top of Awa, injuring her, and insulting her in being called for a foul. The foul was Awa’s fifth of the game, and she consequently fouled out. Samuelson knocked down both free throws, giving the Cardinal the 68-67 lead. Samuelson finished with 18 points on 5-8 shooting. The half would end tied at 71-71, and Stanford would dominate overtime to cruise to the victory. Looking ahead, the Cardinal will come back home and play the Arizona Wildcats on January 16th.

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by Matt Harrington

PALO ALTO–The Stanford Cardinal (10-4) get set to face the USC Trojans (9-5) for their next game tonight in SoCal, the Trojans are a young team USC struggled in their first two games in Pac 12 play. They got beat by Utah (13-2) and Colorado (9-6). The Trojans just came off their first Pac 12 win they beat Cal (11-5) on Wednesday night 71-57. The Trojans are feeling pretty confident about themselves as a young team and USC is right about the level where Stanford is.

Then you get to the Big Game that’s the one the alumni and the players are all excited for, anytime you put Stanford and Cal (Wednesday night) in the same building (Haas Pavilion) you know it’s going to be a good night. Cal and Stanford that’s the rivalry, that’s the one that sells the tickets and Cal and Stanford their both right there in the polls for the Associated Press and Stanford has 20 votes outside of the top 25 and Cal got three.

Their both vying for national prominence and their both going to be on ESPN and it’s going to have a national spotlight so it’s going to be challenging for one of these two teams to get into the spotlight to try to move up higher into the top 25. The Cardinal who won four of their last five games, it could have been five straight wins because the Cardinal lost to UCLA (9-7) in double overtime over a missed free throw. It might made a bigger difference if they had Reid Travis back that would have been the difference and would have won that game hands down.

The Cardinal had the lead by 14 points in the late stages of that game and they just couldn’t put it away and it was still a game when you look at it and you flipped a coin they could have easily have come away with the win there. Its disheartening that they lost that game but it’s not a game you lose when you go into the locker room and the players say they were overwhelmed and say “oh we didn’t have a chance to win that one.”

Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins can look at that game and say “we had this game in hand we didn’t close it out but we know we can win this game” the Bruins were not like facing an unbeatable foe. It gives you a little bit of confidence obviously losing to UCLA was something you never want to do but getting that close to a road win and getting that close to starting off that road trip and getting that close to beating that team you get the confidence “we can do this.”

Stanford has the confidence that their a good road team it was an eye opener for their first loss in the Pac 12 conference but it was also kind of a learning moment where the Cardinal say “we need to put teams away.” Some teams have not seen Pac 12 play and have no idea how tough this conference is. However every single game is going to be a battle, they got a healthy dose of that when Washington and UCLA went into overtime.

Matt Harrington covers the Stanford Cardinal on http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to Matt’s podcast below

By: Ben Leonard

Follow @ben___leonard

Despite horrendous shooting in the first half, the Stanford Cardinal fought back to beat the Washington Huskies 60-56 in Seattle. Lili Thompson’s hot shooting carried the lethargic Cardinal to the victory, scoring fifteen points on 5-13 shooting and making two steals, while the rest of the team shot a meager 30.2% from the field. Her banked-in three from the deep left wing sealed the victory for the Cardinal, giving the team a 60-55 lead with 25.7 seconds remaining in the contest. The win moved Stanford to 11-4, while dropping the Huskies to 12-3.

The victory did not come easily on Friday for #15-ranked Stanford, who have fallen from grace since upsetting UCONN early in the season. The Cardinal made just eight of their thirty-five shots in the first half, including hitting just three of their final twenty-one shots in the period, leaving them down 24-22 at the half. Stanford had no physical presence in the post, largely due to the loss of Nneka Ogwumike to the WNBA. 6’3″ forward Kaylee Johnson did pull down thirteen rebounds, but was simply not an offensive threat, scoring just five points on 2-6 shooting.

Washington’s Kelsey Plum, the nation’s second-leading scorer, averaging 24.4 points per game heading into Friday, did her best to keep the Huskies close to Stanford. Plum lead the team with 16 points in a losing effort, dishing out six assists to boot. She scored nine points in the second half, but it wasn’t enough to propel the Huskies to an upset victory. Stanford outscored Washington 38-32 in the second half, helped by Bonnie Samuelson’s four three pointers (4-9 shooting), adding on to the country’s third-best team three-point percentage.  The Cardinal got the result it wanted, but will need to play much better if it wants to build on last season’s Final Four appearance.

Stats and info courtesy of ESPN, GoStanford.com

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by Matt Harrington

PALO ALTO–The Stanford Cardinal victory over the Washington Cougars at Maples Pavilion on Friday night was an interesting game because it was a reversal of what Stanford had done from last season in Pac 12 play where they rode their starters and marquee players for the first couple minutes of the game and they couldn’t hit a shot to save their lives earlier in the game. The Cardinal were 1-10 from the field to start the game.

Chasson Randle scored only one point in that early part of the game, by the end of the game it was a blow out for the Cardinal winning 71-56. Stanford later went on for the route so it was kind of a role reversal and the reserves came in and played a big role. They stepped up and the Cardinal were playing their first game without Reid Travis which was a huge loss for them.

Reid is the Cardinal starter five player and leading rebounder and the question was how the Cardinal were going to adapt to a new starting five and a new starting unit and how were some of these bench players going to step up too to expanded roles. They really passed the test the Cardinal got 71 one points in Pac 12 play. 71 points in conference play which is quite an accomplishment when your talking about a starting five that really weren’t rolled out for the entire non conference schedules. It was quite an accomplishment for Stanford to get the W there.

It’s been a string of solid games for the Cardinal you have to go all the way back to the upset win in Austin Texas. Really the last three games have been the best the Cardinal have played their entire season the Cardinal are putting together one heck of game of basketball. They have won three games in a row now, it’s really a confidence builder. Against Pine Bluff they had an advantage scoring the Cardinal have to get a little bit of rest.

Against Texas it was the Randle and Anthony Brown show, against Pine Bluff the Cardinal were draining threes, things are looking pretty healthy on the farm right now. The last three games there was a slow start against the Cougars but it was also a weird start time at 12 noon on a Friday afternoon which isn’t exactly the norm for college students. Really the last three games have been the best games that Stanford has been playing all season.

This is really the weird time of the year for college athletics because it’s mostly about bringing in the alumni, the students this time of the year are going back to the four corners of the world where they came from their on winter break so the campus seems a little bit like a ghost town. This is strange welcoming back the old alumni when I was out there at Maples there were more older fans, more alumni, more young professionals, more people who are deeply rooted into Stanford and into the program.

It’s a little bit of the weird period because it’s the start of conference play and everyone wants to go for it and you want to be excited for it and you want to be ready to go. The student energy isn’t there because the students are back home wherever they come from. So it’s a weird timing in the college basketball schedule the energy is sucked out of them a little bit with the students going home for the break.

Matt Harrington covers Stanford basketball for http://www.sportsradioservice.com scroll down to hear the podcast with Matt

By: Ben Leonard

Follow Ben on Twitter @Ben___Leonard

The Stanford Cardinal opened their conference play with a 71-56 victory over the Washington State Cougars, moving to 83-27 at Maples Pavilion under coach Johnny Dawkins. Washington State, the Pac-12’s worst team coming into play Friday, sitting at .500 (6-6) against soft opponents, gave the Cardinal a fight in the incipient stages of the game. However, the efforts of a more talented Cardinal team proved too much for the Cougars in the end, with Stanford moving to 9-3 on the season.

They won without the efforts of injured freshman sensation, team rebounding leader, and McDonald’s All-American Reid Travis, who suffered a stress fracture and is out indefinitely. Dawkins did not know when the “upper thigh” injury happened, but noted that he “needs to rest it” and “should be out”  somewhere “around a month.”  Guard Marcus Allen called his loss a “huge hit,” but explained that the Cardinal will try to “pick him up as a team.” Coach Dawkins praised Grant Verhoeven’s ability to fill in for Travis, as he was “pleased with his contributions.” Verhoeven scored five points in fifteen minutes of action, also pulling down six rebounds.

The victory did not come as easily as it should have on paper for the favored Cardinal, who were coming off a blowout victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff. The Cougars provided more resistance than the Golden Lions, but not much more so. They jumped out to an early 8-0 lead with 15:13 remaining in the first half, fueled by 4-7 shooting. The Cougar’s quick start forced a frustrated Dawkins to call a timeout, who gave them credit for playing “with a lot of energy.” On the other hand, the Cardinal missed their first six shots, falling behind by ten points with 13:47 left, their largest deficit of the game.

Stanford played sloppy basketball early on, turning the ball over three times in the first five minutes and missing wide open shots. Guard Anthony Brown noted that the Cardinal did not have a shoot-around before the game, only a walk-through, a possible explanation for the slow start. Dawkins explained that the Cougars had “prepared very well for [Stanford],” and were able to succeed defensively because of it. Dawkins also noted that their ability to “hit shots early… opened up the basket for everyone.” For Dawkins, the Cardinal’s ability to eventually bounce back “show[ed] a lot of heart” for a team that “always manages to fight back…despite sluggish starts.”

Joining in on the poor start shooting was star guard Chasson Randle, who had a very poor start to the game. He played uninspired, flat defense, while missing his first seven shots from the field. Randle needed just two three pointers to become Stanford’s all-time leader, trailing just Dion Cross (1992-96) for the lead. He made only one three pointer, late in the second half. His poor play early on lead him to ride the bench for an extended period of time in the first half, playing just thirteen minutes in the period.

Randle eventually overcame this dreadful start to propel the Cardinal to victory, leading the team with eighteen points on 5-13 shooting, although not until the second half. He did not score his first field goal until the early stages of the period. Although Randle had not turned around in the first, Anthony Brown’s breakaway dunk with 9:52 left in the first swung the momentum in the Cardinal’s favor. On the ensuing possession, sixth-man Roscoe Allen slammed one home himself, cutting the Cougars’ lead to 16-13, forcing Washington State to take a timeout. Stanford would go on to tie the game at 17-17 with 6:30 left to play, and did not look back from there, storming to take a 27-24 halftime lead.

The Cardinal carried their momentum into the second half, going on a 13-3 run to start the period, energizing the announced crowd of 4,373 at Maples Pavilion. For the remainder of the game, the Cardinal controlled the post and the flow of the game. The Cardinal dominated in the paint, scoring 30 points to the Cougar’s 10 down low. This post play was led by senior center Stefan Nastic, who scored 16 points on 5-9 shooting, grabbing seven rebounds. Anthony Brown led the team with 11 boards, and dropped 13 points to go along with them. Overall, the Cardinal shot 64.0% in the second half, a huge turnaround from the pitiful 33.3% shooting in the first half.

In all, the Cardinal had four players score in double-figures, a healthy advantage over the Cougars’ one player, John Hawkinson. Hawkinson had a game-high 15 rebounds, but did not make a shot from the field, scoring eleven points, all on free-throws. The sophomore forward commented on his poor shooting day:”I’ve found that all season long that there’s a soft spot in the middle, whether it was a ‘man’ or zone. I really wasn’t able to knock down a shot in this game, but it’s normally there. I was short on every single shot — I wasn’t using my legs — I was having an off-day.  We’re going to get back into the gym, and we’re going to fix that. We’ll come out better shooting in the next game.”

Hawkinson was able to take so many free throws because of multitude of fouls with little contact. With both teams deep into the double bonus, Dawkins seemingly rallied the crowd, raising his arms up in the air in protest.

Stanford will face #21 Washington on Sunday night, a conference showdown big enough to warrant national television coverage. As the fifth-year senior Brown put it, the Cardinal need to play “a lot better” and  “stick to what we (Stanford) do” to give the Huskies a “good test” on Stanford’s “home court.” As he put it, “any time you have a ranked team coming into your house, you… can’t let them leave with a win.” The Cardinal may not have been happy with their early play, but it got the job done.

By Matthew T.F. Harrington

STANFORD, Calif. — If Monday night’s contest against the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff was the barometer to gauge the Stanford’s readiness heading into the start conference play, consider the Cardinal prepared…and then some.

The Cardinal romped its guests from the Southwestern Athletic Conference 74-39 at Maples Pavilion, at one point leading 19-1, riding an absurd shooting touch and airtight defense to the blowout victory.

Stanford (8-3) has now made statements in back-to-back contests after losing to BYU earlier this month. In the most recent outing, the Cardinal picked up the biggest decision it has posted this season. Stanford upset ninth-ranked Texas 74-71 in overtime in Austin the day before Christmas Eve.

“With Texas, it was more than getting a resume win, it was knowing we belong,” said Cardinal guard Anthony Brown. “Knowing we’re a tournament team, especially for the younger guys. It’s their first opportunity to get a big signature win. It gives you a little bit more confidence.”

Monday night, the men in home whites made it far less interesting.

“Coming off the Christmas break, you never know what’s going to happen,” said Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins. “You never know where your team is going to be. We were pretty sharp.”

Stanford, prepping for its initial Pac-12 contest against Washington State on Friday, displayed all the hallmarks of a dominant squad against UAPB (3-11), exceling on both sides of the ball.

“Defensively we did a good job,” said Brown. “Obviously it’s nice to get a win before heading into conference. It’s important to have momentum heading into the Pac-12.”

In terms of confidence, the Cardinal shot 51 percent from the field.

“You have nights where you hit them all and nights where you miss them,” said Dawkins. “That’s just part of our game. I’m just looking at the quality of shot, that’s what I grade. I thought our guys took great shots, not good shots.”

Defensively, Stanford suffocated the Golden Lions to only 13 baskets on 41 attempts from the floor, forcing 25 turnovers while swiping 13 steals.

“I’m really proud of us defensively,” said Dawkins. “That’s something we really hang our hat on. They have a lot of guards, perimeter guys who can beat you off the dribble and make plays. We did a really good job on containing penetration. We challenged a lot of shots. To hold any team to 39 points, I don’t care who you’re playing against, you’re doing a heck of a job defensively.”

Want three-point shooting? The Cardinal received it in droves, hitting 11 shots from beyond the arc. Worried Stanford’s depth behind the starting five won’t produce if called upon? Five different reserves combined to post 24 points, including a thunderous dunk from junior Rosco Allen that drew many a gasp of awe from the Maples crowd.

“Every minute is important,” said Brown. “There will be games where the score is close and we can’t give up runs. There might be a time in the game where people are in foul trouble and the bench has to produce.”

About the only thing Stanford didn’t do well was manage the ball, turning it over 14 times. That may just have been because the Cardinal owned the rock all night and had more chances to cough it up by sheer volume or due to some bench players gaining an increased role.

“I think they’re in the top ten or so in steals even though they play zone,” said Dawkins of Pine Bluff. “I thought we did a really good job of valuing the basketball against a team that plays the zone as good as anybody.”

Fifth-year senior Anthony Brown led the baller barrage with 16 points, including an eye-popping four treys hit on five attempts. In fact, Brown came just one first-half three shy of matching Pine Bluff’s total field goals made in the entire period (5).

Teammates Stefan Nastic (13) and Chasson Randle (11) joined Brown in double-digit scoring, all despite seeing somewhat limited minutes with the rout firmly on. Golden Lions star Marcel Mosley posted a game-high 25 points, including 17 second-half tallies.

The Cardinal don’t expect to have it this easy when the welcome the Cougars to The Farm Friday afternoon, nor do they expect Sunday’s contest against no. 19 Washington to be uneventful.

“In our conference, every night is going to be the same,” said Dawkins “It’s going to be a grind every night. All these coaches and teams have pride. They come to compete, so we have to do the same.”