Class of 2008: CARDINALMANIACS ™

Stanford vs Notre Dame

2011-12-03T18:16:00.001-08:00

With a week off for Thanksgiving, I racked up the air miles by heading to New York to catch the men’s basketball team in action at Madison Square Garden. Having never been to the famed MSG, I planned a trip to New York even before the team clinched a semi-finals appearance. Luckily, they came through even though it looked pretty dicey in the early going against Colorado State. It was fun trip to the East Coast. I landed in Newark on Sunday night, visited Yale on Monday, Harvard on Tuesday and stayed in New York for the rest of the week.

Alex heard about a pre-game chalk talk an hour before it started and my friend’s place which was a couple of blocks from MSG came in handy. Coach Payne talked about the game plan and answered a few questions while we feasted on chicken tenders and an open bar. After a back and forth first 15 min, we pulled away against an up-tempo OK State team and the game was never really in doubt in the second half. Unfortunately, I was only able to watch the 3^rd/4^th consolation game between Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech as I had to catch a flight back for the Notre Dame game and didn’t want to risk leaving on Saturday morning and running into delays. I ran into Robbie Lemon’s mum at a sportsbar in the airport who corrected my guess of 35 points/game during his senior year of high school (it was 37 ppg). Wearing my Stanford basketball #15 jersey, I caught the Stanford-Syracuse game on my JetBlue flight. It was a shame we couldn’t hold on but I think it’ll be a good learning experience for the team. I got into San Jose a good 45 min ahead of schedule and crashed at a friend’s place for the night.

After a delicious lunch, we headed to campus and got to Chuck Taylor’s Grove in time for the walk. CTG felt much quieter than the previous week but I guess it was the Thanksgiving + Cal factor. Speaking of which, I heard that the area was trashed by some Cal students last week and security was needed. The walk didn’t feel particularly different from other walks. Luck and Martin led the way and a couple of guys were donning “My Last Walk” shirts. After Albert put the finishing touches on some deep fried turkey, we headed into the stadium. By finishing in the top 8 of a Stanford Fan of the Season essay competition (you can read the entry in the previous post), we won pre-game field passes and were recognized during head time.

Being on the field during warm-ups and the honoring of the seniors was an absolutely amazing experience. Coach Shaw seemed tremendously relaxed as he strode on the field and it was cool to see the O-linemen warm up right in front of us. They were big and a couple of guys really went at it with each other. The honoring of the seniors before the team took the field was a nice touch by Shaw and well received by some of the seniors as evident by their comments after the game. We also got the chance to chat with some of the other winners who were equally excited at the privilege of being up close. It was great to see the Helmet Head guy (Greg) who sat a couple of rows in front of us at the Orange Bowl last year again. Apparently, that was the day that his look was first created.

With 7 minutes to go before half time, we were told to meet outside the stadium by the entrance to the field. That unfortunately meant missing a good part of the drive which resulted in Luck’s record breaking TD to Fleener but we figured out what was going on by the roar in the stadium. Ironically, that’s the only 2 minutes out of Luck’s entire career that I’ve missed. We entered the stadium in time for the ensuing kickoff and had a great sideline view of the action. I was able to see Corey Gatewood’s pick up close as well as the 2 minute drill that Luck ran to perfection. On one of the 3^rd down conversions, Montgomery ran out of bounds right by us and it definitely made me appreciate game speed a lot more. Ex-Olinemen James McGillicuddy, Chase Beeler and Allen Smith were all hanging out on the sidelines and I snapped a picture of Greg with Cuddy or rather Cuddy with Greg who was quite the fan favorite. At half time, we walked to the center of the field where clumps of turf seemed to materialize from nowhere. Against Notre Dame, the field was an extra defender so I can’t really complain.

We didn’t put the game away until the play-action TD from Luck to Fleener in the fourth quarter but our defense really held up and we got some pressure on the QB which seemed missing in our past few games. We were surprisingly conservative with our play calling in the 2^nd half but if the goal was to win the game rather than pad Luck’s Heisman stats, I can see merit to running the ball since interceptions for big returns have been a problem these past few weeks and it seemed like that was the only way for Notre Dame to come back into the game. It also set up play action which we pulled off to perfection. My other observation was that I think the coaches dialed up the aggression on the last defensive series to increase our chances of taking a knee to end the game (either by forcing a turnover or giving up a TD). I guess we’ll never know if that was their intention but it was a nice move to have Owusu on the field for the last play.

What a season! It looks like we’re heading for a 2^nd consecutive BCS bowl if nothing too crazy happens. Albert and I have our reservations for the Fiesta Bowl set and some contingencies in place for the Sugar Bowl. Fiesta against a Big 12 champion would be a lot less expensive but New Year’s in New Orleans would be quite the experience and frankly, I don’t care about the cost or preference of other Stanford fans. There were tons of folks who grumbled last year when we ended up in the Orange Bowl instead of the Fiesta Bowl but I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world. Besides, I would travel anywhere to catch Andrew Luck’s last game in a Stanford uniform!

P.S.: If anyone has a DVD of the Stanford-Notre Dame game, please let me know. I was unable to record it because I left home too far in advance and I still haven’t seen those two minutes I missed in their entirety.

Fan of the Season Entry

2011-11-23T13:51:00.000-08:00

30 games and counting

Since Stanford played Arizona State at home on 10/24/2009, my friend Albert Thomas and I have not missed a single Stanford football game. In this streak of 30 consecutive games, we’ve logged thousands of miles and countless hours on the road, and have been fortunate enough to witness one of the greatest stretches in Stanford football history. It all started when we were seniors (Class of 2008) and attended 166 Stanford sporting events. However, in a season where Stanford basketball reached the Sweet 16, it was not a basketball game that stood out. Despite going through 3 football coaches in our 4 years on the Farm, we believed in Stanford football and made that 5 hour drive down to the Coliseum to see Stanford play #2 ranked USC. The rest, as they say, is history.

Fast forward to a couple of years after graduation and with a little more discretionary income at our disposal, Albert and I decided that we wanted to visit every single Pac-10 stadium. That is how the streak began. Fittingly enough, the first road trip was to a place where we harbored our fondest memories and once again, we triumphantly strode out of the Coliseum after a 55-21 victory. We followed that up with El Paso, Pasadena, South Bend, Eugene, Seattle, Tempe, Berkeley, Miami, Durham, Tucson, Pullman, Los Angeles again where we are now 3-0, and last but not least Corvallis. With the formation of the Pac-12, Boulder and Salt Lake City are up next.

This season has been a little more trying on my bank account as I’ve relocated to Las Vegas from the Bay Area but that was never going to get in the way of our travels which we’ve chronicled in our blog: cardinalmaniacs.blogspot.com Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Life is a journey, not a destination”. This journey has been one hell of a ride. The team has gone 26-4 in those 30 games, beaten every Pac-10 team at least once, owned the nation’s longest active winning streak and won a BCS bowl. We’ve seen the country and met alums as passionate as us from classes that span multiple decades whom we would have otherwise never met. Stanford football has brought us together but these friendships go beyond the score of a football game. They will last a lifetime.

As many players from the recruiting Class of 2008 – guys who committed when we were seniors and represented the future of Stanford football – make their last walk and play their last game in Stanford stadium, it would be an absolute honor to be on the sidelines because our journey would not be as meaningful without the hard work and dedication of the student athletes. And it was this recruiting class in particular that took a leap of faith which contributed to the football program’s turnaround. For that, we are eternally grateful. Go Card! Beat the Irish!

Big Game

2011-11-23T13:37:00.001-08:00

Far removed from the Bay Area and nursing a slight hangover from the Oregon game, Big Game crept up on me. Before I knew it, it was late in the week and the realization that Big Game was here finally dawned on me. It would be the last for many of the seniors in the recruiting class of 2008 whom I’m sure still had the bitter taste of the 2009 Big Game in their mouths. Not one to break from tradition, I had my Cal Sucks T-shirt on all day Friday as I’ve done every year since graduation. With forecasts of rain on Friday night, I anticipated delays getting into SFO but fortunately, we were only held up for half an hour. Unfortunately, I missed the dramatic Oklahoma State – Iowa State finish which was the first act of the craziness that was about to ensue during the weekend, but I was made well aware of it the moment I turned on my cell phone upon landing. I was picked up by some former colleagues who gave me a full recap and we headed to a poker home game.

I crashed with a friend pretty close to campus and was up bright and early on Saturday morning in time to catch the tail-end of College Game Day where Corso said “Fuck it” on national TV as he threw away the Mustang prop he was hoisting around and donned a Cougar head while Fowler and Herbstreit looked on in bemused disbelief. I found the ensuing contrite apology 20 minutes later equally amusing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWz8p7SrM3k With choices of Wisconsin-Illinois and Michigan-Nebraska, I was probably the only person on the West Coast tuned in to Georgia-Kentucky as I had placed a $500 pre-season bet on Georgia to win the SEC East at 3-1. Georgia had a favorable schedule – avoiding Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, and playing South Carolina at home and the worst SEC teams on the road. They were also being offered at 2-1 or worse in most places. After their close loss to South Carolina at the start of the season, things looked pretty bleak but I got extremely lucky and had it seemingly in the bag as they were in position to clinch it as 30 point favorites at home to Kentucky. The game was excruciating as Georgia was completely inept on offense – turning the ball over and settling for 4 field goals to lead 12-10 at the half despite their defense repeatedly getting them the ball in great field position. Thankfully, Kentucky’s offense was equally bad but I didn’t feel comfortable until Georgia opened up a 19-10 lead at the beginning of the 4^th quarter. My other big championship bet for the season (besides Stanford to win it all at 29-1) was $250 on Ohio to win the MAC at 7-1. They were 2-1 to win the MAC East at most books and so I saw some value. I wrote the bet off after they dropped two conference games but they’ve somehow managed to win the MAC East in spite of that. They’ve also won multiple games that could have gone either way. Ideally, they’ll play Northern Illinois in the MAC championship game as 3 point underdogs. I could roll the dice but will probably end up fully hedging the bet. After watching them for several weeks, I don’t think they’re that good and they have definitely gotten their fair share of kind bounces. Or maybe it’s those black jerseys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAOfNEBZbE4&feature=related

I got a late start to tailgating as we met up with a mutual friend for coffee on University Avenue and got to Lot 2 just in time to see the band in the middle of a rally. By the time I got to Chuck Taylor’s Grove, the Walk was over but it was jam-packed with people. There were folks who had just come to tailgate and weren’t even going to the game. I caught the end of the first half of the Oregon-SC game where I was firmly rooting for USC. Back door our way to the Rose Bowl and play some uninspiring Big 10 competition? I think I’ll pass and take a shot at a Big 12 team in the Fiesta Bowl. The overall atmosphere was tremendous and I met a couple more young alumni by Gate 13 in Lot 2. Despite the late start and weather, Big Game definitely brought a large crowd out – even if they were in the concourse for the majority of the game. It’s a great spot to watch a football game and I did it myself the last time it poured at a home game (Wazzu in 2008) when I was ill-prepared. This time I came better equipped with my therma-fit Pro Combat Luck hoodie which did a decent job of keeping me dry.

Outside of the opening drive, I thought our offensive game plan was somewhat curious for the first few drives as we barely ran the ball and it seemed that because of Cal’s run defense, we had given up on the run without even trying and were trying to use the pass to set up the run. The worst part was outside of a couple of play action passes out of the I formation, there were a lot of 4 wide sets with short patterns that telegraphed what we were doing and had the upside of a run in terms of yards gained. We were fortunate to keep it close in the first half thanks to Tedford’s trademark conservative play of kicking field goals when facing 4^th and 2 deep in our territory. The difference between Chip Kelly and him is night and day. My favorite Tedford moment is when he centered the ball on 3^rd and goal for a field goal with a 3 point lead during the last Big Game at Stanford, giving us the opportunity to drive down for a win if not for poor play calling at the end of the game. Sign the man up for a lifetime contract! In the second half, we ran the ball more which opened up passes to Hewitt who was absolutely money. Luck also finally got in rhythm and hit some long passes to the tight ends and while the game got pretty dicey at the end, Williamson was absolutely clutch when we needed him to be. Kudos to him for fighting through his injuries as well as Corey Gatewood stepping up at corner.

In a weekend of crazy upsets where the odds of Oklahoma St, Oregon and Oklahoma losing was 0.12%, gutting out a 3 point Big Game victory in the rain was huge. While the pundits have basically written off Stanford’s chances of playing in the National Championship game, the odds of Stanford beating Notre Dame, LSU beating Arkansas, Auburn beating Alabama, Oklahoma beating Oklahoma State and either Virginia or Clemson beating Virginia Tech are 1.4% which while tiny, are 10 times more likely than what happened this past weekend. At the very least, Stanford is almost guaranteed a BCS bowl game with a win over the Irish on Saturday. Hopefully the weather will be nicer and the uniforms bring out the best in them. It will be interesting to see if Shaw honors the seniors in front of the fans before the game. I have no inside knowledge but I’d lean towards yes given what I’ve seen out of Shaw so far. In the meantime, I’m off to New York to catch the pre-season NIT at Madison Square Garden featuring Syracuse, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech and Stanford, which might as well serve as a BCS tiebreaker!

Stanford vs Oregon

2011-11-18T00:24:00.001-08:00

After 9 weeks of build up, it was finally here: 9-0 Stanford vs 8-1 Oregon. It doesn’t get any better than that! The trip got off to a shaky start when my 7:30pm flight on Friday got pushed back to 8pm. With the possibility of further delays, I considered flying in to San Jose but didn’t feel that it was worth it given that I had someone picking me up from SFO. I settled into conversation with a fellow alum when the Southwest attendant announced that there was some bad news. Before she could finish her sentence, I bolted out of my seat and was second in a long line of passengers who didn’t want to wait for our new departure time of 11pm. The San Jose flight had just left and the next flight to Oakland was in 15 minutes. With the prospect of not making it out to SFO that night and missing College Game Day, I half sprinted, half jogged to the other terminal. Boy am I out of shape!

Luckily, everything went pretty smoothly from then on and I even managed to get a friend to pick me up from the Oakland airport. While waiting, I was approached by an alum who was picking up his son and instantly knew what my allegiances were from my Shayne Skov 11 for 11 shirt. On the way to campus, we stopped at the Fed Ex along California Avenue and bumped into than Ty Montgomery’s mum whom I’d met at the Stanford Scrimmage 3 months ago. One of his teachers was in tow as they printed out several signs for Game Day. I congratulated her on Ty’s success and upcoming first career start at WR and also let her know what a great gunner he was as she explained his special teams role to some other fans. Unfortunately, I forgot to compliment her on her role in The Program: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNq66fZw5-Y&feature=player_embedded

After that short detour, it was off to campus where we parked in the new GSB parking lot which was much closer to the stadium than the usual Wilbur spot. We decided to swing by the Oval to do some scouting of the Game Day set up. With sleeping bag in tow, we expected to be warned that we couldn’t camp out as stated in several university press releases but the security guards didn’t mention a thing and let us scope out our desired spot. It was then off to the RV where Albert had expanded the sleeping quarters to fit 7 but with the amount of adrenaline I had and an early wake up call to boot, there was no way I was going to be able to sleep. Instead, I met up with another friend who was coming for Game Day and we walked around the campus and made a stop at the Oval where a handful of people were in line – the first person being a UCLA fan. An hour later we were back with reinforcements. It was about 3:30am and there were about 50 people there. The first sign of note unfortunately did not make it past the sign Nazis.

It was a little after 4am when they started letting people into the Pit – the area directly behind the stage where the Game Day guys were – but not after a strict search to make sure they weren’t carrying any contraband items like markers to write offensive signs. We opted to be off to the side in front of the side stage and video screen thanks to the advice of the following blog post: http://upperdeckblog.com/2011/10/how-to-be-a-part-of-espn%E2%80%99s-college-gameday/ The preparation came in handy as it meant no waiting in line or being searched and ample TV time, especially on ESPNU. In retrospect, we could probably have shown up at 5:30 and gotten the same spot. By the time it was 6am, a sizable crowd had formed. It was hard to tell from our vantage point how many people there were but it felt respectable especially after an ESPN article the day before predicted the smallest College Game Day turn out ever. As I’m sure was its intention, the article galvanized the student body which to be fair, has only 6,200 undergrads to work with. Chris Fowler thanked the crowd for showing up very genuinely and implored us to stay classy when they talked about Penn State. I was pleasantly surprised that it was heeded given the tremendous amount of time devoted to the matter. To be perfectly honest, most of College Game Day was a blur. Coach Shaw came on in a nice Stanford Football leather coat to chants of “Shaw has swag”; Plunkett was well received although it was obvious that he had not done much prep on the teams he was picking but ended up getting them mostly right; Erin Andrews was amused by a sign that mistakenly called Kirk Herbstreit “Curt”; Shayne Skov posted a picture of my favorite sign on twitter (the one to the right of it is pretty good too); and we caught a glimpse of both the BCS Championship trophy and the Pac-12 championship trophy.

After Game Day ended, it was time for a nap but even in my sleep deprived state, the most I could muster was an hour. I got up feeling great. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. While at Chuck Taylor’s Grove, I got pulled aside by a CNN reporter who tried to bait me with the “Is Stanford’s recent success a result of relaxed admission standards” question. If he was hoping that I would give him something juicy, he picked the wrong guy. After I bored him with Stanford’s new approach to recruiting under Harbaugh –encouraging underclassmen in high school to take AP classes if they were serious about Stanford and the resulting signaling effect of how serious they were that told us if we should devote more resources to recruiting them – my buddy knocked his next question out of the park by talking about how Stanford football brings people together and creates a community of both alums and non-alums. I’m guessing we won’t make it to TV since we didn’t admit to writing papers for football players. Just like College Game Day, the pre-game festivities were a blur too as I met several friends and some people who I hadn’t seen in ages.

It was beautiful night in Stanford stadium and the electricity was palpable. I was fortunate to sit next to my economic honors thesis advisor who I could discuss the strategic aspect of football with while yelling my head off. The game itself was of course disappointing. We were out-coached and out executed. Oregon was the superior team and had the better game plan. Our play calling was predictably bad and it felt like we had more drops in this one game than all the other games this season combined. Even if we had brought our A game in terms of execution, it would have been a coin flip. When we beat Oregon 2 years ago, we played what felt like the perfect game. We needed something like that to win and even then, the coaches might have given it away. I honestly thought that they had a plan for this game and that a lot of the earlier stuff they had shown this season was misdirection. I guess I gave them too much credit or perhaps the injury to Ertz was a lot more impactful than realized. In any case, we were beaten convincingly and you can’t play the what-if game after being beaten so thoroughly, especially when every break and call seemed to go our way.

After I good night’s rest, I felt refreshed and it was nice to see the 49ers win a big game against the Giants. With extra credit freed up by cancelled Southwest flights and inspired by a friend who is a huge Packers fan (he’s from Milwaukee), I decided that a Packers-49ers NFC championship game would be a fitting first NFL game for me to attend in person. On my flight home, a stewardess stowed a walking stick in the compartment above me right before we took off and warned us to be careful when we opened it. Of course, no one else paid any attention and when the clueless guy in front of me opened it when we landed, the walking stick came hurtling down towards my head. Crisis was adverted when I grabbed it in the nick of time and after he recovered from the shock, he said “Nice catch”. If only I could say the same thing to our receivers.

Thanks to Boise’s loss, we are still very much in the BCS Bowl conversation and to tell you the truth, if we can’t play in New Orleans, I’d rather play Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl than a Big-10 team in the Rose Bowl. Not only do I think we have a better shot at beating Oklahoma than Wisconsin (irrespective of what the spread will be), we have much more to gain and less to lose by playing Oklahoma than a Big-10 team. But now, there’s absolutely no more margin for error. Big Game will be a bigger challenge than previously thought now that Cal has some momentum and Notre Dame was always going to be tough. We’ll need to play our A game from here on out.

Post #100 - The Game We Have Been Waiting For

2011-11-10T02:49:00.001-08:00

Reser stadium capped off our journey to all the Pac-10 stadiums. That was our main goal when we started our endeavor to travel to away football games and we’ve been fortunate enough to witness a tremendous resurgence in Stanford football. Would we have continued going to game after game if the team was more reminiscent of those when we were back in college? I’d like to say yes but winning definitely has made these road trips easier. With 28 consecutive Stanford games under our belt, it feels like we’ve come full circle as the Oregon game approaches. Game #2 of our streak was the last time we beat Oregon and that stretch of games – beating a highly ranked Oregon at home, demolishing USC on the road, losing to Cal (boy that one hurt), beating Notre Dame at home and losing narrowly to Oklahoma without Luck in our first Bowl game in 8 years – thrust Toby to the front of the Heisman race and proved that Stanford could compete with the big boys in the conference and nation. The team has built on that success and while the SC game last year was the one I had circled in my calendar as College Game Day’s introduction to the Farm, better late than never.

Hyperbole permeates the world we live in. Phrases like “Game of the Century” and “Greatest of All Time” get bandied around with reckless abandon and before the season started, I might have sounded hyperbolic myself as I told anyone who would listen that this was a once in a generation team and in our lifetimes, we might not see a Stanford team with this potential ever again. How often has Stanford had a consensus #1 pick QB and several first round picks on offense? How often has Stanford had a tremendous defense in just their first year of a new defensive scheme? Add that to a dream schedule which slowly ramps up in difficulty and has 7 home games (including Oregon), I felt that this was the year that the stars could be aligned.

But even with all that we had going for us, it was never a sure thing that we would be 9-0 even though everyone predicted a Stanford-Oregon showdown of this magnitude when the schedules were first released. Looking at the 9 games we’ve won, the point spreads translate to a 36% chance of going unbeaten which is coincidentally roughly equal to the chances of us winning our next 4 games. You could argue that we’ve covered the spread every single time and that number is an underestimate but my point is that it wasn’t the most likely scenario coming into a season where Vegas set the over-under on Stanford’s regular season win total at 9 games. Where we are today is all I could have ever asked for – winning the games we’re supposed to win so that we have a chance to play in a game of this magnitude.

With Pac-12 championship, National Championship and Heisman trophy implications, this could very well be the biggest game in Stanford’s history especially if you combine magnitude with difficulty (obviously if we win on Saturday then Big Game is as important if not more important). And with everything on the line, it’s easy to succumb to the idea that the success of this season or even Andrew Luck’s legacy hinges on this single game. After watching the World Series of Poker final table where a virtual coin flip determined who won $8.7 million and the fates of both players were completely out of their control, I would argue that a close football game against two evenly matched teams shares some similarities. As much as there is an illusion of complete control in the final outcome of the game, the bounce of the ball before a fumble is recovered, the deflection of a Hail Mary pass into a receiver’s hands or the referee’s ruling on an interception versus catch on the 1 yard line is in essence a coin flip. And that recovery or interception could be the difference between a win and a loss. Obviously I want us to play our best football and beat Oregon but if the two teams are as evenly matched as many think they are, it could come down to a coin flip like situation. The runner up in the main event took home $5.3 million. There’s no shame in losing a coin flip if you play your best and give it your all.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “Life is a journey, not a destination”. Stanford is 9-0, #2 in the Coaches Poll, #3 in the AP/Harris Poll, #4 in the BCS standings and has the leading Heisman candidate. While I dream that this will be a staple of Stanford football, a lot has come together to make this happen and I may never see this again in my lifetime. And so we are renting an RV, driving out on Friday, lining up for Game Day in the morning with our signs and Duck Hunting Caps, and tailgating all day till kick off. No matter what happens on Saturday, it’s been one hell of a journey and nowhere close to ending.

Stanford @ OSU

2011-11-10T02:31:00.000-08:00

The 12:30pm kick off made my Saturday morning Southwest flight a little too close for comfort. It also elicited some choice words in the middle of a crowded employment center when I first found out. Luckily no one knew me and I had also booked a Friday night flight – my standard practice when faced with a TBD kickoff on the road. It did mean that I had to find accommodation for an extra night but Albert took care of it as usual and once again, we were staying at the Ramada. Albert would join me the next morning since he managed to get an Alaskan flight from SFO that got in at 9am. There was a 45 minute delay due to our flight crew arriving late because of rain in Las Vegas but I was in no particular hurry and didn’t mind too much. Upon arriving in Portland, I was greeted by the lovely Ducks and Beavers logos at the airport. I don’t have particularly fond memories of the Portland airport where I had quite a bit of time to kill after last year’s game. The same can be said of the Eugene airport where I lamented our basketball team’s loss to the Ducks in the Pit. I guess unlike Los Angeles or more specifically the Coliseum, Oregon hasn’t been too kind to me over the years.

With the weather forecast predicting rain all day Saturday and memories of being soaking wet in Husky stadium last year which were mitigated in part by our absolutely dominant performance, staying as dry as possible was a point of emphasis this week and so I travelled a little less light than usual. While it didn’t rain nearly as hard as the previous year and even stopped midway in the second quarter, the extra clothing sure came in handy. It also made me appreciate how fortunate we’ve been with the weather at Stanford. The last time I remember it raining was when we played Washington State in 2008. Boy did it rain hard that day. The drive to Corvallis went smoothly and the scenery a little more appealing than the journey from Spokane to Pullman. We got to the stadium an hour before kickoff and seeing as there wasn’t too much to do and the rain was already starting, just headed inside and ordered some hot chocolate. The stadium had a small intimate field and our seats behind the goal but at the left most edge were great - probably the best away seats all year. We talked to some the Stanford fans sitting close to us and a group had driven up from San Jose the day before. There was also a former football player living in Portland who had his 6 and 8 year old sons in tow.

It was yet another slow start on offense with Luck having an off day. Granted there were a few drops but he could definitely have thrown some better balls. Luckily the defense was solid, as it has been all year on the road. It’s frightening how easily we could have fallen behind in all of our road games if the other team had been able to put some points on the board. Unlike Albert who felt pretty confident that we would pull away, I definitely entertained the notion that we might trip up when the score was close in the third – not because it was a trap game but because we were just having an off day. Eerily similar to the last time we were in Oregon was the hit on Owusu. Can’t help but wonder what would have happened last year if there had been a flag or this year if there hadn’t. Albert believes that it would have just delayed the inevitable and we would have pulled away anyway. I’m not as convinced. The crowd reaction as the Stanford player’s themselves even commented was disappointing. The refrain I heard repeatedly from the Stanford fans around us was “They [Oregon State fans] were so nice before the game”. I attribute it to a mob mentality and it probably doesn’t help that your coach is going ballistic on the sidelines either.

Thankfully we pulled away and even covered the 21 point spread without any further injuries after losing Levine earlier. After the game, Albert and I had wasted no time in getting out of Corvallis as we wanted to catch as much of the Alabama-LSU game as possible, or so we thought. We listened to it on the radio and shortly after we got back to our hotel to dry off, the first half had ended. We located a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant nearby and were in heaven albeit somewhat exhausted. They had every game of interest on, solid food and a cute waitress. The Kansas State-OK State ended up being much more interesting than the LSU-Bama game for multiple reasons and gave us a glimmer of home that it could be a truly special day. If only Kansas State had run the ball at the 5 yard line with 11 seconds left and 1 time out instead of throwing it 3 times. It’s hard to say if they would have gone for 2 points if they had scored. It would clearly have been the right play but since when do coaches make the right play anyway? The Oregon-Washington game was interesting for a while but then Oregon started pulling away and we headed back to our hotel to get some sleep before our 8am flights. It wasn’t even 11pm but we were absolutely exhausted.

Fortunately we are done with road games and hopefully that means no more slow starts for the offense. We definitely can’t afford one against Oregon. Our kickoff coverage team also needs to get its act together. Williamson’s ability to directionally kick it on kick offs has spoiled them and it feels like Skov may have been a bigger part of kickoff coverage than we realize. On the injury front, fingers crossed that Fleming and Williamson can play but I’d say we’re doing as well as we could have hoped for given the past few weeks with Ertz and Owusu being the main casualties. There are bound to be injuries and player’s playing hurt by this time of the season anyway. This is it. The game that everyone’s had circled in their calendar for months. Saturday can’t come sooner enough.

Stanford @ USC

2011-10-30T22:09:00.000-07:00

I woke up on Saturday just in time to catch Corso flail around in the tree costume. I was somewhat disappointed as I had him picking SC to win at 3-1 but I loved the bet especially since the line moved to 2-1 shortly after I placed it. One thing I’ve learned from sports betting and poker is that you can’t be results orientated. One thing I’ve learned from sports is that no one cares about the quality of the decision - only the results. In a decision analysis seminar, David Shaw responded to my question about applying Moneyball-like statistical analysis to decision making in football by commenting that when you are judged purely on outcomes, job preservation is a consideration and you have to go with conventional wisdom unless you have the credibility of a Bill Belichick or Steve Spurrier. Sad but true, and completely rational on his part although hopefully one day he will have the credibility do so. Based on my anecdotal observations of fourth down decision making, I would say that Chip Kelly best personifies that screw the conventional wisdom, let’s increases our win probability mentality.

But I digress. The flight to LA went smoothly and I met former Stanford DB Chris Young who was proudly donning his Gator Bowl ring. Albert met me at the airport around noon and we picked up a car and headed straight to the Coliseum. First stop was the Nine-O bar where we met up with some LA-based folks. The bar had a nice selection of football games going on and a decent Stanford contingent. The next stop after some travel snafus was a transplanted Chuck Taylor Grove tailgate which had delicious appetizers, gracious hosts, great company and some potent alcohol affectionately known as Tonga. Next up was the alumni tailgate which was considerably larger than 2009 but lacked the Bowlsby address or band entrance although it’s completely possible that we just missed it. The ribs and grilled chicken were absolutely delicious. Finally, it was back to the first tailgate for a final cup of Tonga en route to the Coliseum – a place where I’ve been fortunate to have nothing but fond memories…

What a game! USC has definitely improved since their season opener when they struggled to beat Minnesota and full credit to our guys who persevered every time the game felt like it was slipping away. The atmosphere in the Coliseum was absolutely electric from the raucous USC student section swaying from side to side to the noise during 3^rd downs to the unbridled joy in the Stanford section at the end of the third overtime. It was an amazing experience to be a part of and while the 2007 win was pretty memorable, this undoubtedly tops it for the sheer drama of triple overtime and the significance of the game. The last Stanford football overtime I remember was sophomore year when UCLA came back from 21 points down with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter. I guess this makes up for it.

Now turning to some end game analysis, I thought Luck’s pick 6 was the next best thing that could have happened on that play other than a first down since it gave us the ball back instead of having to punt it and allow USC to run the clock down and kick a game winning field goal. Instead of throwing it, however, I think we should have run it on third and 3 and potentially gone for it on fourth down as well (although I doubt the latter is in Shaw’s playbook for obvious reasons). Even if we’d been stopped twice which I don’t think would have been too likely given the element of surprise and our running game’s success in short yardage situations, we would have been able to get the ball back with some time to work with down 3 or 7. As much as I like our defense, there’s no worse feeling than having your best player on the sidelines as the clock winds down with the score tied. In fact, I’d feel more comfortable with the score tied and the ball in Luck’s hand with 2 minutes left than up less than a touchdown with the same amount of time and our defense on the field.

The next break we got was the Fleener catch being ruled incomplete. Why we didn’t run it at second and 2 on the 4 yard line and instead burned 2 times outs befuddles me and is reminiscent of the games against Cal and Notre Dame in 2010 when we tried to score too quickly and give the opposing team time to march down the field. Perhaps the stigma surrounding letting the clock expire without getting a play off is so much greater than leaving time for the other team’s offense (since you can blame it on the defense or give credit to the other team’s offense) that coaches aggressively avoid the former. Fortunately, we managed to burn just enough clock that USC wasn’t able to attempt a field goal. Not sure why they didn’t use an additional time out earlier in the drive to save some clock or instruct Woods to go down. We definitely dodged a bullet on that one.

Not surprisingly, the only heat Shaw received about his decision making was the third and 8 wildcat play where we settled for the game tying field goal. While I didn’t like it too much either (a draw or QB keeper option would probably have worked much better given the element of surprise), it was not his worst play call by a long shot. It just went against the conventional wisdom that you need to have the ball in your best player’s hands. If anything, the decision to have Whitaker try directional kick offs and give USC great field position time and time again was much more detrimental.

At the end of the day, we’re at the point of the season where style points count for naught and winning is all that matters. We are not surpassing Oklahoma State in the BCS if both teams win out and Boise State is not going to edge us out either. Unfortunately, injuries are beginning to take their toll and hopefully we can get a couple of guys healthy before the Oregon showdown but injuries are part of the game and to be fair, Oregon has had its fair share and have a tougher upcoming game to boot. Finally, I’ll leave you with a parting shot of the Coliseum – the backdrop for some of the most memorable football moments I’ve had in my life.

Stanford vs Washington

2011-10-25T00:42:00.000-07:00

I was grinding out a session of video poker at Green Valley Ranch on Friday night when I got a call from a friend. She had planned on dropping by the ticket office after attending the Reunion festivities to pick up a ticket to the Washington game but much to her chagrin, she had just found out that the game was sold out. Like me, she’s from the Class of 2008 and we are most definitely in a whole new world of Stanford football. Luckily for her, she called the right person and I was able to get her a free ticket thanks to the generosity of an alum who had a couple of extras. Upon returning to video poker, I hit a Royal Flush which occurs once every 45281 hands. The weekend was off to a good start. To be fair, I put in about 16000 hands over a two day period so it wasn’t a complete shot in the dark but perhaps it was an omen of the long shots to come.

I pretty much have my travel routine down to a science. Wake up 2 hours before my flight, drive to the bus terminal where they have a free park and ride, take the bus to the airport for $2, pick up a couple of magazines and hope that my flight isn’t delayed. Saturday morning went off without a hitch and I met a friend for brunch in San Carlos after which I headed over to Albert’s place where we (mostly Albert) prepped for the tailgate. We got to campus where it became a game of running around to meet people, deliver tickets, pick up tickets and drink some MT3 tea. My friend who thinks Fleener now knows who he is just because he took a picture with him at the kick off dinner saw him during the walk and yelled “Catch a touchdown today” to which Fleener answered “Ok”. I called the text message (“Just like I told him”) even before it came when Fleener scored. Oh yeah, we also ran into Mark Madsen and David Moseley who absolutely loved the Shayne Skov Tribute shirts and happily took a picture with the crew in the photo that I like to call Madsen, Moseley and the Misfits!

Two weeks ago, I would have told you that I wasn’t worried about Washington but as game time approaches, anxiety always starts to creep in especially with our penchant for slow starts. One of my theories is that in previous games Stanford has experimented to some extent. Putting different looks on film so that defenses have to prepare for them like throwing deep to Patterson to establish him as a credible threat even if we don’t really expect to throw deep to him much and the infuriating fades in the end zone that never work. We can’t always run screens or run the ball when Patterson and Terrell are our two receivers. To borrow from game theory, we need a mixed strategy even if they payoff from our lesser used options is small to enhance the payoff from our strong options. Against Washington, it felt like we stopped messing around. Before we started going vanilla, we ran tons of plays that looked exactly like plays we had run before but countered with a new twist. That’s been a hallmark of the offense these past few years and hopefully we have more wrinkles in our playbook in the upcoming games. On defense, it definitely felt like we missed Howell and Skov early on with the missed tackles that were reminiscent of the Harris era but we cleaned things up in the second half and MT3’s pick 6 felt like the game clincher.

In another sign of how far Stanford has come, the crowd around us which consisted of lots of young alumni was frantically checking the Wisconsin game and they even announced the final score over the loudspeakers to cheers from those who were still in the stadium. It brought to mind a scene I saw on youtube when it was announced at LSU or somewhere in the South that we had beaten SC in 2007 (minus the packed stadium). Speaking of long shots, that last hail mary after Michigan State managed to recover their own fumble earlier in the drive was pretty incredible but to be honest, I was more intrigued by the early rumblings out of Norman than Wisconsin who I’ve always felt that we would pass by the end of the season.

After the game, we decided to hit up The Counter on California Avenue because they had TVs and would be showing the Oklahoma-Texas Tech game, or so we thought. When we got in, it was filled with students but they only had some football highlights and a MLS game going on. Fortunately, the bartender accommodated my request and we got the game on one and later at the request of some others both TVs. By the end, Fleener was in the house and everyone was living and dying with every single play. Thank you Texas Tech for overcoming the 28 point spread and Tuberville for his gusty play calling – going for it twice on fourth and goal (TD on the first, turnover on downs on the second but I believe they got it back on a pick). I couldn’t even begrudge the fake punt which would have been successful if the guy held his block. Would the extra 30 yards a punt might have gained stopped Oklahoma from scoring that drive? Perhaps but I think it’s the better call in terms of maximizing win probability and love seeing coaches play to win and not be risk averse or worry what the so called experts think. Hopefully the Texas A&M coaches and their pathetic performance against Oklahoma State won’t come back to haunt us.

With SC’s win over Notre Dame which took me completely by surprise and College Game Day going down for the game, it’s going to be a huge one. As a friend commented to me, we’re not sneaking up on them this time. This is arguably their biggest home game this season (bigger than UCLA) and I think it’s going to come down to the wire. The real season is about to begin. Halloween can’t come any sooner.

Stanford @ WSU

2011-10-17T00:56:00.001-07:00

The flight to Spokane on Friday evening was pretty uneventful. A Stanford alum boarded at the very last minute but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him and there were a couple of WSU alums who were trying to chat up an energy drink promoter girl who was friendly but far more interested in figuring out the place to be on a Friday night in downtown Spokane. Upon arrival, I strolled across the street to the conveniently located Ramada which Albert had booked. I love travelling with Albert. I just need to show up and he takes care of everything else. Albert got in much later that night and the plan was to watch the 9am Michigan-Michigan State game in the hotel and then head down to Pullman after it ended.

We got to Pullman about 2.5 hours before kick-off and it was surprisingly quiet for homecoming weekend. We walked past their band and a smash a car(dinal) fundraiser before finding a sportsbar on the fringes of campus where we caught some of the afternoon games. After watching Texas fail in their attempt to cover the spread, we headed to the stadium where there was a small contingent of about 60 Stanford fans tucked away in the visitor’s section including an alum whom I had met on my Alabama trip. The gentlemen sitting next to me informed me that for some reason he had “next to Zhang” scribbled on his tickets. I guess the ticket office must know who I am. For all my initial worries of rain, it was as beautiful a day as one could ask for in Pullman. The last time I was here to watch Stanford beat WSU in overtime (senior year basketball), a snow storm had just passed and another one was on its way so there were no complaints from me. The Martin stadium was pretty small and took a while to fill up but it started to get pretty rowdy at the end of the first half and when their mascot drove in on an ATV – which if anything seems like a safety hazard to me. By the fourth quarter, however, the most interesting thing going on was the fight that broke out in the tailgating section which security did a poor job trying to keep under control.

It was yet another one of our patented slow offensive starts on the road but our defense kept us in the game as the front 4 got pressure and the DBs wrapped up. We were also extremely sloppy, especially on special teams, and dodged a couple of bullets when we recovered our own fumbles. Fortunately, we turned it around in the second half and took the crowd out of the game. I guess it’s good that we’ve had to face some adversity while still blowing teams out and in my opinion there aren’t many teams in the country that are playing complete games no matter what the final score or Sportscenter might tell you, but it would be nice if we could put everything together in the next few games, especially Oregon and Notre Dame. I also got the sense that the staff was experimenting with some plays and by throwing so much in the 4^th quarter when we typically run the ball sending a message to future teams that they can’t just completely sell out to stop power.

After the game, we headed back to the sportsbar to watch Oregon-ASU. ASU really blew it at the end of the first half – giving up what was at least a 10 if not 14 point swing with the unsportsmanlike conduct followed by the pick and Oregon touchdown. Full credit to Oregon, however, for not losing a beat with their backups coming in. It’s going to be a great matchup come November 12. Hopefully we can take care of business these next few games to set up a game that is worthy of College Game Day.

Stanford vs Colorado

2011-10-11T00:51:00.001-07:00

It was an early start to game day as I got up at 6am and took the first flight out of Vegas to SFO. When I arrived at my friend’s place, I was welcomed by the fresh smell of scrambled eggs, bacon and waffles, and the sight of Oklahoma’s 12-0 chances receiving a large boost as they destroyed Texas in the Red River Rivalry. Before we hit campus, it was off to his daughter’s soccer game in Cupertino where she dominated with 2 assists and a plus-minus of 4 as she dug her team out of a 0-1 hole in their 4-1 victory. We may also have gotten on the referee’s and an opposing parent’s nerves after some questionable calls but I’ll call a hand-ball when I see one and you shouldn’t be penalized for shielding the opponent from the ball just because you’re a head taller than them!

It was yet another beautiful day in Palo Alto as we pulled up to the stadium. After parking in Lot 2, we headed over to Chuck Taylor’s Grove for some food and alcohol. For the walk, we rocked our Shayne Skov tribute shirts which have his mohawk and face-painted visage on the front and “11 for 11” on the back - the latter referring to 11 more wins for #11 who was injured during our third game against Arizona. You do the math. The Martins whom I had seen at almost all the games this season stropped by after the walk armed with several copies of the program which had Moose on the cover (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700183580/The-Moose-has-Lucks-back-blindside-at-Stanford.html). They were extremely friendly but understandably coy when the topic of Moose declaring jokingly came up.

After some delicious Indian food and watching ASU take care of business against Utah, I left for Albert’s tailgate where I met up with some other friends. We then entered the stadium which was definitely not sold out no matter what the official numbers may say. I blame Fleet week and guess that a 7:30pm kickoff gets people in their seats since there isn’t too much else to do. Nevertheless, it was nice to see the student section filled to capacity and revved up for the game.

I was somewhat skeptical that we’d be able to cover the 30 point spread but our defense really stepped up despite some missed tackles (and aided by some drops and poor throws) and Luck looked effortless out there as Colorado’s defense really sold out to stop the run early on. Obviously Colorado was missing key contributors and isn’t that good a team even when at full strength, but it was nice to see the offense click and get contributions from multiple players. There was less questionable play calling by my accounts but I would have liked to see us go for it on 4^th and 4 instead of attempting a 47 yard field goal, especially with Williamson’s struggles early on.

All in all, I was pleased by the win and even happier that the players weren’t satisfied by it. As I’ve been saying all season, we just need to keep on getting better so that we’ll be ready for the stretch run. While the performance of the other unbeaten teams isn’t something that Stanford can control, I would be lying if I claimed that I wasn’t scoreboard watching. Using projected spreads, I estimate that Stanford has a 15% of going 13-0. Probabilities for the other contenders are Alabama (37%), Oklahoma (33%), Wisconsin (24%), LSU (17%) and Oklahoma State (9%). I think an undefeated Stanford would get the nod ahead of Wisconsin thanks to Andrew Luck and overall strength of schedule, but finish behind an unbeaten SEC team and Big 12 team. The current likelihood of the SEC and Big 12 producing undefeated teams is about 23%. That number is growing by the week and hopefully carnage will happen soon. It will undoubtedly happen for some of the other unbeatens but the SEC and Big 12 are the only that really concern me. But ultimately, all that matters and I all can ask is for Stanford to take care of business as the schedule toughens up starting with Wazzu in Pullman.

Stanford vs UCLA

2011-10-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

With some time off from work and a well-timed bye week for Stanford, I surveyed the various Week 4 match ups and decided to make a trip to Tuscaloosa for Arkansas vs Alabama and my first ever SEC game. To summarize, the atmosphere was absolutely electric, the fans couldn’t have been friendlier and the barbeque was to die for. I’ve definitely developed a soft spot for the South. Alabama rolled to a convincing victory but in evaluating their overall play and this could well be hubris speaking, I feel that Stanford matches up extremely well with them. Elite SEC defenses equipped with blazing speed are built to defend Oregon’s spread. Together with special teams, they put up a lot of points on the board but I’d be interested to see how they’d match up against Stanford or Wisconsin’s power offense in games where their defense isn’t generating points. I didn’t come away too impressed with Alabama’s offense (QB and play calling since Richardson is pretty damn good) and while one might give credit to Arkansas, the same defense gave up 35 points in the first half to Texas A&M’s strong running game. If anything, Oregon worries me much more and we actually have to play them.

While it was nice to have the week off and experience the South, I was definitely chomping at the bit for the UCLA game with the students finally back on campus and 40+ of my co-workers with a sizable UCLA presence making it to the game. I had a hunch we’d be wearing our black jerseys (night game, big recruiting visit, process of elimination) and expedite shipped a black Luck jersey in time for my Friday departure. For the first time since All-Star weekend in Las Vegas several years ago, my flight was delayed. Luckily I was in no particular hurry and counted my blessings that it wasn’t game day. After watching some of the most atrocious coaching by Texas A&M in the 2^nd half when they chose to punt in several 4^th and 1 situations in Arkansas territory when their running game was unstoppable (I estimate that the coaches reduced their team’s win probability by half), I headed over to campus with one of my coworkers and showed him around. It never fails to hit me how beautiful campus is and how fortunate I am to have attended Stanford.

It was a busier than usual pre-game for me as I headed dropped by various tailgates to say hi while making my way to the walk. I received confirmation through the grapevine that the team was going to be clad in black and got nicely lubricated with some MT3 black and blueberry tea. I had to tear myself away from my work tailgate to get into the stadium on time and was struck by how crowded it was. While we had been in a general admission lot which was UCLA heavy, the stadium featured a heavy dose of Cardinal and unlike previous sell outs such as USC last year and Cal and Notre Dame the year before, the visitors were not a huge driving force behind the sell out. The students were also out in full force. It was a joy to see.

I thought our offense was a significant improvement over previous games and it was good to see the line starting to jell and get their timing down. The highlight of course was Luck’s one-handed sideline catch which sparked off several Heisman poses from our section. We got a little too cute up 14-0 and I am not a fan of those empty back field 4 wide out sets that telegraph to defenses we are going to pass. Our strength is the 1WR, 2TE, 1FB, 1RB set where we have ultimate run-pass flexibility. Hopefully the coaches were just messing around and trying out new wrinkles because that’s what it felt like from the stands. A simple analysis of average yards per attempt on those empty background sets while controlling for down and yardage should tell them that it’s suboptimal. On defense, I think we did a decent job. There is obviously room for improvement and I would hope for a more aggressive defense in the Oregon and USC games where we try and increase variance (make a big play on defense or give up a big play on defense) since they have better offenses. Against UCLA, a low variance approach that keeps everything in front of you makes sense to me. The big early stop was extremely nice to see and I had to refrain from commenting when there was some chatter that those 3 points that UCLA gave up by going for it instead of kicking a field goal could be key. As a friend astutely pointed out, the fact that they were 21.4 point underdogs and we were able to march 99 yards down the field is all the more reason why you absolutely have to go for it on 4^th and goal at the 2. Kudos to Slick Rick for going for it although the fact that he deserves credit for making the painfully obvious optimal play reflects the sad state of conventional wisdom that is pervasive in football.

All in all, I was extremely heartened by the team’s performance and if they can continue to improve, stay healthy and get some of the new guys playing experience (especially on defense), we will be prime for the stretch run against USC, Oregon, and Notre Dame.

Stanford @ Arizona

2011-09-21T00:56:00.001-07:00

After two non-conference games against overmatched opponents, Tucson was the first real test for our team. Were we for real or was the over/under of 8.5 wins a more accurate representation of our team’s chances? While I had an air of confidence about the San Jose State and Duke games, I didn’t know what to expect at the Zona Zoo. While Arizona wasn’t an elite team, they still had a lot of talent and played well at home. It was the also the first time I was flying out of McCarran after finding a place here and I needed to get my airport routine down. I ended up finding a free park and ride area at the South Strip Transfer Terminal and was able to get to the airport for a $2 bus fare – much cheaper than taking a cab to the airport and given how many of these flights I have, a good money saver.

The weekend got off to a good start when I finished 2^nd in a poker tournament on Friday. It was a run-of-the-mill daily tournament but Ray Romano and Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm) were playing in it with some of their friends. I busted Cheryl and had the pleasure of sitting right next to Ray for a couple of hours. He ended up finishing 4^th and was a nice guy and decent player. After he busted, it was off to dinner and then a performance at the Mirage.

I got up bright and early on Saturday and was in Tucson before I even knew it. Since it was a late game and I was in no particular hurry, I took the bus and walked 1.5 miles to my hotel. It was a beautiful day and not as hot as I’d expected it to be. After checking in and catching a bit of the Notre Dame – Michigan State game where Notre Dame for the third week in a row was the superior team but plagued by turnovers early on, I headed over to Dirtbags which was the pre-game gathering point of choice among some of the Cardinal faithful who had made the trip. The alumni tailgate didn’t strike me as particularly appealing when the only mode of payment was mailing a check. We had several hours to kill and managed to do so with drinks, football and coeds. We ran into former Stanford football player Luke Powell who had driven over from Tempe and was waiting for former team mate QB Chris Lewis.

By the time kick off came around, it was a beautiful evening in Tucson and all the talk about dehydration and the heat seemed pretty unwarranted. As we headed over to the stadium, there was some mild heckling but nothing out of the ordinary. I ran into an old acquaintance from my senior year travels as we found our seats and another friend from junior year. Albert and I ended up moving down right next to the band which allowed us to stand for the whole game. We were joined by the Bernard family who stood for the whole game as well and got to see their kid play in the nickel package. I also spotted Ty Montgomery’s mum who probably is going to make it to every single game this season!

The overall atmosphere was great as the Arizona fans were pumped up for their first conference game. The first half was excruciatingly painful with the offensive struggles, defensive shakiness without Skov and injuries that had piled up. There was no doubt in my mind after watching the replay on Arizona’s ridiculously large scoreboard (my bus driver told me that it had cost $7 million) that Skov was done for the season. The one bright spark was our kicker Williamson’s play – something that one comes to appreciate after playing Duke and Arizona. I would bet good money that we lead the nation in field goal percentage allowed (with a minimum number of kicks).

I was not in the best of moods at half time as it felt that everything was unraveling. An overreaction for sure but such is the pressure of high expectations. That sinking feeling was reinforced at the start of Arizona’s second half opening drive but we managed to get our act together and make the necessary adjustments. I would have taken a 1 point victory at half time so I couldn’t complain about the 2^nd half dominance. Just like how we discovered power midway through the season in 2009, hopefully we’ve found our offensive identity this year which in my mind is the no WR set that used to open our last TD drive. It allows us a lot of run-pass flexibility and while we should probably run a fair amount out of it, play-action possibilities should keep defenses honest. By the end of the game, it was yet another blow out with lots of room for improvement although the Skov injury puts a real damper on things. Hopefully he will come back even stronger from it either at Stanford or in the NFL.

With the late kick off, it was a quick stop at Dirtbags which had a Stanford contingent reveling in the victory before returning to my hotel. The next morning brought yet another early morning flight and I bumped into a player’s father (Jeff Trojan) over breakfast and we had a nice chat. I saw a fellow Cardinal diehard at the airport and almost missed my flight as we chatted about Stanford sports. He was less fortunate and by the time we realized it, his plane was already leaving the gate. I got back to Las Vegas just in time for another poker tournament which I ended up winning. Not a bad weekend!

Stanford @ Duke

2011-09-13T16:46:00.001-07:00

While it’s nice to be in the friendly confines of Stanford’s campus, there’s something appealing about walking into the lion’s den with a group of dedicated fans with an us against the world mentality. As a friend astutely pointed out, road games are when you truly bond with your team. Granted this was a Duke football game and slightly different than walking into the Coliseum or Autzen, but you get the point. My favorite part about East Coast / Midwest road trips is meeting up with friends living on the other side of the country. The Duke trip was no different as I received a text message on Friday that there was going to be a young alumni tailgate attended by a bunch of people I knew. More importantly, Alex was going to be there for a Cardinalmaniacs reunion! The last three times I’ve seen her were at the Orange Bowl, at Notre Dame and the Sun Bowl. Detecting a pattern?

I took a redeye out of Las Vegas to Atlanta and then hopped on a quick flight to Raleigh-Durham. Layovers always make me anxious, especially when it’s on the same day as game day but everything went smoothly although I had to board my flight right before the ASU-Missouri overtime started. Luckily ASU pulled it out to preserve some Pac-12 respectability. Hopefully UCLA can do the same against Texas. The thing that struck me the most as we landed in Durham was the abundance of lush greenery. The weather was pretty pleasant and reminded me of Singapore with less humidity. I took a shuttle from the airport to the University Inn and chatted with a friendly lady from UNC who was visiting her parents and going to the UNC-Rutgers football game. After checking in, I proceeded to get absolutely lost as I tried to cut through the Duke hospital to get to the tailgate. After much wandering around, I finally was headed towards the sport complexes but realized that perhaps I should stop by the center of campus. Upon further consideration, I decided that Cameron Indoor Stadium was pretty much all that I cared for and Duke’s Gothic architecture wasn’t something that appealed much to me.

I finally found Krzyzewskiville and Cameron. I was somewhat surprised that the innocent looking exterior housed one of the most feared college home courts in the nation. There were a couple of campus tours going on and I tried to work my way into them – clad in my Luck jersey no less – to enter Cameron but was informed that they were shooting a 20 year anniversary documentary for the 1992 National Championship team. Grant Hill, Christian Laettner et al were in attendance and Hill walked past Albert and his family at one point. Albert’s main takeaway was that Hill walked like an 80-year old man. On the way to Cameron, I strolled past the Blue Devil Alley which felt like a poor man’s Chuck Taylor Grove. It was somewhat early so it wasn’t too surprising that it was empty. After more wandering, I finally found the tailgate and also bumped into my Duke friends who had spotted me in my jersey. It was great catching up with a bunch of people. The turn-out was pretty impressive as we probably had around 80-100 young alumni gathered in the parking lot. There were people who had driven from DC, New York and Atlanta. Not sure whether it was the venue or our highly ranked football team but it felt like an improved showing compared to the Notre Dame game and I’m sure it beat the Wake Forest turn out 2 years ago hands down.

After mingling with old acquaintances, we headed over to the official tailgate where we met up with Albert and his folks who had driven down from Atlanta. It was yet another impressive showing with a bunch of players’ parents to boot. It was great to see so many of the fabulous freshmen’s parents in attendance and of course Chase Thomas had a huge rooting section as well. While Bowlsby didn’t address the crowd, honorary captain Brevin Knight did. I bumped into Brevin who had his whole family in tow a little bit later and reminded him of the last time we’d met which was at Pauley Pavilion in 2008 when our Sweet 16 bound basketball team fell to UCLA in overtime. He echoed my sentiments of how we had been robbed. The lack of sleep and stifling heat of the closely confined alumni tailgate quarters did not help my appetite for the Southern cuisine but it was decent and the beers washed it down. We finally made it over to the Duke stadium which immediately reminded me of the Sun Bowl without Juarez looming in the distance. Unlike most stadiums which have one dedicated visitor’s section, Duke’s stadium split it up into two at opposite ends from each other. Albert and I lucked out and ended up on the shady side.

The first half was a little bit too close for comfort and the lack of pass protection combined with Luck having an off half was somewhat concerning. If not for Duke’s kicker being absolutely terrible, it could have been a 1 pt game. Luckily our defense bailed us out and the offense got into the swing of thing at the end of the half. The half time show featured Coach K (among others) being inducted into Duke’s Hall of Fame. I guess that’s a pretty momentous occasion but to be honest, I was surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner. Bobby Hurley was the only other person I recognized. We had our way in the second half and it was good to see the defensive depth on tap even if the 3^rd string defense gave up the first touchdown of the season. Hopefully the game was a lesson for the team that they can’t take anyone for granted. Duke was after all a team that lost to Richmond the week before although I try not to take too much stock into those things. Wasn’t Virginia Tech a team that lost to James Madison last year? Special teams also need to be better prepared. All in all, the whole road trip was good preparation for the Arizona roadie which may prove more difficult than people expect and will be a good test of where we stand against better competition. At the end of the day, it was a decent showing and it’s always great when you can take away numerous lessons from a 30 point victory.

Stanford vs San Jose State

2011-09-09T00:37:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Las Vegas! It’s been a hectic week as I packed up and bade the Bay Area goodbye right after the college football season kicked off. Opening weekend is always special because of the anticipation and optimism. Everyone is undefeated and the sky is the limit. Heck, I know someone who dreamt of an oracle who told him with probability 1 that UCLA was going to beat Houston. Luckily the online sportsbook limited the amount that he could deposit. He has since sworn off betting on the Bruins for the season but I was able to lock in a friendly Stanford -10 vs UCLA wager when his hopes were still sky high.

For me, the best part of opening weekend is soaking in the game day experience after the 9 month hiatus. Unlike other sports where one just shows up and goes to the game, football’s game day experience is so much more. For starters, it’s almost always on a Saturday and provides the perfect excuse to get back on campus and meet up with old friends who you invariably have seen less of but share a bond that only experiencing the Walt Harris days or seeing Cal celebrate on your field can bring. Next, there’s the day long tailgating fraught with pre-game analysis, discussion of recruiting, unsubstantiated gossip and bold predictions. And finally, there’s the backdrop of arguably the best campus and weather combination which might just make Stanford the perfect place to tailgate and watch a football game. It doesn’t get any better than that.

This year, we took the game day experience one step further and had a pre-game party on Friday night that involved pizza, drinks, catching the end of the Baylor-TCU shoot out and an Orange Bowl viewing. I arrived on campus around 10am, realizing that it would be the last time I would enjoy the convenience of a 20 minute drive to catch a Stanford football game. The new Lot 2 tailgating area was pretty empty when we got there but it filled up decently by kick off. While it might have been a non-conference game against San Jose State, we were in mid-season form from the Air-Luck sirens to the Skov-inspired face paint and Moose inspired antlers to the MT3 Black and Blueberry Iced Tea which I found particularly tasty. While making it out to The Walk, we bumped into several family members of the outstanding freshmen class. Introductions and well wishes were in order for the Vaughters and Montgomery families. I recall Ty mentioning in an interview that his mother was going to make it to all the games (not sure whether he meant home and away but I guess we’ll see). The Lyons and Richards families were represented as well. I guess you can’t say no to witnessing your sons showing incredible promise in their college debuts!

Upon entering the stadium and finding my new seats on the sunny side (I decided that it was time to retire from the student section given that even that grad students I knew were gone), I marveled at my new and improved vantage point and took it all in. Football was back! Because of the sparser but still respectable turn-out, I moved one section over to my friend’s section in the much vaunted 235 and was struck by the camaraderie as neighbors reconnected for the first time since last season. It was a great moment when David Shaw took the field with the team and while some might question the hire from within, I'm a supporter of not only his capabilities but how he represents the university and if it turns out that the continuity increases the probability of the team playing in a BCS bowl by a few percentage points, it’s well worth it in my mind.

I won’t comment too much about the game since like the scrimmages (I must sound like a broken record right now) it’s hard to draw too many conclusions in a game like that, but there were definitely promising signs from the defense (didn’t surprise me) and some hiccups in the run game (also didn’t surprise me) but it’s early and we struggled in that area early last year too. The freshman who had their shirts burned came to play and I could definitely see Lyons starting this year. Most importantly, there weren’t any notable injuries. Looking at the rest of the conference, the Pac-12 struggled mightily which is unfortunate, but at the same time if we can keep on improving and take it one game at a time, it’s ours for the taking.

While I’m not yet fully settled in Vegas, Durham beckons and I’m extremely excited for the first road trip of the season. Duke is a place that I’ve yet to visit and I have a friend at the Duke business school who will be going to the game as well. In other news, I found myself wondering what to do with myself during Stanford’s bye week (9/24). I could play a couple of poker tournaments. I could check out the Saturday night scene in Vegas. I could go visit some friends in New York or Chicago. Instead, I found myself looking at the college football schedule and picking out the best game that weekend. The top two contenders were Missouri at Oklahoma and Arkansas at Alabama. It wasn’t too hard a decision as I’ve always wanted to go to an SEC game. Stubhub found me a ticket on the 25-30 yard line 50 rows up for $200. Southwest had a couple of direct flights and with all the money I had saved booking and re-booking flights on Southwest, it was practically “free”. Accommodation was pricy in Tuscaloosa and so I settled for somewhere closer to Birmingham. By the end of the night, I had figured out how I’ll be spending the bye week. If anyone has any tips or advice on how to maximize my game day experience, I’m all ears.

Vegas Lines

2011-09-02T17:26:00.000-07:00

Given that I’m moving to Vegas very soon, I thought that it would be fitting to take a look at some of the Stanford lines/futures/props in anticipation of the season opener and revisit them at the end of the season.

Current and Prospective Lines
Stanford -28.5 vs SJSU, o/u 53.5
Stanford -1 @ USC
Stanford +1 vs Oregon
Stanford -11.5 vs Cal
Stanford -5 vs Notre Dame

I expect us to be more than a 1 pt favorite when the game at USC rolls around but that might just be my cardinal tinted glasses talking.

Stanford Props/Futures
Stanford Total Wins 8.5: Over -195, Under +160
Stanford Total Wins 9: Over +100, Under -130
Stanford Total Points For Per Game 36.5: Over -130, Under -110
Stanford to win Pac-12 North +175
Stanford to win Pac-12 +300
Stanford Top 5 in USA Today Final Poll +500
Stanford to reach BCS Championship +1000
Stanford to win BCS National Championship +3000
Team higher in USA Today Final Poll:
Stanford +100 vs Virginia Tech -140
Stanford +145 vs Florida State -190

The over 8.5 wins opened at -155. Even though I don’t like to wager on Stanford for fear of bias, that was a price I couldn’t refuse.

Luck Props/Futures (Regular Season + Post Season)
Luck to win Heisman +250
Luck Total Passing Yards 3049.5: Over -110, Under -130
Luck Total Passing Touchdowns 24.5: Over -150, Under +110

3049.5 yards over 13 or 14 games seems low. Of course there is the injury factor but it’s still somewhat worrying that they are so low on Luck. Absolutely no value in Heisman bet at +250.

Pac-12 Player Props (Regular Season Only)
Who will have the most passing yards per game:
Luck -140, Barkley +175, Foles +300
Who will have the most passing TDs:
Luck -150, Barkley +150, Foles +325
Who will have the most rushing yards per game:
James +100, Taylor +250, Polk +350, Stewart +575, Franklin +800, Baxter +875
Who will have the most rushing TDs:
James +100, Taylor +250, Polk +375, Stewart +400, Franklin +1200, Baxter +1500
Who will have the most receiving yards per game:
Kearse +250, Owusu +275, Criner +350, Woods +355, Wilson +550, Allen +700
Who will have the most receiving TDs:
Kearse +250, Criner +275, Owusu +350, Woods +355, Wilson +500, Allen +625

Foles at +300 to have more passing yards per game than Luck and Barkley seems like great value given that Arizona is likely to be throwing the ball late in games. Even if he gets injured because of his inexperienced O-line and is out for a couple of games, if the injury comes at the end of the game, his average will still be high. There might even be value in shorting Luck and loading up on Barkley and Foles. Don’t know enough about the other teams/players to make an informed decision for the other bets except NOT to bet on Taylor. Probably would shy away from Owusu too.

Less than 24 hours to kickoff!

Kick Off Dinner

2011-08-31T00:03:00.000-07:00

The Stanford Football Kickoff Dinner is an event that I had always wanted to attend but never had the chance to because of work. This year I was determined to make it and managed to convince a friend to join me. We got there at around 3pm to watch the open practice and as someone who was never a railbird, it was interesting to see the various kickoff, hands team and 7 on 7 drills. Polian’s exuberance during special teams practice definitely stood out. Just like the scrimmage, I found it difficult to draw any real conclusions although one thing that stood out to me was that Owusu looked great (no surprise there based on what we’ve been hearing).

After practice ended, we dropped by the Hall of Fame room which was unfortunately closed and then ambled over to the stadium where just like the open house, there already was a line waiting to get in before doors opened. If that becomes a reoccurring theme this season, there are going to be no complaints from me!

Upon entering, we picked up our nametags and being somewhat unfamiliar with the setup, tried to figure out where to sit. It turned out that there were 3 main considerations – proximity to the front where a microphone was set up, amount of shade (some tables had umbrellas, others were in the sun) and the player/coach that would be seated at your table as denoted by the nametags on the table. The first and third factors were obviously the most important and so we ended up at one of the front most tables directly in the sun with Johnson Bademosi (a true senior and third year starter). I thought it would be interesting to talk to someone who had gone through different defensive schemes and coaches and being a senior, experienced at handling himself at these alumni events.

Bademosi didn’t disappoint and talked very glowingly about the current defensive staff and the tools/techniques/schemes that they had brought over from their respective backgrounds. He had very high expectations for the defense this year as they had a year under their belt. We got to talking about the top WRs in the conference like Robert Woods and Juron Criner and how Bademosi relished the opportunity to go against them. He made a great point that he gets to go against one of the top WRs in the conference ever day in Chris Owusu. At one point, we got to the topic of how Baldwin was beating out Golden Tate in Seattle and my friend innocently asked if Bademosi had ever covered Tate. With flashbacks to the Stanford-Notre Dame game, I thought “Not really”, but Bademosi handled it well and admitted that it was a rough game when he was still an inexperienced rookie thrown into the fire. He mentioned that all week during practice they had been coached to slide outside and ended up being beaten inside repeatedly. There were also a lot of jump balls where I would have opted for intentional pass interference, but I kept that to myself. Through our conversations, I also picked up the tidbit that Bademosi’s first start was his sophomore year (2010) against Arizona State which was coincidentally also the start of Albert and my consecutive games streak.

We had an alum at our table who had gone to the Graduate School of Business back in the day (the days of Plunkett his friend who had been a punter at Illinois ribbed him repeatedly) and had been a season ticket holder for 25 years. He was a fun guy to talk to and Bademosi definitely tried to pick him brain about his experiences and indicated that he wanted to go to Business School some day. It was a great table to be at and we were also up close for the speeches that Bowlsby and Shaw gave and the interviews that Husak conducted with Skov, Thomas, Taylor and Luck.

There wasn’t really too much that I hadn’t heard before but my friend who was hearing Shaw talk for the first time came away deeply impressed by his thoughtfulness and general demeanor. David Shaw is definitely someone who represents the university well. It was also great to see 3 generations of the Shaw family in attendance (everyone should read the great article about David Shaw and his dad Willie Shaw if they haven’t already: http://espn.go.com/college-football/preview11/story/_/id/6897811/college-football-preview-david-shaw-fulfills-father-willie-shaw-dream-stanford). I thought that it was a nice touch to have Luck sit with them and not have to schmooze with alums although that obviously didn’t stop many well-wishers from stopping by for a picture or autograph. Taylor who I probably have heard the least from was very self effacing in talking about how with the O-line and TE blocking at the line of scrimmage, WRs blocking downfield and Luck preventing defenses from stacking the box, all he needed to do was run through holes. He didn’t mention his superb blocking skills but Husak brought it up and Taylor credited it to having to go against big guys like Shayne Skov in practice.

All in all, it was a great event from the food (Bademosi’s plate was stacked sky high with the special defensive back diet of 6 cookies) to the company to the interviews/speeches. My favorite moment thought had to do with our nametags. Upon entering, we were all given 2 nametags, one to wear on our shirts and the other to claim a seat at our tables. Most players didn’t bother with one given that they were wearing jerseys with their name on the back. Andrew Luck, however, only the most recognizable face in college football, had his nametag on!

Open House

2011-08-28T09:38:00.001-07:00

The Open House last year was an extremely memorable event as I managed to get the whole team to sign a Stanford football poster and Luck to autograph a #12 jersey and my Sun Bowl cap. I had both the poster and jersey framed (for way too much money) and wore the cap to every single game. Somewhat superstitious, I wanted to do the same this year and was delighted that the program included an open scrimmage as well. As I pulled off the 101 to the Embarcadero exit, a car with an Oregon Ducks license plate was in front of me. I ended up following the car to the parking lot anxious to see who this not-so-clandestine advance scout was. It turned out to be a father and young son – both clad in red. As we walked towards the rugby field where the scrimmage was being held, I couldn’t help but drop the “doing some early scouting for the Ducks” line and he was somewhat taken aback by how I had figured it out. I almost told him I could spot a Duck a mile away but fessed up that his license plate revealed his true allegiances. It turned out that he was a UW undergraduate who went to graduate school at Oregon and had moved to the Bay Area where he was a Stanford/Andrew Luck fan whenever they weren’t playing the Ducks or Huskies. Or so he claimed.

The scrimmage was a spirited affair but it’s hard to draw any real conclusions other than who is getting first team reps when offenses and defenses are so vanilla. I recall the Spring game before the Orange Bowl season when the game ended in a 6-6 tie and the Whitaker brothers had to settle it in a sudden death kickoff duel that Nate won. If anything, Eric seems to have lost some of his mojo because he pushed his brother pretty hard during that battle. Ty Montgomery’s mother was sitting near me and it is always amusing to hear well intentioned but less informed fans ask questions like “Is he on a scholarship?” The question of what other offers he had been considering also came up and I always feel like asking “If Team X had offered, would he have gone there?” where in Ty’s case, Team X would be Texas given that he is from Dallas.

There was some time between the end of scrimmage and the open house in the stadium and so I made my way over to the Track House to purchase a #12 jersey. A line outside the Gate 1 entrance a good 30 minutes before doors opened had already begun to form. It was much longer when I got back from the Track House. What a difference a year makes! Upon entering the stadium, I noticed another line on the East concourse an hour before the autograph session commenced. Of course, it was for Andrew Luck (and Shayne Skov) and I promptly got in line, With only 1 autographed item allowed per player, my plan was to get Andrew to sign my poster, get through the rest of the team and get back in line for him to sign my jersey. It would have been a breeze last year but with the long lines this year, I missed out on a station and was sadly unable to get any of the first string running backs’ signatures.

Some of the highlights while getting my poster signed were giving Skov some shit about not being featured on this year’s poster and telling him that he’d be front and center of next year’s poster (if he comes back was the unspoken assumption), telling Ty how glad I was that he chose Stanford and hear him sincerely respond that he couldn’t be happier about his decision, Vaughters adamantly telling a young fan when asked that he would be a true freshman, and telling a somewhat bemused Fleener how much his freshman RAs who I know talk about him.

While I didn’t get a chance to obtain everyone’s signature for the team poster, I did get back in the Luck/Skov line and had Skov autograph my Orange Bowl cap and Luck sign my jersey. Last year when I had Luck sign my jersey, it felt like it was still pretty new to him and he asked me where I wanted him to sign it. This year he wanted to know my name so he could personalize it, presumably so that it wouldn’t end up on eBay for a decent chunk of change. What a difference a year makes! That suited me just fine and once this season concludes, my most prized possession is going to be a framed Andrew Luck jersey with a plaque containing his final Stanford stats signed “To Z”!

We're Back!

2011-08-26T16:43:00.000-07:00

It’s been just over 3 years since a memorable senior year where we travelled around the county in the name of Stanford sports. After graduation, Alex headed to New York to pursue her passion for theatre while Albert and I stayed in the Bay Area. We’ve had 3 football seasons since – a painful 5-7 season where the decision to red-shirt Andrew Luck has been second-guessed ad nauseam; a respectable 8-5 season that made El Paso the place to be for New Year’s; and finally a ground-breaking 12-1 season that made Stanford football relevant once again and was perhaps best captured by a friend’s proclamation before kick off in the Orange Bowl, “Can you believe it? We’re playing in a motherfucking BCS bowl!”

Except for the San Jose State game in 2008 where Harbaugh gave credence to the Old Pro saying: “Good coaches win, great coaches cover”, I’ve been to every single home game in those 3 years. Additionally, Albert and I have an active streak of 19 consecutive games dating back to the last home game against Arizona State on 10/24/09 which was followed by the home shootout against Oregon and then the man-handling at the Coliseum. Not a bad way to start a streak! Since this is my blog, I’ll declare it as the longest active streak among Stanford fans, but would be happy to hear otherwise and of other similar streaks both active and not active.

I don’t necessarily think it was the belief that we would go 12-1 that led to our travels last year, but rather the desire to visit every single Pac-10 football stadium. We were at Pasadena for Slick Rick’s apology to Bruin fans following the first of 3 defensive goose eggs; South Bend for the rich gameday tradition and Owen’s back-to-back touchdowns; Eugene for a taste of the College Game Day set, deafening noise of Autzen stadium and painful loss that may have been averted if the ball had bounced differently; Seattle for the pouring rain and absolute dominance on both sides of the ball; Tempe for a hard-fought victory that culminated with Wilkerson’s knee (one of the better strategic calls in an end-game situation during Harbaugh’s tenure); Berkeley for the storming of the field as we reclaimed the Axe and celebrated on their field for a change; and finally South Beach where we not only played in but dominated in a motherfucking BCS bowl!

Throughout our journeys, we have been fortunate enough to become acquainted with a group of fans who are much like ourselves in their dedication to Stanford football. These are diehards who fly in from LA for home football games and speak their mind at basketball scrimmages no matter which player’s father might be sitting nearby, deck themselves out in face-paint while remaining steadfastly loyal to our student athletes, stand up and make some noise at a football game despite the consternation of their neighbors, and engage in online debates before the Chuck Taylor Grove tailgates. These are the types of fans I yearned for during my senior year and it’s been a privilege to meet them.

With the 2011 football season rapidly approaching, I’ve decided to bring back this blog as Albert and I plan to attend all the football games this year. I’ll be moving to Las Vegas right after the home opener but that’s only a minor inconvenience as all plane and game tickets have been purchased. Expectations are sky high as insiders are less concerned by the coaching transition, loss of receivers and loss of three starting O-lineman that the pundits. If anything, this could be a once in a lifetime team in terms of pre-season expectations and potential. Stay tuned because it’s going to be one hell of a ride!

The Truth by Alexis Link

2009-02-26T22:29:00.000-08:00

This was passed out to the 6th Man Section at the UCLA game tonight. This is the story according to Alexis. Enjoy. Draw your own conclusions from this.

FYI: Full Screen in bottom right corner.

Men's Basketball Sweet 16 3/29/2008

2008-03-28T23:08:00.000-07:00

Stanford 62 Texas 82 After our 2nd round win in Anaheim, I spent the next few days of Spring Break in San Diego where some friends and I had rented a beach house. While watching the second round Sunday games at a local sports bar, I bumped into an alum who I had met at the Washington game in Seattle, who just happened to drop by the bar while driving around San Diego with his family after being in Anaheim the previous day. It was cool to run into him again.

On Thursday, I flew into Houston from San Diego where I met up with Albert who had taken an earlier flight from San Jose. Even though Albert technically should have been at work since there are softball games this weekend, he was given the option to go back home for the game. It was an easy decision since you're only a senior once and it's not every year that Stanford makes the Sweet 16. We were joined on Friday afternoon by Melissa - the RA who inspired us to camp out and get into Stanford basketball our freshman year. She had shelled out quite a bit of money to book her last minute flight out to Houston.

Rush hour traffic coupled with an accident made getting to Reliant Stadium a nightmare. It took almost 2 hours to get there (compared to 35 minutes on the way back) and we arrived just before starting lineups were announced. The stadium was overwhelmingly orange (Texas) with small clusters of blue (Memphis), cardinal (Stanford) and green (Michigan State). Having a raised basketball court in the middle of a football field is something that I don't approve of. It throws off players' sight lines, lessens hustle plays on the sidelines and reduces crowd impact but hey, anything to sell more tickets, right? There was a decent showing of Stanford fans - mostly alums with maybe 20 or so 6th Man members. I guess most students had already made Spring Break plans.
It would be an understatement to say that the game wasn't one of our finest. We couldn't hit an outside shot in the first half and our one-dimensional offense caught up with us with 10 minutes left in the second when Brook ran out of gas after bringing us back to within 1. Texas is a great team and they exposed us for our weaknesses. They ran the high screen and roll (our defensive Achilles heels) to perfection and grabbed key offensive rebounds in the first half when we seemingly couldn't get a stop. They also hit some tough shots that we simply could not do anything about. Brook aside, Taj and Landry showed a lot of grit and hustle. I'm glad that Finger was his signature self in his last game in a Stanford uniform and hopefully Landry's performance is a sign of things to come. This wasn't quite the breakout year that many had envisioned for Landry but that was also a function of there being too few minutes to go around. He'll definitely get his chance to shine next year.
In order to beat a team like Texas, we needed to bring our A game. We didn't have it today and while disappointing, I have no complaints about our season. If you had asked me at the beginning of the year whether I would take 28-8 and a Sweet 16 appearance, I would have jumped at it. The truth is that this was a team that surpassed lots of expectations, including my own. Hell, there were times before conference play started that I worried about even making the tournament. Picked by pundits to finish 5th in the conference, we were in the Pac-10 title race until the last weekend and had a strong showing at the Pac-10 tournament. We also reached Stanford's 4th Sweet 16 since 1942. That's impressive and I feel extremely fortunate that I was able to witness all 36 games of this great run we had.

I'm especially grateful that we did so well on the road. As an alum astutely commented, it's on the road where you bond with your team. I definitely feel that way. Those road wins made spending all that time and money travelling around the country so much more worth it. Wins aside, I also enjoyed meeting numerous alums during the course of my travels. There's nothing more welcoming than seeing a friendly face in cardinal when you are miles from home. For those who I have met, hopefully our paths will cross at future games. On the subject of away games, getting into the games would not have been possible without the assistance of Andrew of the 6th Man Club and Sandi from the Basketball Office. I have heard how difficult it is for students in other schools to get tickets and I'm extremely appreciative of Andrew and Sandi's efforts to get me in for free. Finally, I've been lucky to have had great travel companions. There was Albert for the non-conference schedule, Ben from KZSU for Pac-10 games, Willy and Michael for the Pac-10 tournament, Alex and Daniel for the first two rounds and finally Albert and Melissa in Houston.

It's been a pleasure writing for the Hoopsboard of the Bootleg. As I've mentioned before, basketball is the sport which I am most passionate about. I've really enjoyed sharing my experiences with like-minded people who truly get this passion of mine. You see, whenever friends (who think I'm crazy) comment about how dedicated I must be to spend all this time and money to see Stanford play, I find it amusing, because they fail to see that I'm not doing it so much for loyalty as for myself. Watching our guys play gives me such joy. And at the end of the day, this amazing journey would not be possible without the 2007-2008 Stanford Men's Basketball team. Guys, thanks for the memories. It was an amazing ride and one that I will never ever forget.
~ Zhihao

Zhihao’s 2007-2008 Basketball Season Wrap Up
Games: 38 (19 home, 19 away)
Record: 30-8 (2 exhibition)
Game time: 76 hours
Road time: 119 hours
Distance travelled: 18523 miles
Expenses: $2963

Men's Basketball NCAA Round 2 vs Marquette 3/22/2008

2008-03-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

Stanford 82 Marquette 81 (OT) With a day to kill between our first and second round game, Daniel and I spent Day 2 of March Madness camped out at Disneyland’s ESPN zone, the only sports bar we called that had the Direct TV package. I can’t think of a better way to spend Spring Break. It was simply glorious. Worn out from the day of riveting basketball action, we went to bed early and got up just in time for the Duke – West Virginia match up. Even though I have Duke advancing pretty far in my bracket, I didn’t pain me too much to see Duke lose.

For our 2nd round game, reinforcements had arrived, now that winter quarter finals were done. Understandably, not everyone plans their finals schedule around basketball (unlike me). The 6th Man territory in Section 411 was well-represented and it looked like we filled up all the 75 or so seats we were allotted. Even though the arena was very Bruin-heavy, the overall Stanford turn-out today was much improved. I guess a second round Saturday game gets people’s juices flowing a lot more than a first round game against an Ivy-League team. While waiting for a friend to arrive, I bumped into several of the acquaintances I’ve made on my travels – a couple who I had sat next to during our pre-season scrimmage and seen at Northwestern, Siena and several other away games; a guy who let us store our luggage in his car during the Siena game and commiserated with us at a bar after the loss; the guy who had sat between Alex and I on our plane flight over; and the guy from the ASU game with his face-painted daughter. It was great to see so many familiar faces and it made me not want this journey to end.
As for the game, it was incredible - a huge rollercoaster ride of emotions that left everyone up in Section 411 emotionally drained. From our 7-0 start, Trent’s ejection and subsequent hole that we fell into, Kenny’s 3 which gave us some momentum going into the half and that we seized in the 2nd to gain the lead, only to struggle with the twins in foul trouble and cough back up, fighting back from a deficit with 3 minutes left to force OT, slugging it out basket for basket with Marquette and finally hitting the game winner with 1.2 seconds left. What a game!

Up to the point that Trent got tossed, I thought we had shown that we were the better team. Even though the score was close, we were able to get whatever shot we wanted on offense and Robin was playing like (gasp) a lottery pick. The unfortunate thing, was that many of our good looks simply didn’t go down. Brook’s missed chippies were especially frustrating. On defense, I was somewhat surprised to see us come out playing zone. While Marquette had a lot of good looks, a majority of them didn’t go down and I guess that was the chance we were willing to take. They crashed the boards hard (as one would expect) and got quite a few offensive boards though. I feel that we should consistently send all 5 of our guys to hit the defensive boards, especially since we have no transition game.

Even though we looked the better team, there are no guarantees that the better team wins. This was exacerbated by the terrible 1st half reffing. I thought we were done with Pac-10 refs. I guess I was wrong. Trent’s ejection which came as the result of several questionable calls was absurd. One of the refs justified the call by saying that Trent came on to the floor before a time-out was called. That’s complete BS since all the players were walking towards the bench and it was clearly a media time-out. I’ve never seen a coach ejected with two T’s in such quick succession. With his record of 5 career ejections, I guess we have another Libbey wannabe. I hope he doesn’t get to ref any more games in the tournament. It looked like the players were pretty frazzled after the debacle as Marquette hit all 4 of their technical free throws and jumped out to an 11 point lead. Thankfully, Kenny a big 3 (after a previous one went agonizingly in and out and to me was a sign that today might just not be our day) and we were able to close out the half on a 5-0 run.

Down only 6 at the half and with a well rested Brook Lopez (he picked up 2 fouls and had to sit for a big chunk of the first) I had faith that we would be able to channel our frustration at the refs and come out strong. Brook who eschewed his warm-ups when coming out from the locker room was ready and went to work on the right block. Perhaps his slow start in the first was a blessing in disguise because it made Marquette think that they could play him straight up and never adjusted in the second or in OT. That’s probably going to be one of our biggest advantages when playing non Pac-10 teams. They’ve never had to play against 2 7 footers before and tape can’t quite simulate game-type conditions. Thinking back to the first time we played teams like Oregon, Washington and Arizona, it took them at least a half of trying to play Brook straight up (and failing) before they adjusted. For Marquette, that half was the last half of their season.

Just when it looked like we had regained control and would assert our inside presence, both twins were relegated to the bench after picking up their 3rd fouls. There they would sit for just under 4 minutes – the longest 4 minutes of many Stanford fans’ lives. I understand the logic behind the move but allowing a 6 point lead to wither away when the other team is mostly settling for jumpers doesn’t seem smart. I wish someone could collect a comprehensive set of statistics to analyse this situation. While they’re at it, they could also see what our fast break conversion rate is and whether it would be in our interests to never take a 3 on 2 or 2 on 1 fast break opportunity even if it presents itself. My opinion is that only when Fred is running the break should we continue to press, but that’s just based on my gut feel.

When we were down 6 with about 3 minutes left, and later down 1 Marquette ball with a 10 second differential on the game and shot clock (twice), I thought we were done for, but to the credit of the guys, they kept on fighting. It reminded me of the game against Wazzu in Pulman where they simply would not give up. After missing his first, Robin made the clutchest of free throws, and Fred and then Brook played solid defense to send the game into overtime. OT was a slugfest with each team’s best shot just not good enough to knock the other team out. We managed to get the ball last and after seeing so many shots look good but rim out, we finally got something to go in our favour. And it was the game-winning shot – one of Stanford’s biggest NCAA tournament shots in recent memory.
Wow, what a game. Brook and Robin were amazing. As Mitch commented in the post game conference, these 2 tournament games have been their best at passing out of double teams. I’ve seen glimpse of this before and hope they will continue in our next few games. A pass back out and repost is so much better than tossing up a bad shot. Mitch had 16 assists, 1 turnover and was 3-3 from behind the arc. You can’t ask any more than that. Kenny played some key minutes, hit some big shots and had the happiest feet in the huddle with 1.2 seconds left. It’s a pity he’s leaving next year but I’m glad he’s finally had his chance to shine in games that we’ve won. All in all, kudos to the guys for staring adversity in the eyes and never backing down.
What a tremendous win. It brings to mind a conversation I had with radio broadcaster David Fleming in Pullman where he said that nowadays, a tournament appearance/first round victory is par for the course. If you really want to create something special and make some noise, you have to make it to the second weekend. Well, Houston here we come. This ride ain’t over yet.
~Zhihao

Men's Basketball NCAA Round 1 vs Cornell 3/20/2008

2008-03-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

Stanford 77 Cornell 53 Finals provided a nice distraction from basketball and the 4 days between the Pac-10 Championship Game and the NCAA 1st rounds went by pretty quickly. I managed to get subsidised tickets through 6th Man. Supposedly, 6th Man was initially only allotted 20 tickets but they ended up securing 75. Still, they were in high demand and issued based on how many priority points we had. Luckily, that wasn’t an issue for me. Unfortunately, due to finals, quite a number of 6th Man members were unable to make it down to the first round game, but purchased tickets with the intention of making it down Saturday.

With a take home final due Thursday afternoon and a 7am flight to Orange County in the morning, I had to pull an all nighter and so it was an extra long day of basketball for me. After some logistical issues, I made it to my gate just as the plane was boarding. The flight to OC was filled with basketball fans and I heard a few Go Stanfords as I boarded in my 6th Man shirt. Alex and I sat next to a fellow Stanford fan and got some early morning basketball talk under our belts. After landing, we took a shuttle to the hotel that a friend who was doing the radio broadcasts had kindly offered us to crash in with him. There was a Cornell fan who good naturedly gave us some grief as we got on, but conceded that we would probably blow them out and had booked a flight out of Anaheim at 6pm. Talk He asked to be dropped off at a drinking hole across the road from the Honda Center. It was only 9am.
After dropping off our luggage at the hotel, we made our way to the Honda Center and met up with some friends – a fellow senior and So-Cal native, and the alum I had met when we played the LA schools a couple of weeks ago. I also later met up with Cardinal Junkie - the guy who inspired our blog with his video blog of Stanford’s amazing 2003-2004 basketball season. We first met at the Old Pro before our whole odyssey began and had continued to keep in touch. It was nice to finally catch up again. I also bumped into another Stanford fan who I had met at the ASU game in Tempe. He remembered me and this time, had his two adorable kids with him. We chose not to dwell on that game too much.
I wasn’t that impressed with the overall Stanford turn out. I thought Kentucky, Marquette and Cornell fans did a pretty good travelling and it seemed that a whole bunch of Cornell students (definitely outnumbering 6th Man) made it to the game. They were very enthusiastic and were standing and cheering throughout the 2nd half, even as they were getting blown out. In the first game between Kentucky and Marquette, we were mostly rooting for Kentucky, just so that we could avoid Marquette’s outstanding guards and pressing defense. Crawford of Kentucky gave it everything he had, but their valiant comeback fell short and Marquette advanced.
As for us, we started out sloppily, turning the ball over and giving up a couple of offensive rebounds, but our defense was dominating and we very soon righted the ship and started hitting shots. It didn’t hurt that we were much bigger than them. We even got out and ran the break with reasonable success. Hopefully that will dissuade Marquette from crashing the boards hard. Hey, one can dream. Everyone got playing time and we hit a good amount of 3s. Hopefully this will give the guys confidence come Saturday’s game. When we did get the ball into the post, I liked how both Lopez twins kicked the ball back out to open shooters. Robin was great today and seemed even more focused than usual. He’s definitely looked good these past few weeks. The part of me that likes to overthink things is afraid that his draft stock may have soared to the point that he may seriously reconsider staying in school (assuming that was his initial plan). Oh well, there’s nothing we can do except appreciate what we have and enjoy the moment.
All in all, the game was just what the doctor ordered. Cornell was clearly outmatched and unable to deal with our size. I’m glad that we didn’t screw around for too long and put them away early enough so that bench was able to get substantial minutes. It might come in handy on Saturday. Coming into the tournament, all I wanted was to get past the first weekend. Marquette’s in our way and it’s not going to be easy, but if we can play to our potential and pound them with our size – size that they haven’t seen before, Houston beckons. Let’s do this. Go Card!
~Zhihao

Men's Basketball Pac 10 Finals 3/15/2008

2008-03-15T23:41:00.000-07:00

Stanford 64 UCLA 67 In my first 3 years at Stanford, we’d only won a single game in the Pac-10 Tournament. With 2 wins and a championship game berth this year, we’d already eclipsed that total and this trip down to LA was already a success. Of course, getting revenge on UCLA after last week’s controversial game, winning the Pac-10 Tournament and maybe even clinching a 2 seed with Duke’s loss to Clemson today would have been icing on the cake.

After grabbing lunch with the friend who had kindly put us up in his place for 3 days, we headed over to Staples. Judging from the scalpers outside the arena, tickets were in abundance. I guess some fans from other schools had dumped their tickets after last night’s session. When we got inside, I recognized some new faces among the 6th Man crowd. I guess they made it down just for today’s game. I was expecting an overwhelming turn-out from Bruins fans but it was actually about the same, if not less than last night. Perhaps the lure of 2 games, including one against rivals USC was more enticing. As for the Stanford crowd, I’d say that we had more people than the past 2 days. It was good to see.

Unlike previous games, most of the seats under the basket were filled and so 6th Man members who had higher up seats weren’t able to move down en masse. Instead, they formed their own 4 row cheering section. Quite a few of the Washington State fans from yesterday had returned and I noticed during player introductions that they were rooting for UCLA. I guess we had riled them up sufficiently the previous night. In fact, I later found out what the incident that I had mentioned in my previous post was in a 6th Man e-mail:

"Last night, the 6th Man section in Staples Center had a couple adventures of their own. Cougar and UCLA fans didn't know what they were getting themselves into when they decided to take us on. Three casualties later, other fans learned that we meant business. And by casualties, we mean that through acts of frustration, such as pouring beer over the 6th Man, Cougar fans were escorted out of the stadium."

The ushers were their usual annoying selves. They told someone that their sign was too big and couldn’t be held up. Then, with less than 2 minutes left in the game when UCLA was missing free throws and we were trying to mount a comeback, they came over and said that we had to sit down even though virtually no one was sitting behind us. One guy said that even though no one was complaining right then, if we continued to stand and there was a complaint, we would be asked to leave. That didn’t stop me from standing, but seriously, we’re at a sporting event, not the opera. There was little bit of back and forth between the UCLA fans in front of us, but it was good natured and mainly just fans rooting for their own team – the way it’s supposed to be. We shook hands after the game and wished each other luck in the tournament although personally, I wouldn’t be heartbroken at all if UCLA makes an early exit once Kevin Love gets a taste of some non Pac-10 refereeing.

While it was naturally disappointing to see us lose, UCLA is a tough match up and they pretty much have the blueprint to defeat us. When we played man, they used high screens and let Collison go to work on Mitch. Collison was simply playing to his ability (I think he tries to get his team-mates involved too much sometimes) and when he missed because one of our shot blockers challenged his shot, UCLA crashed the boards with abandon since we don’t have any threat of a transition game. There were times when we had Mitch rotating and trying to grab a rebound against someone significantly taller than him. It wasn’t pretty. On the other hand, we couldn’t crash the boards as much as we liked because of UCLA’s transition game which burned us repeatedly in the first half. That basically summed up the game which was a lot closer than it should have been thanks to UCLA’s abysmal free throw shooting. I feel that this is what teams in the tournament will try to do (and what teams have been doing in the 2nd half of Pac-10 play) and our best response would be for everyone to box out and go after defensive rebounds. Playing zone against teams with great guards who can penetrate is the other counter and I feel that we might have gone to the zone a little bit earlier in the 2nd.

On the offensive end, I thought we did a decent job except for a couple of unnecessary turnovers. It was nice to see Goods come alive, given that he’s battling several hand injuries. Hopefully he can get on a hot streak when it really counts. Fred was also going aggressively to the hole and had a tremendous steal and tight-rope walk on the sidelines for the bucket and foul. He also took a hard hit on the head during one defensive rebound battle and an inadvertent elbow from Robin but Fred’s a warrior and we need him to stay aggressive on offense so that he can earn his minutes to play lock down defense. Mitch threw up a couple of bad shots but I’m sure his mentality was that the big guys would clean up on the boards. UCLA, unfortunately, did a great job and limited the second chance opportunities that we thrive on.

At the end of the day, the guys battled hard but with 3 games in 3 days with this last one against a great team, I’m sure that legs were tiring. It’s been a tremendous effort these 3 days and now that a 3 seed has been locked up, it’s time to get some rest, wait for the selection show tomorrow and get ready for the Big Dance. We should be playing in Anaheim and I’m looking forward to my third trip to LA in 3 weeks, but first I need to take care of this little basketball distraction called school. I foresee several late nights on the horizon but it’s only going to make Thursday come even quicker. Let’s get ready to Dance!
~Zhihao

Men's Basketball Pac 10 Semifinals 3/14/2008

2008-03-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

Stanford 75 Washington St 68 Compared to last year, the Pac-10 tournament is so much more enjoyable when you're still in it. And who could ask for a better appetizer than the cross-town rivalry game between UCLA and USC which went down to the wire. Staples was overwhelmingly filled by Bruin fans and there were a couple in front of us who were drunk and particularly obnoxious to the USC band and fans. I guess it strikes me as somewhat absurd for grown adults to be picking fights with college kids and other adults. But I wasn't entirely sympathetic to the Trojans since we received the same treatment when we were playing them in the Coliseum.

I thought USC made a couple mistakes in crunch time - not fouling Westbrook when they had the chance and instead letting him pass it to Collison who is lights out from the free throw line, and then running the clock down to take a 3 when they still had time to drive for a quick 2 or take an earlier 3 and try to get an offensive rebound if they missed. With OJ seeming content to run the clock down, I might have even fouled him with 5 seconds left and let him make 1 and try for the intentional miss. But I guess I'm a guy who likes to do things purely by the numbers.

Unlike the quarterfinals game which was the last game of the night and a separate session from the UCLA and USC games, not as many people vacated their seats after the first game, and so it was harder to gather 6th Man behind the basket since not all of us had tickets for behind the basket (we were only allocated 4 rows). Nonetheless, some people managed to sneak down and take the place of UCLA and USC fans who left. There were a group of Washington State fans seated directly behind us and throughout the game, there was a lot of back and forth between us. The first dealt with the issue of us standing up. Now, I wasn't planning on standing for the whole game, which is what some 6th Man members wanted to do, but I felt that I should be entitled to stand at certain times - like after tip off and before the opposing team scores (which is what Arizona fans do), during time-outs when our band is playing, when we make a run and have momentum on our side (which is what the Washington State fans seated midcourt did), and during the closing 2 minutes or so of a game (which is what happened with the UCLA-USC game).

Well, the Wazzu fans seated behind us complained when we were standing after tip-off and got the ushers to make us sit down. They complained when we stood during the first time-out when our band was playing, and the ushers made us sit down. And they complained when we stood when we were making a run. There was one woman who complained to ushers that band members sometimes had a foot in the aisle and were obstructing her view. It was extremely annoying. Finally, during the closing couple of minutes of the game when Washington State was making their run and she was yelling for us to sit down, I turned around and told her that I would sit when her fellow Washington State fans seated midcourt sat. That seemed to shut her up.

There was also the usual trash talking, and when we made our run to push the lead up significantly and were standing, something happened. I'm not sure exactly what took place but I think that a couple of Wazzu fans were asked by guys in red suits to move away from behind us to other open seats. Finally, there was one drunk UCLA fan in front of us who was rooting for the Cougars and would stand up and taunt us whenever they made a basket. He also tried to snatch away signs that some of us were holding up. He got into it with some 6th Man members and was told by the ushers to calm down. Things continued to escalate throughout the game and we might have made another complaint and he finally shifted seats and took off his UCLA shirt. While I admit that some of us may have had something to drink (6th Man comprised mainly of seniors) and might have been obnoxious, I still think it's absurd for adults to get into it with college students.
As for the game, it was another great team performance where we pounded them in the paint, outboarded them, and played solid, disruptive defense that garnered 14 turnovers from a Wazzu team that typically takes care of the ball. I also liked how we were able to respond on the offensive end, despite Wazzu making 3s at torrid pace. Some of them were clean looks but when Weaver makes multiple step-back 3s or Low hits a shot with someone in his face, there's really nothing you can do. One of my favourite plays of the night when was when Weaver drove and Robin was faced with one of those, do I try to contest the shot and let him dish it to Baynes for the dunk (Weaver's staple play) situations. I feared the worst but Robin stayed with his man long enough to make Weaver think that he had an easy dunk, only to block it at the last moment. It was a thing of beauty. If Robin can display that level of thinking and athleticism against Love and his multiple pump-fakes, I like our chances of containing him. Besides Brook who was dominant as usual, Law stepped up his game today and gave us an outside shooting threat. Two of his best games this season have been against WSU and he's had a good Pac-1o Tournament so far.

The only worrying aspect was how we almost let Wazzu creep back into the game with turnovers and poor free throw shooting. In a game where we did a better job managing the clock with a lead, Mitch struggled from the free throw line as Wazzu did a good job of not fouling our better free throw shooters and focusing on Mitch. I really wish Trent would have done a little Drew Shiller experiment to see whether he could come in cold and make free throws, since we were still up a fair amount and it was a reasonably good time to experiment, but I guess he wanted to stick with Mitch. Things worked out but I was pretty nervous for a while.

I guess we've locked up a #3 seed and could possibly earn a #2 if we beat UCLA tomorrow and things fall into place. I'm sure the players are raring for a rematch. It's a pity that Luc is hurt and won't be playing. Hopefully, fatigue won't be an issue because we really need to take care of the ball and play smart on offense so that UCLA doesn't run and use their athleticism and shooting in the open court. There are going to be a sea of Bruin fans and judging from today, it's going to be pretty hostile. But I can guarantee you that 6th Man won't be backing down.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball Pac 10 Quarterfinals 3/13/2008

2008-03-13T23:46:00.000-07:00

Stanford 75 Arizona 64 The Pac-10 Tournament - a great pre-cursor to the Big Dance. Last year was the first time I made it down to Staples and even though we lost in a heartbreaker to USC, I was sold. What's there not to like? You have all the fans from the Pac-10, even OSU who were helped out by the orange clad concession sellers, and 9 basketball games (maybe 8.5 since any game involving an OSU team that was calculated at 2.5 million to 1 to win the Pac-10 Tournament, counts as half a game). To make things even better, it only cost Stanford students $35 this year. What a steal!

I drove down with some buddies on Wednesday morning and we got to Staples with plenty of time before the first play-in game between Washington and Cal. Neither team looked impressive but at least Washington had the excuse of not having Brockman (their best player). Still it was a high scoring affair between two teams that don't play much defense and Cal managed to cover the spread (which I was thankful for). The turn out was decent for play-in night but I was surprised that there weren't that many Cal/Washington fans in attendance. The second game of the night between Oregon State and Arizona was a laugher with Arizona unable to miss a shot and Oregon St unable to do anything on offense. We left at half time to grab supper and get some work done, since this is, after all, the week before finals and we had some papers/group projects that are due. I apologise to anyone who is in a group project with me this quarter. I'm trying my best, but I have certain priorities that cannot be compromised.

With 4 great games of basketball, the quater finals day of the Pac-10 Tournament is the day that I look forward to the most. ASU-USC was a great match up to get things started with freshmen Harden and Mayo going at it. Too bad the refs had to ruin it with an extremely questionable call down the stretch that had the whole of Staples, besides Trojan fans of course, booing. I've unfortunately come to expect this with Pac-10 refs.

The next game on deck was the rematch between UCLA and Cal, which also meant hearing each school's fight song (they are the same) over and over again. UCLA fans showed up in full force and were annoying as usual. They would randomly yell "Go Bruins" even when UCLA wasn't playing, and also started a UCLA fight-fight-fight chant during the Oregon-Wazzu game. Right before our game, one old Bruin fan came to our area and started talking trash to the band and our tree. I actually felt embarrassed for him as he was escorted away by an attendant. UCLA came out to play after all the flack they've been getting in the media for their two tainted victories against us and Cal, and tore Cal apart - not that there were many Cal fans in attennance to witness it. I'm definitely looking forward to the UCLA-USC match up on Friday - possibly the first one in Pac-10 Tournament history at the semi-finals or later stage.

After a quick dinner, we got back for the Oregon-Wash State game. Wazzu fans really came out in full force. It's impressive that they have such a big following - maybe they'll take any excuse to get out of Pullman? I didn't really care who won the game. Oregon fans are notoriously classless (they travelled much better last year) and after being in Pullman, Cougars fans whine too much. Actually after visiting most Pac-10 schools, I have to say that the only fans I don't have an issue with are those that are pretty dispassionate (OSU, ASU and USC come to mind). I guess it's natural. I do like what Bennett has done with Wazzu and really like Weaver so I thought I'd root for Wazzu. On the other hand, I was reminded repeatedly that Oregon has without a doubt, some of the hottest cheerleaders. I guess it would be nice for them to stay around for a bit and after they dug themselves into such a huge hole thanks to Wazzu's offensive execution and lights-out shooting, I had to root for a close game. Oregon did provide one in the second half but just couldn't quite get over the hump.
It was finally time for our showdown against Arizona. Coming into the game, I was pretty concerned, especially after seeing their first half performance against OSU. With Wise back, they would be a handful and I wasn't sure how we'd handle Bayless who was simply unstoppable in Tuscon. The 6th Man who had made the trip down (we had about 50 people) congregated in our seats that were behind the basket on court level, right next to the band. We got pretty loud and were by far the most coordinated student group out there, much to the chagrin of the few Arizona fans sitting behind us and the people's whose view we were occasionally obstructing. I would have felt bad if there weren't so many empty seats in the arena that they could have moved to (and most did).

As for the game, it was a tightly contested first half with Budinger playing as well as I've seen him play against us. Jordan also had a good first half while Bayless was solid, but not spectacular. We could not buy an outside shot to save our lives (Shiller, Kenny, Fields, Goods all missed and it was actually Mitch who hit our only 2 3 pointers of the game) and got almost all our points from attacking the paint relentlessly (with Fred driving and our big men hitting the boards). Brook made some tough shots from the post and we rebounded especially well. We also did a good job taking care of the ball and limited Arizona's fastbreak points. In general, I feel that if we make smart decisions with the ball and prevent transition baskets, our half court defense will keep us in the game, even if we aren't shooting particularly well. The refs surprisingly let a lot of contact go in the first half, which I always feel is to our advantage.

In the second, the whistles came out early and often but we continued to score thanks to offensive rebound after offensive rebound. We were really attacking the boards and there were a couple of instances (Fred and Taj come to mind) when it looked like we just wanted the ball more. After initially trading baskets with Arizona, our defense finally clamped down with Fred fighting through screens and shutting Budinger down. After taking Budinger out of the game, he then denied Wise from penetrating, and finally matched up against Bayless who is Arizona's go-to-guy in crunch time. Fred played 33 minutes and got the job done. I cannot underly how important he is to our team.

Tonight was definitely one of our better all around team performances. We got a key win against a very good Arizona squad that is tournament bound. Hopefully the USC game was just an aberration and we're back on track. The short turn-around time could hurt us since a lot of our players played major minutes but I feel we match up really well against Wazzu. More importantly, with Louisville, U Conn and Notre Dame (teams that could have been #3 seeds) losing in their quarterfinal match ups, we just might have sewn up a 3 seed for the NCAA tournament. The rest might be gravy but nonetheless, I'd like to see us take it to Wazzu and have our rematch against a LA school.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ USC 3/8/2008

2008-03-08T22:21:00.000-08:00

Stanford 64 USC 77 With a day to kill before the USC game, I took things easy and caught up with a friend from Stanford who is now studying at UCLA med school. It was nice to catch up and we got some of that frozen yoghurt which seems to have taken So-Cal by storm. With an 11am tip-off on Saturday and our previous experience with LA traffic, we decided not to take any chances and left for USC bright and early. Traffic was pretty light and we got to the Galen Center two hours before tip off.

Will call wasn’t open yet but I was lucky enough to obtain a media pass. To be honest, with all the talk about how nice the Galen Center is, apart from the lobby area, I wasn’t that impressed. I can’t quite pinpoint what it was, but it seemed rather run of the mill. The student section comprised of seats behind the basket. Those who showed up early, showed up real early, but there weren’t that many of them. By tipoff, however, they had about the same number of people as we would have in the 6th Man Section, except that it was a lot more spread out. The rest of the arena wasn’t that packed and there were quite a few empty seats. Fans were late coming in and coupled with the glitzy team introductions and over-exuberant PA guy, it resembled more of a LA pro sports atmosphere than a college one.
The game was pretty disappointing. We came out extremely flat and played with little energy. USC just seemed a step quicker than us at every position. They killed us on the boards and had tons of second chance opportunities. I don’t know what it was - the early start time, our nagging injuries or a UCLA induced hangover. It wasn’t pretty. There were some positive though. We seemed to handle the full court press reasonably well and didn’t turn the ball over. We even managed to score a few easy baskets although there were times when the press seemed to take us out of our offensive rhythm – not that we were in much of an offensive rhythm when they didn’t press. I also liked what we showed on zone defense. It’s good to know that we have it in our bag of tricks. And of course there was Kenny Brown’s play. He always seems to step up in the last game of conference play (see Arizona last year) and even though it came in a losing effort, it was nice to see someone have a good game.

I don’t really feel like going into the deficiencies that the other players showed but hopefully this game will be a wake up call. Our teams has prided itself on defense and rebounding throughout the season and for the second half of Pac-10 play, the rebounding part of it has been largely lacking. I don’t really know what it is but we need to figure it out soon. Right now, we’re looking at a 4 seed in the NCAA tournament and with a Pac-10 opening match up against an Arizona team that is fighting for its life, we’re going to have a battle on our hands.

Even though the goal should be to win the Pac-10 tournament, I’m kind of conflicted between winning and playing more games versus losing and getting more rest for our players who clearly need it. But ultimately, I’m going to be down at Staples and we don’t want to go into the NCAA tournament on a 3 game losing streak, so I think a goal of one win is a fair compromise when looking at the bigger picture. Regardless, I’m excited for some good basketball next week and my pick for the team to win it would be someone not seeded in the top 3. Someone like USC or even Arizona if we don’t take care of them on Thursday.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ UCLA 3/6/2008

2008-03-06T23:33:00.000-08:00

Stanford 67 UCLA 77 (OT) The best Pac-10 road trip was saved for last. After braving snow storms in Pullman, rain in Tempe, and lameness in Berkeley, it was time for the trip down to LA. Our flight out of SFO had quite a few Stanford alums going down to see the game. Good to see some Stanford spirit! We rented a car and I was dropped off on the UCLA campus. There was a men’s tennis match with cross town rivals USC going on. Both teams have good records and I watched a bit of the doubles play which UCLA was leading as I left. After a late lunch at the student union, I decided to explore the UCLA campus. Based on my travels this year, my favourite Pac-10 campuses are Washington, UCLA and Oregon in that order, and my favourite campus overall is Colorado, which has an unfair advantage with the Rockies as its backdrop.
After checking out the campus, I headed to downtown Westwood to grab some coffee and scope out the sports bar O Hara’s where I was meeting a Stanford alum and fellow Bootie. By the time six o’clock rolled by, the bar was packed with Bruins fans with a small pocket of 4 Stanford fans, including yours truly. This alum had kept an impressive 10 year streak of going to Stanford @ UCLA and USC games. Despite living in LA, he is a season ticket holder at Maples and always makes it up for the weekend game. This year, the only conference home game that he missed was Oregon. A fellow diehard! We hit it off really well. For this game, however, he was unable to get a ticket, despite requesting it months in advance, and had to resort to stubhub. How much he had to pay was still a sore subject, but I heard that uppers were going for $100 and lowers $400. Having both read a piece in today’s Daily about the lack of fan support at basketball games, we lamented the lack of student enthusiasm about basketball which he felt was also an issue back in his day (’95 – ’99). I guess some things never change.

After a drink and some food which he kindly paid for, we were pumped up and ready for the game. I have to admit that Pauley is the one arena I’ve been most excited to visit. Steeped in rich tradition with its reign of National Championships, the only other arena that could rival it is probably Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indiana. The championship banners, the history, the Den (UCLA’s student section) and the anticipation for our match up - there was a great energy to the place. Meanwhile, getting to Pauley was an absolute nightmare and Ben and his fellow radio announcer were stuck in traffic for a good two and a half hours. There was apparently a mudslide somewhere and they only made it to the arena fifteen minutes before tip off. Traffic also held up a fellow Stanford senior who lives in LA and was coming to the game. She was home this weekend and wanted to attend her first Stanford basketball game of the season (and maybe even life). Me being the nice guy I am, I got her a ticket to the hottest game in town, and up till now, the hottest ticket in my four years at Stanford. There were a decent number of Stanford fans in attendance. They were peppered around the arena with a group congregating in the visitor’s section in the uppers that was still rather UCLA heavy. One particular UCLA fan sitting in front of me took offense that I clapped loudly and cheered whenever we made a play or UCLA struggled. He gave me the stare down a couple of times coupled with mutters to friends. I stared right back. He tried to start something during half time with continued staring, but I decided to take the moral high ground approach when dealing with opposing jackass fans, smiling and asking him how he was doing, patiently explaining that I have the right as a fan who has travelled from Palo Alto to cheer for my team, and later shaking his hand and telling him good game when it was clear that we had lost.

As for the game itself, we played locked down defense, except for the repeated bites on Love pump-fakes, and rebounded pretty well in the first half. We also didn’t allow UCLA to score too many points in the open floor and off Love outlet passes. UCLA struggled from the perimeter and had many of their closer shots affected by our twin towers. Meanwhile, we hit some open looks although our passing out of the UCLA double team by our posts left much to be desired. Even though we turned the ball over somewhat, they didn’t usually lead to fast breaks and it was the slow it down, grind it out game that suits us.

In the second half, UCLA made the run that I expected them to. They started penetrating, hitting outside shots, and getting offensive boards. You need to play an almost perfect game to beat UCLA at home and at the end of the day, it was the little things like not managing the clock well with a lead, fouling someone on a put-back, not boxing out on the missed free throw, Brook not hitting both his free throws and then someone fouling Westbrook in the ensuing loose ball scrum 80 feet from the basket. The bounces went UCLA’s way. Westbrook’s first free throw that back rimmed straight up and in and then Collison drawing a foul with just under 3 seconds left when it looked like Law had defended him straight up and had just made the game-winning block.

Well, what can you do? The guys fought hard and didn’t cave, but it was the little things and bounces that determined the game. UCLA is a good team and just when you thought that Finger had stepped up big at the end of the game and Law had made the winning basket just like he did last year against Virginia, UCLA made their shots and free throws when it counted. After the game, I called out to Brevin Knight, who apparently was unable to score better seats, and had been in the opposite aisle about 5 seats away from me since half time. We shook hands and I can’t quite remember what he asked me but it was along the lines of how do you feel? And you know what? I was speaking the truth when I said that I was feeling ok. Sure it was a heartbreaker, but 8 point underdogs, our guys took it to UCLA in Pauley and never backed down. All we needed was one break to go our way and we would have won it. The game lived up to its billing and as I said to Brevin, it was a good game.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball Senior Day 3/1/2008

2008-03-01T23:56:00.000-08:00

Stanford 60 Washington State 53 Wow, you couldn't have scripted a better senior day game. There was the line outside Maples before doors opened, the seniors being honoured and Trent starting them, digging ourselves out of the first half deficit with the trademark smothering defense that has been absent in the last couple of games, an incredibly pumped up Brook Lopez whose passion inspired the 6th Man Section, Taj Finger's huge 3 to tie it up, Maples being the loudest it has been all season and of course the win which guaranteed us at least a second place finish in the Pac-10.
The first day of March was a beautiful day, and slowly but surely, the line began to grow as we waited for doors to open. I noticed even more seniors than usual (if that's possible) who were in line for their final game at Maples. Talking to them, there was a tinge of sadness that this would be it and I encouraged as many friends as possible to go to the Pac-10 tournament or even next week's games against the LA schools. Entering Maples and claiming our front row and center spots for the last time was a strange feeling and it could be me paying less attention, but it seemed as if the seniors who usually heckle opposing team players were more subdued than usual. Perhaps fellow seniors were just trying to soak in their last game as well. One other thing that I noticed was that the black out day didn't quite work too well. Perhaps they should have gotten a sponsor to hand out free black shirts.
My favourite part of Senior Day is when the players are honoured and have their parents join them on the floor. This year was no different and it was definitely an emotional moment for me (and I'm sure countless others). Trent's decision to start the seniors and Brook was ok in my book, even if it allowed WSU to get off to a good start and may have caused our usual starters to be out of sync. Their effort and dedication to our program was recognised and if I'm not wrong, WSU was only spotted a 2 point (or was it 5) lead before our starting 5 was in. But our team as a whole didn't come out too strong and WSU was able to grab some offensive rebounds, and penetrate and dish to the open man. Low also made some 3s that we couldn't really do much about.

On the offensive end, there were definitely some missed calls. It looked like Kenny was fouled on a pull up jumper and even if people claim that the replay wasn't conclusive, Goods being slapped on the arm before launching a 3 could be heard loud and clear. The crowd and Trent really got on the officiating crew after that no-call. It was probably the maddest I've seen a Maples crowd before. With Dave Libbey around, I wasn't too surprised and the thing is, the more a home crowd gets on him, the more he calls it the other way. Same thing happened when I was in Tempe for the ASU game except the calls were going our way since we were the road team. The guy has an enormous ego and loves being in his position of power. He even tried to get a fan thrown out. When Brook started jawing with him after picking up his second foul (it wasn't Libbey who called the foul), I feared for the worse and was hoping that Trent would get him out of there as soon as possible. Taj probably came just in the nick of time but then Libbey stalked Brook all the way to the bench and I'm not sure what Trent did to talk Libbey out of calling a technical on Brook, but he deserves coach of the year just for that.

At the same time, I didn't think we were doing a terrible job offensively. I don't believe we gave up any fast break points in the first half to a WSU team that makes a living out of getting steals (Weaver's foul trouble probably helped). Sure, shots weren't falling but I was very pleased to see us run 3 inbounds plays in the first half, capped off by the well designed Shiller to Robin alley-oop with 1.9 seconds left. That's probably more than we've run in all our previous conference games combined. It is as if Trent has been saving them for the end of the season so that it won't show up on scouting reports and opponents, expecting us to simply lob the ball to the back, will be caught off guard. Despite the 11 point deficit at the half, I was strangely not too upset with our play.

The second half was almost a mirror image of our second half performance against ASU when we overcame a 10 point deficit thanks to some stifling defense and great offensive execution. What made it even better this time, was the passion that everyone was playing with. Brook led the way by putting the team on his back and if anyone tries to convince me that he may come back next year, I'll ask them whether they saw him play against WSU on Senior Day. Brook played knowing full well that it was his last game at Maples, and while he has been often criticised for being too emotional, especially when on the road, his emotion was just what the doctor ordered and really inspired the fans. For one of the few times this season, the 6th Man section was rocking like a real student section. It was more situational than anything else, but as I had wished for in previous posts, we finally got it together for Senior Day. It was a tremendous feeling.

When Taj hit that 3 to level the scores for the first time in the game, Maples erupted. On defense, we rotated well and got our hands in passing lanes to deny the drive and dish that Washington State (Weaver especially) had used repeatedly against us. We didn't allow any offensive rebounds and the ball was bouncing our way and straight into Brook's hands for an easy putback. Brook wasn't forcing shots either. He passed out of double teams, and didn't try baseline fadeaways as he has in the past. Everything was clicking. When we needed free throws to ice it, Goods who had struggled from the stripe earlier in the game was there to seal the deal. His free throws brought some of the loudest cheers I've heard in Maples in a while. What a win. Thank you seniors!
The season is far from over but with all the emotions that Senior Day brings (Alex and I couldn't bear to leave Maples after the game), I just feel incredibly fortunate that I've been able to be part of this 2007-2008 season. When I first decided to try and attend every single basketball game this year, I never thought in my wildest dreams that we'd have this many wins. On one hand, I was trying to keep my expectations tempered but to be honest, all I really hoped for was 10 conference wins and to see us play in the NCAA tournament in person. To go 16-1 at home in a conference as talented as the Pac-10 is amazing, and I hope students realise how lucky we've been to witness this. To have this perfectly scripted game as my last home game, what more can you ask for? Well I guess I'm going to be greedy and say, let's keep up this momentum and passion. There's still a lot more of basketball to be played. On to LA, my second home for the next few weeks.
~ Zhihao

Senior Day Reflections 3/1/2008

2008-03-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

So this is it – that was the feeling I got this morning as I awoke bright and early in my tent. This will be my last home game of senior year and last time sleeping in a tent outside Maples. Up till now, senior year hasn’t quite reached the point where I’ve become nostalgic at the realisation that the simplicity and freedoms of college life are coming to an end, and life is going to be very different next year. But as I got up this morning, this notion entered my mind and it’s no surprise that basketball is the trigger.

I’ve come a long way since freshman year where just out of the Singapore Army and freshly exposed to college in the US, I mistakenly believed that classes were the be all and end all of college life. After waiting in a line that stretched all the way to Avery Aquatics and then seeing us lose to an Ike Diogu led Arizona State in my first home Pac-10 game, I figured that spending some time on that Ihum paper might be a better use of my time and would go to games slightly after tip off (when the line was non-existent). I knew of the kids who camped out for games (Albert and Alex were among a group of them) but never really embraced the idea until I got a bit more of college under my belt.

When Senior Day approached, I realised that this would be the last time I’d get to see Rob Little and Nick Robinson play, and decided that I should make the effort to go early. Still, I didn’t know the Branner camp out crew well enough and so stayed up all night and headed out to Maples around 6am that morning. There were a lot of tents out and some beer pong tables from the previous night, but I managed to get a spot in the second row on the far right of the student section. We beat Washington (a future #1 seed), and rushed the court. I rued losing out on previous opportunities (women’s volleyball won a NCAA championship that year) to experience the multitude of top-notch sports that we at Stanford are treated to and often take for granted, and vowed never to make that mistake again. Looking back, Senior Day of freshman year was what converted me into a Cardinalmaniac.

Well now it’s Senior Day of my senior year and I’m so happy that I was able to see the light back then. Sometimes I wish that more people would see it too and we could have a greater fan base. Not to sound judgemental, but I feel that a lot of Stanford students get caught up in that academic over-achieving mode that is absolutely necessary in high school and is what got them into Stanford in the first place, but loses importance (in my mind) in college. If people have other activities that they are more interested in, I have no problem with that. After all, I’m not about to be dragged to the opera or ballet. But for people who actually enjoy watching sports, using studying or work as an excuse doesn’t quite work for me. First of all, studying and work is all about time management. You can make time for sports. Not to sound arrogant but simply show that it can be done, I took 6 classes last quarter (26 units), recruited for a full time job, tutored and did work as a research assistant, and still went to 50 sporting events (which included all our away basketball games, the USC football game and women’s volleyball Final 4 during finals week). I did fine in all aspects (if anything, having so much to do kept me focused) but those sporting memories are going to last a lifetime.

Secondly, a basketball game is not that long. If you look at the marginal cost of those 2 hours (in terms of not studying or not working), it is negligible from a purely rational point of view. What is it really going to impact? Absolutely worst case scenario: it affects your midterm grade by two grades (A to C let’s say), which affects your class grade by one grade, which assuming a 5 unit class is at most 1/36 of your final GPA. For those keeping score, that’s less than 0.03 of your GPA. That should have hardly any effect on getting a job or getting into grad school and has almost no impact on your career path or life (unless you meet a cute girl/guy in the library). But I guess everyone has their own priorities and all I can say, is to each their own. I can’t really complain because at the end of the day, I’m getting a Stanford degree which is superior to a degree from any football/basketball school, but even then, just gets me a first round interview.

Wow, that rant was longer than intended. I guess I feel strongly about Stanford sports and how basketball especially is losing its tradition and fan-dom. Last night was the official 6th Man camp out night and while the turnout was a lot smaller than in previous years (we didn’t need an organised camp out night freshman year because everyone just did), we do have 9 tents set up. More than half contained freshmen and hopefully, just like my experience 3 years ago, today’s game will be their awakening of sorts. In any case, all this reflecting will help me treasure these next couple of hours even more, but it’s time to get out of this tent and have some fun.
~Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs Washington 2/28/2008

2008-02-28T23:26:00.000-08:00

Stanford 82 Washington 79With only 2 more home games left, we decided that it was finally time to bring out the tent. As I type this entry from said tent, I feel that it's a pity that we haven't camped out more this year since camping out has been a major part of our Stanford basketball experience. But with Albert managing softball and me on the road so much on top of being a Teaching Assistant, it's been hard to make schedules work. For our last senior home stand, however, I was determined to camp out. Hoping to be first in line for both games, Alex, Michael (a basketball enthusiast who I recruited) and I decided to set up on Tuesday.

In some ways, camping out at Stanford is more about pride and a show of dedication since showing up an hour before doors open easily gets you in the front row and maybe 2 spots down from us if you're one of the first non camper-outers to show up. At the same time, it's fun to be outside Maples, especially when there weather is beautiful, as it has been this week and talk hoops with fellow diehards. Sure you sacrifice some time and could be nice and cosy indoors, but it's a lot less dedication and hard work compared to what the team puts forth, and it can make the victories all that much sweeter. In any case, operating on a skeleton crew of 3 people, we secured our place at the front of the line.

After much ridicule about how everyone who had attended at least one previous game got into the "priority" line for Cal, the 6th Man committee decided to make an extra line for the more dedicated fans. The cut-off was 130 priority points and with Pac-10 games worth 10 points, non-conference games worth 20, and holiday and exhibitions games worth 30, it was a reasonable cut-off (in case you were wondering, I have 370 points). It only really mattered if you intended to show up before doors opened because once they did, it was first come first serve. And the majority of Stanford students don't have a habit of showing up early anyway. As one fellow senior and diehard commented, "Stanford students (nowadays) don't deserve a good basketball team." With the lack of noise from large portions of the 6th Man Section during basketball games, I find it hard to completely dispute that statement, which will be even more true after our class graduates. A Daily reporter was doing a rough head count by class of people who were outside Maples more than 20 min before doors opened and it appeared that seniors made up about 2/3 of the people. I'd be interested to find out the percentage of 6th Man who are seniors and grad students. In any case, watch out for his report in the Daily next week.

It's been a while since we've been front row and center - standing room that used to be our designated space during sophomore and junior year. It was nice to be back. Unsurprisingly, Tim Morris was heckled mercilessly by the 6th Man Section with shouts of traitor and references to humbio that he failed and caused him to be academically ineligible for a quarter. Tim, however, did smile when an old friend lamented how Tim's absence from their intramural baseball team cost them a championship this year. Brockman apparently friended a girl from the 6th Man Committee on facebook and so we had a picture of him wearing a girl's sweatshirt which we taunted him about. Still doesn't beat the Ryan Anderson and Jamaal Wilkes makeup photo.

As for the game, the positives are that our offense is looking much better (I guess it helps when your outside shots are falling) and even though we were unable to break the game open (mainly because of our defense), we managed to score timely buckets and make enough free throws to maintain that lead. Anthony had his second consecutive solid shooting night. As did Mitch. Let's hope they can keep it going. Lawrence, on the other hand, had a forgettable game. I don't think he registered a shot in the first half and then that airball open 3 was pretty bad. He did redeem himself with a move in the post for the foul and 1 but then missed 2 free throws after Brockman's intentional foul which in all honesty, wasn't that malicious (even though we started the dirty bastard chant). He's big and clumsily ran straight into Lawrence who he was trying to send to the free throw line. Brook was a turnover waiting to happen in the first but greatly improved his passing out of the double in the second - finding a cutting Taj for easy baskets. He made some nifty moves on the baseline in the first but then threw up some bad shots in the second. I wish everyone on our team could shoot free throws like Brook though. If we can cut down on turnovers and either make better decisions during fast breaks (Mitch especially) or always slow the ball down, we should be fine.

Our defense and rebounding intensity was another story. For the second straight game, we were out-rebounded by our opponent. These were opponents that we completely destroyed on the boards during our first meetings. This is definitely not a good trend (rebounding against Arizona State wasn't too hot either) and hopefully we can snap out of this funk and box out. Washington also did a great job against us inside, which is surprising since interior defense is usually our strengths. But full credit to Brockman and Pondextor who had great games in the post. They were a handful and we were lucky that Washington struggles from the line.

All in all, it wasn't the prettiest of victories. Nonetheless, I'm glad that we showed the ability to win a close game and hit enough free throws down the stretch. I like how Trent made the shift to bring in Drew for Robin. Even though he didn't time it very well and had Drew on defense when he could have had someone else play defense, take a timeout if they scored and put Drew in, at least it shows that he's comfortable putting Drew in at the end of games. Maybe something good came out of that ASU loss (and I'm not being sarcastic since crunch time in the tournament is truly what matters).

One more home game to go. It should be a good one with Washington State coming to town. So far, I'm 1-2 in senior day games with the only victory coming freshman year. Let's get that record to o.500. Boy is it going to be sad to see Taj, Fred, Kenny and Peter play their last games in Maples. Let's hope it's a memorable one.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs Cal 2/24/2008

2008-02-24T22:33:00.000-08:00

Stanford 79 Cal 69 For some reason, there was a lot more hype about this game than the Oregon game. Perhaps it was the Red Zone Rally where Coach Harbaugh announced that football tickets next year would still be free, and the students, band and dollies would be moved to the shady side of the stadium. Too bad that most of the students that were in line during the rally (15 minutes before doors opened) were seniors. It might have been the $10 student tickets, a #9 ranking and body painting being allowed for the first time in 2 years. Or maybe it was the realisation that we had a good team and there weren't that many home games left. Whatever the reason, we had a season record 714 students brave the rain and file through the 6th Man entrance today. Hopefully we can get similar turnouts for the last 2 home games.
While it was probably one of our louder 6th Man performances (by virtue of so many people turning up), I thought that the whole left side of the 6th man section was relatively quiet and it was the senior laden right side that was bringing the energy. I could be wrong but it sure felt that way from where I was standing. In any case, things are slowly improving. Hopefully Washington State can be the one game where 6th Man finally pulls it all together. A pre-game observation I had was that Will Paul was on crutches. I hope he didn't re-injure himself.

Cal is one of those teams that worries me because they have guards that can penetrate and like to push the pace. We did a great job playing solid defense on Anderson (holding him scoreless), forcing turnovers and really clamping down on them early in the first half. Our shots were also falling as both Anthony and Lawrence got into a groove and it seemed that we would run away with the game. Cal, however, started getting some offensive rebounds and hitting shots off out of bounds plays when we'd lose them off a screen. Meanwhile, our offense seemed to stagnate as they did a good job doubling Brook and our half time lead was only 4 points.

During half time, it was fitting that the Axe was presented. Much better than making a big deal about leading the Director's Cup Fall standings as they did when we played in Berkeley. There was also a football players vs coaches 5 on 5 game that was pretty physical and ended up being tied 5-5. During the Red Zone Rally, Harbaugh said (with the football players in attendance) that he hoped that the players would win but "we'll see what happens". I guess a tie was respectable.

In the second half, it was back and forth all the way. A couple of bounces went our way and allowed us to maintain the lead as Cal refused to go away. The most memorable play of the night had to be Taj posterising a Cal player, which brought the crowd and bench to their feet. We also did a good job knocking down free throws after struggling in the first half. Anderson, who leads the Pac-10 in scoring, finally got on the scoreboard to the tune of 15 points. He did most of his damage from the free throw line. The 6th Man section tried to get in his head with a "You wear makeup" chant which was based on a facebook photograph of Anderson and Wilkes applying makeup to each other. I guess it didn't work too well as he was a perfect 10-10 from the stripe.

On the whole, it was a decent win. Apart from Brook's struggles on offense (he still ended up with 15 points), we had a pretty good showing and kept turnovers to a minimum. It was especially nice to see Goods find his stroke and Mitch knock down open looks with confidence. On defense, we didn't rebound very well. Cal also made some tough shots. Full credit to them even though they shouldn't have gotten that many second chance opportunities. As for 6th Man, the overall energy level was good, although whoever threw one of those small white balls at the Cal cheerleader during a time out should have been reprimanded (great aim notwithstanding).

I'm glad that we took care of Cal. Two more home games (the last 2 of senior year!) before the much anticipated showdown against UCLA in Pauley. If you're reading this and going to the Washington State game, you probably don't need to be reminded, but it's black-out day. I'm very curious to see how many people forget and wear red. It's bound to happen. Hopefully marketing does a good job getting the word out and we can have some sponsor give out black shirts at the entrances.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ Arizona 2/16/2008

2008-02-17T11:25:00.000-08:00

Stanford 67 Arizona 66 With a day to kill before we played Arizona, I decided to check out the much vaunted nightlife in downtown Tempe. As a Stanford alum who had flown in from Palo Alto to see the ASU game (and his girlfriend for Valentine's Day) told me, Mills Street was where it was at. The rain probably didn't help and neither did the early hour I decided to go but I walked away pretty unimpressed. Perhaps once you've been to Vegas, everywhere else pales in comparison.

Unaware of the 1 hour time difference between California and Arizona, I had booked the 7:30am shuttle from Phoenix to Tuscon on Saturday morning, and so Ben and I got to the U of A a good 4 hours before tipoff. We found the student union and grabbed something to eat. I chanced upon the Arizona Daily Wildcat where Jordan Hill was quoted as guaranteeing a win. Arizona's Coach was taken aback by this bold declaration and questioned whether Jordan was drunk, while Bayless called Jordan a "special person". I also found it amusing that more than half a page of ad space right next to the article was devoted to nearby strip clubs - student discounts included!
After spending a couple of hours at the student union, we headed to McKale Center. Security was tight and my bag was searched before I could enter. One of the attendants gave me a disapproving shake of the head and said that I should not be carrying a backpack on Saturday. I retorted with a "sorry but I came from Stanford" as I dumped out my clothes and books. He then tried to make a joke about how Stanford stuff wasn't allowed inside the arena. Jackass.

McKale Center went pretty high up and I was located in the visiting team's section (i.e. just the last row) and surrounded by Arizona fans. Given Arizona's basketball tradition, it was unsurprisingly a great basketball atmosphere. The students came in early and were loud (especially during one f the refs chant), the older folk got on their feet whenever Arizona went on a run and even the attendants got in the act, cheering fervently and yelling from time to time.
We started out the game playing good defense but Arizona just flat out made some tough shots. Bayless sans the shoe problems he had at Maples was ominously good, especially after he hit a 3 with the shot clock running down and Fred in his face. For the most part, Goods was on him and Bayless pretty much had his way with him, drawing a couple of fouls when Anthony bit on the pump fake and Bayless leaned in. Nevertheless, we didn't give up too much to anyone else and rebounded well as Arizona eventually started missing. Meanwhile, on the offensive end, Brook was Brook and Robin put together another solid performance. One worrying observation was that we struggled when Brook wasn't on the floor and Trent had to limit his rest time since Arizona seemed to go on a mini run whenever Brook was not on the floor. Most of our turnovers were off travels which at least weren't giving Arizona transition opportunities. The half ended with Bayless missing a jumper with Fred in his face and I was happy with the 2 point lead. Defense and rebounding, that's how we're going to win games, or so I thought.

In the second half, especially the last 8 minutes, it seemed as if both teams were scoring on every possession. First it was Bayless torching Anthony and then Budinger finally came alive when Law couldn't close him out fast enough off screens and his open 3 pointers hit nothing but net. When Bayless wasn't making jumpers or layups, he was at the free throw line. I believe he was 12-12 in the second with the refs ruining the game by blowing whistles on everyone and everything. It was hard to see from my vantage point but it looked like it was pretty even. We may have gotten one or two more calls although I'm sure Arizona fans who were riding the refs the entire game would beg to differ. One thing I don't understand is why Fred wasn't in the game for any extended stretch. If this is a team that prides itself on defense, why wasn't our best perimeter defender in the game when he could have been guarding Bayless. I seriously doubt that Bayless would have lit us up to the tune of 20 points in the 2nd if Fred was on him some of the time.

It was a miracle we were able to keep pace with Arizona. Solid free throw shooting helped, as did the absence of Jordan Hill who racked up fouls (some debatable) and could only watch from the bench to see whether his team-mates could back up that guarantee. When Brook had to sit out after he picked up his 4th, I wondered who we would get points from but it seemed that everyone managed to chip in. The teams went back and forth in the final 2 minutes - first with Brook's jumper, then Budinger's 3 to put Arizona up by 1, and then Brook drawing a foul that completely incensed the Arizona fans. I obviously had no way of telling whether it was a foul and it looked pretty clean to me although replays (which I'm sure Arizona fans will deny since they still think Chase was called for a foul) show that Walters fouled Brook. I know this is an extremely small sample size (2 games) but perhaps a top 10 ranking results in getting some calls that you usually don't get on the road. We sure as hell weren't getting those sorts of calls against Washington State. In any case, Brook showed that he can be clutch from the free throw line and thankfully, we had Taj and Robin (that was a tremendous play) do just enough to force a Budinger miss without fouling. Anthony also had the presence of mind to bat the ball towards our end of the court as time expired.

That was a nice bounce-back win for us after Thursday's loss, especially since Arizona was favoured to win this game. As I said on Thursday, I'd have taken a road split in Arizona and a 21-4 record. Now, if we can just protect home court, we should be able to mathematically sew up the Pac-10 2 seed before going on the road, with the potential to challenge UCLA if they slip up.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ Arizona State 2/14/2008

2008-02-14T23:50:00.000-08:00

Stanford 68 ASU 72 (OT)After trips to Oregon and Washington, Arizona seemed appealing with its nice warm weather. Even though my flight was delayed by half an hour and the one hour time change took me by surprise, everything else went pretty smoothly. I was able to avoid a weird public transport encounter this trip but instead had the people in the room two doors down from me thrown out because of their dog that apparently scared several other guests with its incessant barking. It got pretty ugly as they demanded a refund (which was refused) and were threatened with police intervention.

In any case, when I got to Wells Fargo Arena, a guy with a video camera asked me for some sound bites. I obliged after warning him that I wasn't an ASU fan. He asked "What does college basketball mean to you?" and then tried to get me to say "When I miss a basketball game, I like to use facebook to keep track of the results." I refused the latter since a) no one uses facebook for sports updates and b) I don't miss Stanford basketball games. I also walked past an ASU students "pre-game fan fest" where 2 tickets to a Lakers-Suns game were up for grabs. There weren't that many students around. In fact, their student section (as far as I can tell, they don't have a name) wasn't as impressive as some of the other Pac-10 schools and the arena was pretty empty. Kind of disappointing for a program that's showing marked improvement. Someone commented that it might have been a Valentine's Day effect. I don't know. It did, however, make me appreciate a sign from an ASU student in the front row that said: "I ditched my girlfriend on Valentine's Day to watch the Devils".
There were a sprinkling of Stanford fans in attendance. Besides Law's friends and family who were behind the bench, there were about 25 of us in the upper sections. I met someone who had flown down from Palo Alto to watch the game with his girlfriend who was an ASU graduate and living in the area. The first half was a pretty ugly performance on our part. ASU jumped on us right from the start with Harden hitting several 3 pointers. We turned the ball over and had Brook, our only constant on offense, pick up his 2nd foul with 6 minutes left. ASU was killing us on the defensive boards and received numerous second chance opportunities. Trent also inexplicably picked up a technical after a call that seemed to go in our favour. I thought that we got more than our fair share of calls and could see why the home fans were annoyed with the officiating. At one point, someone from the ASU student section threw a shirt onto the court and coach Sendek had to get on the microphone and implore fans to refrain from such behaviour. In any case, I wanted to get out of the half with a not too sizable deficit and we did just that, holding ASU to 0 points after Trent's technical and scoring some buckets with our no Lopez lineup. Down 4 at the half seemed like a victory.

When we went on a great run capped by Landry's dunk and foul in the second, I was amazed that we had done it with a Lopez, Lopez, Fields, Brown and Shiller lineup. Landry had a great game tonight, making a 3, hitting his free throws and driving to the basket. I guess the thing with Landry is that you can immediately tell when he's having a good night and when you should leave him on the bench. Tonight, he was knocking down shots and full of confidence. Then came our meltdown. It had a lot to do with us not boxing out and giving ASU second chance opportunities. Even though Robin was having a great second half, it seemed like having one Lopez twin guarding a shooter wasn't the best move when we knew that ASU would be shooting 3s in the closing seconds. In fact, ASU had tons of good looks from 3 point land throughout the game and finally started hitting them when it counted. The multiple missed free throws hurt as well. Perhaps we should have gotten Drew in the game when they were intentionally fouling.

As I think back about it, we really didn't deserve to win the way we rebounded and played down the stretch. Full credit to ASU and the one fan who rushed the court after the victory and was handcuffed by police. But even so, with Pendergraph fouled out in OT, I don't understand why Fred (barring injury) wasn't given the job of shutting down Harden, who was clearly their go to guy. Even if he hurts us on offense, I think we could have mustered up enough points. At the very least, we could have tried some offense-defense substitutions. Without a doubt, this is the one that got away. Maybe it'll dampen the expectations and pressure on the guys with all this top 10 rankings talk. I don't get this sense from the team but with all the hype surrounding them, it can be easy to get carried away. Coming into this trip, I told myself that I would be satisfied with a split. It's still doable so hopefully the team can bounce back from this loss.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs Oregon State 2/9/2008

2008-02-09T23:05:00.000-08:00

Stanford 71 Oregon State 56 After our decimation of Oregon, it was no surprise (to me at least), that there would be some sort of letdown against the Pac-10 cellar dweller. It was pretty apparent from the fan's viewpoint. No one camped out for Oregon State and the 6th Man line before doors opened was pretty paltry considering that it was a Saturday afternoon game. Some people made a huge Pac-9 sign with a red 9 drawn over the Pac-10 logo and strategically placed it behind the FSN announcers during half-time for a good 30 seconds. I was surprised that they weren't asked to remove it. Even though it was Oregon State, my games left at Maples this year are numbered and so I made it a point to get there early. I put the time to good use - spending the gorgeous afternoon grading homework and witnessing a red-coat chase a couple of guys who were playing frisbee off the practice football fields.

In an effort to increase 6th Man support (I would think that being ranked #9 in the nation would be a good incentive for people who have 6th Man to go to games but I guess that doesn't necessarily hold true at Stanford), the 6th Man committee is selling tickets to students for the remaining home games for $10 a piece. If they want to be in the 6th Man Section, they can buy a shirt for another $10. That is a ridiculously good deal. It also seems to me that if you have tickets for the game but want to stand in the 6th Man section for the remainder of the home games and make a lot of noise, you could just buy a 6th Man Shirt (since they didn't ask for my student ID when I bought 2 for friends)...

As people have commented, we could more fervent support. Even though the 6th Man Section did fill up decently well due to many people taking advantage of the $10 tickets (I think) and Oregon State turned into a game instead of the expected blowout thanks to good early outside shooting from OSU (Oregon, in my opinion, had better looks from the outside on Thursday but just missed), a full court trapping kind of defense similar to what Northwestern played against us, and Brook being double teamed whenever he touched the ball and turning it over too often which led to easy OSU baskets, the 6th Man section didn't really get into the game noise-wise. Rather, they complained about the refs incessantly. While I admit that the refs blew a few calls, I've definitely seen worse and I expect our team to play through them rather than get frazzled and frustrated, especially when playing at home against a winless OSU.

On a positive note, despite the turnovers, we still won by 15 thanks to our excellent rebounding and stellar free throw shooting. Lawrence had another solid outing although I felt that he could have been more aggressive in pulling the trigger during the second half when we seemed to stagnate on offense. Taj also won over many first time fans with his hustle and energy. He will be sorely missed next year. The optimistic side of me also thinks that it's a good thing that Brook got side-tracked/frustrated in a game that we didn't need him to dominate in order to win. I saw signs of it against WSU but he definitely lost his composure today. He should expect to be doubled and played physically every time he touches the ball from here out. WSU was the first team to do it for a whole game and I would do it too if I were the opposing coach. Hopefully he'll learn from this game and we'll continue to work on passing out of doubles and making the extra pass in practice.

I also think OSU is due some credit for the way they played. Sure they were physical and some might even say cheap, but so is UCLA. If they can continue to play this way, they will get a win somewhere. In other news around the conference, the middle of the Pac-10 is wide open. You can spin it as either a testament to the depth of the Pac-10 or the inconsistency of the teams. Regardless of which theory you subscribe to (I lean towards the latter), I'm definitely not complaining about this 3 game cushion we have. It's on to Arizona now - one of the trips I've been looking forward to because of the weather. Earlier on in the season, I would have been happy with a split but now, I can't help but look for a sweep. That's what expectations will do to you. Maybe I should focus on how road teams get fewer calls. That might help temper my expectations.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs Oregon 2/7/2008

2008-02-07T23:08:00.000-08:00

Stanford 72 Oregon 43 Upon getting to Maples at 2pm, I was pleasantly surprised to see 4 tents - an improvement over Arizona and a development that bodes well for senior day when we play Washington State. Also, I might be wrong but it felt like the 6th Man section filled up much earlier today (another good sign). It was in direct contrast to the rest of Maples which seemed relatively empty until 5 minutes before tip off. Perhaps people were getting off from work.

The side of the 6th Man Section nearest the Oregon players did their usual heckling job during warmups with Tajuan Porter bearing the brunt of it. Meanwhile, Brook was shooting 28 feet jumpers and making a respectable number of them. In an act that still puzzles me, the 6th Man Committee thought that reminding Oregon of Kevin Love's performance against them as well as their Pit Crew's warning of taunting him with homophobic comments warranted a sustained Kevin Love chant + sign. I respect his character and game, but will never chant the name of an opposing star in a non-derogatory manner.

With the increased hype that a top 10 ranking brings, I was faintly worried that we might suffer a letdown, especially if Oregon got hot. Thankfully, that wasn't the case and we won our most convincing game of Pac-10 play, just like a top 10 team should do. After Oregon's performance tonight, I wonder whether the NCAA mock bracketology that took place yesterday would still have them winning the Pac-10 tournament. For what it's worth, they have us as the worst #2 seed. Still a lot of basketball to be played but at least for the first time in my 4 years here, we're thinking of our seed and where we could be playing the first week of the tournament instead of just making it.

After 3 consecutive road games, it was good to be back home. I'm sure the players felt the same way too as they started the game shooting lights out. I don't think we've shot the ball so well for a stretch since our opening game against Harvard when we dropped a 111 on the Crimson. It was nice to see Goods back (even if he didn't shoot particularly well) and even nicer to see Law put together another solid performance. Continue running plays for him. That's what I say.

Our hot shooting didn't last forever, especially when Oregon went zone, but our defense more than made up for it. We were absolutely dominant inside with Brook and Robin swatting shots with abandon. If they are allowed to play defense like this (as opposed to Washington State where fouls would have been called on a couple of the blocks), I'm liking our chances of winning out at home. I was also pleased to see that we didn't give up any layups to Porter, unlike the game in Eugene. We did give up lots of open shots on the perimeter (off high screens). Oregon, however, couldn't buy a jumper in the 2nd half and we did a great job on the defensive boards. Nonetheless, I'd like to see us do a better job defending the high screen as well as contesting shots since that's the offense that most teams are going to turn to once they realise that attacking us inside is futile. All it takes is a team to get hot, especially if we are on the road.

I also wish we could shoot better from the free throw line. Even though we seem to be getting offensive rebounds off most of our missed free throws (a testament to our hunger on the boards), I'd be happier if we made them. Right now, Brook and Taj are the only players who I have great confidence in and even Brook can go into a mini slump every now and then (think Cal game). Speaking of Brook shooting free throws, an amateurish Oregon fan tried to throw him off during one of his second half free throws. Is that really necessary in a blowout? I like to save my opposing floor free throw disturbances for the end of close games. The element of surprise is crucial and you don't want to squander it when the game's not on the line.

All in all, a solid dominating performance which allowed players like Josh and Prowitt to get some playing time. Our winning score was also identical to the women basketball team's victory up in Eugene. When's the last time that happened? It'll be hard to follow such a convincing victory against Oregon State who surprisingly played Cal pretty close tonight. UCLA also won in Pullman to keep them 1 game ahead of us while sending Washington State to 5-5. If we could stay within a game till we meet UCLA in Pauley, I'd be satisfied. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We need to take it one game at a time, except maybe Oregon State where my main concern is staying healthy.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ Washington St 2/2/2008

2008-02-02T23:57:00.000-08:00

Stanford 67 Washington State 65 (OT) All my worrying about getting into Pullman turned out to be excessive. Everything ran according to schedule and it was a beautiful day in Spokane when we touched down. If not for the snow covered surroundings, there was little hint that a snow storm had caused a state of emergency and classes at WSU to be cancelled for the first time in decades.

We were on the same flight as two of the professional announcers for Stanford basketball, John Platz and Dave Fleming. Dave kindly offered to give us a ride to Spokane Airport after the game, saving us from being stuck in Pullman for another day and being in the air during the Superbowl, as we had originally planned. Speaking of the Superbowl, I have a bet riding on how long Jordin Sparks will take to sing the Star Spangled Banner. The over-under was 100.5 seconds, and after watching her performance during the NBA finals on youtube, I took the over. I might be on to something as the line has now moved to 103.5 seconds.

After watching College Game Day where all 3 analysts picked WSU to win, we took a shuttle to the snow shrouded WSU campus. There were already more than a hundred students in line with a good 2 hours before tip off. Thanks to the lack of players' guests who made it to Pullman, I scored seats 2 rows behind our bench and was the only Stanford fan in the section. Aware that this was probably my last shot at such great seats, I made sure to treasure the courtside experience.

I was disappointed to see Anthony not suited up during warmups but I was glad (and I'm not making this up) to see Law looking good. Compared to Washington warm ups, it really was like night and day. The ZZU crew (WSU's student section) got on Robin while he was shooting 3 pointers but he seemed to take it pretty well. Even though they stood for the whole game, I noticed that they were the only student section I've seen thus far that has seats (as opposed to standing room). They go more than 20 rows deep and stretch from sideline to sideline as well as behind the basket. That's a lot of space set aside for students. One other thing that I noticed was that WSU's players warmed up by coming onto the floor in groups of 3 or 4 with the biggest cheers reserved for the grouping of Low, Weaver and Rochestie. My favourite sign in the crowd was: "We flew 8453 miles to see Baynes beat Stanford". It's going to be a long flight back to Australia after that 3 point, 5 foul performance. 4 point underdogs, 17 turnovers, down 9 points several times in the 2nd half, missed free throws and our best defensive guard not suited up, it's hard to explain how we won except by saying that this was one of the wins that we gutted out. The officiating was absolutely terrible both ways with WSU getting a few more calls in their favour. There were phantom fouls and goal-tends, and Brook was being mauled in the paint. At one point, Trent turned to towards Platz and Fleming in exasperation, as if to say, are you seeing what I'm seeing and can you believe it? But while the players (Brook especially) were getting increasingly frustrated by the officiating, Trent made it clear during one timeout that they needed to play through it and let him worry about it. During another timeout, an assistant coach told the players that they needed to go out and take it. And they did.
The team simply refused to back down. Every time it seemed that WSU was going to stretch the lead to double digits and the calls were going against us, we would make a play. Lawrence stepped up in the game we needed him the most, hitting 3s off screens and even getting the ball in the post. If I'm not wrong, he was 3 for 3 from 3 in the second, and we needed every single one of those. He also did as good a job as one can do containing Weaver who was WSU's go to guy. Taj was another guy who stepped up and contributed in a big way, coming excruciatingly close to winning it in regulation, but more importantly making great cuts to the basket that Brook found him on. He also had a sweet move in the post in the first when both Brook and Law were on the bench and we desperately needed points.

Robin had some key buckets in overtime with a tip in and of course, the spinning runner when he recognised that the shot clock was running down and he needed to get a shot off (check out the guy in a black shirt, white cap with his fist pumped in the top right hand corner).He also had a bad defensive foul while being overly aggressive on the boards which infuriated Trent. He told the guys on the bench something along the lines of we've practiced situations like this and now we're being punished for the mistake. Let this be a lesson to you. Even though Brook didn't shoot well from the field, thanks to double teams every time he touched the ball and lots of "physical" defense, he was solid from the foul line. I recommend that we inbound the ball to him when the other team starts intentionally fouling. He also did just enough defensively to make Rochestie miss the game tying shot at the end of OT.

Fred struggled somewhat early on but was key when we needed to shut Low down towards the end of the game. He battled through screens and stifled their hot shooter. Even though Mitch had some terrible turnovers in the first half and should have iced the game from the line, he also hit several key jumpers for us, while doing a decent job on Rochestie. Not his best performance but I think the good cancelled out the bad. With Landry MIA (a shooter should never airball a free throw), I was pleased to see Kenny being put in. The only Stanford player not to be charged with a turnover, he struggled on defense, losing Low on screens several times and being beat off the dribble as well (we definitely missed Anthony on defense). Nevertheless, he was key to our run in the second where a surprising lineup of Brook, Taj, Kenny, Mitch and Fred got us back in the game (and Brook wasn't doing all the scoring either).

Finally, there was me. Proudly wearing my black 6th Man shirt in a sea of red that whined almost on cue every single time a foul was called on WSU or any time we made a defensive play in the paint, I made it a point not to complain about the officiating (no matter how egregious it was) but cheer like crazy every time we made a play. I was met with several cold stares but their incessant badgering of the referees made me want to be that one annoying visiting fan among the homers wearing Cougar-tinted glasses. I have to admit that I lost it once when one continuous whiner who would yell stuff like "call it both ways", "that's a travel" (every time Brook or Robin got the ball) and my favourite "that's 2 steps" (I think he meant 3) yelled at Trent to stop whining. I turned around, smiled and said "What about you guys?" Let's just say that it didn't go down very well.

When the game was on the line with WSU shooting free throws and the refs asking our bench who were yelling stuff like box out and get the rebound, to sit down, I broke my rule of not yelling during free throws in opposing arenas (unless it's Cal). I timed them right before the release and was 3 for 5. I've been reading about some of the complaints on WSU message boards who might have mistaken me for the bench. The way I see it, I flew all the way to the middle of nowhere to watch the game in an extremely hostile arena. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

In any case, this was a HUGE road win. I'm so impressed of how we managed to claw and pull this one out. With UCLA beating Arizona, we have 2 games of separation from the rest of the pack midway through the season. While there's definitely still a lot of basketball to go and we need to take it one game at a time, if we can stay healthy, take care of our business at home, and continue to improve, we just might finding ourselves in Disneyland during the first weekend of the tournament!
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ Washington 1/31/2008

2008-01-31T22:27:00.000-08:00

Stanford 65 Washington 51 With Spokane and Pullman besieged by a snow storm, I was glad that we were playing Washington today. The flight in and subsequent bus ride to the UW campus went extremely smoothly, except for the creepy guy sitting across from me. What is it with my luck on bus rides? In any case, Ben and I grabbed lunch before checking into our European style Inn located on the outskirts of campus. It was actually a nice sunny day for an hour or two, before the light rain that Seattle is synonymous with started. We walked around campus, stopping by their student union named the "Hub" which had a bowling alley, pool tables, ping pong tables and an arcade. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it cost $3 for 2 hours of unlimited bowling. What a great deal.
We made it to the Hec Ed Pavillion / Bank of America Arena about one and a half hours before tip off. Ben was able to get in with his press pass but I had to wait outside the player's guests will call for my ticket. It was right by the student entrance where there were about 100 students waiting in line to get in. While waiting, I met one of Trent's guests who used to be on UW's women's basketball team and found out that he was a former assistant coach there. When they finally let us in (long after the student's doors had opened), we welcomed the warm confines of the arena.

Even though my seat was in the last row, I still had a decent view thanks to the relatively small arena. I noticed that UW's student section (the Dawg Pack) stood on the sideline behind the team benches - perfect for getting inside your opponents' heads. During warmups, Brook took a shot while sitting on one of the courtside seats. He came pretty close to making it and was subsequently egged on by the Dawg Pack to attempt a few more. Someone yelled that a bet was resting on his making the next one. He missed.
I never expected the game to be a blowout, but we finally clicked on offense and defense and played a complete game. Brook was outstanding. He got great position in the paint and finished superbly. Our guys did a great job feeding the ball to him as well. It looks like they've been working hard on entry passes in practice. When the double came quicker in the second half, he found Taj under the basket for a layup, but also threw it away a couple of times. Most importantly though, he stayed out of foul trouble and didn't have to worry about his minutes being limited. Robin did a tremendous job on Brockman. When Brockman took it right at Robin and scored on UW's opening possession, I thought that we'd be in for a long night. Robin, however, used his length to bother Brockman and made him work for every single basket. He stuffed Brockman a couple of times and forced him to travel as well. For the most part, he played Brockman straight up and clearly frustrated Brockman, who missed his first four free throws. The mother and daughter sitting next to me were friends of the Lopez family. They were extremely pleased by their performance.

With UW's go-to-guy Brockman stifled, Appleby was their next threat. Again, I thought we might be in for a long night when someone (Anthony I believe) lost him on an inbounds play and he drained his first shot. Anthony, however, was able to get in his face for the most part, over-playing him several times and forcing him to put the ball on the floor. Appleby benefited from several moving screens - the most egregious one by Brockman on Landry was thankfully called. Landry, who had a high school classmate sitting in front of me and cheering him on whenever he took the floor, had a great first half. He played solid defense, nailed a 3 when UW zoned, hit a couple of free throws and a nice pull up. He seemed to hesitate on his jumper in the second and didn't do as much. Still, a pretty good game for Landry.

From a coaching standpoint, I liked how we started both twins and imposed our height on Washington, forcing them to bring in their 7 foot stiff after the first time out. I'm not so sure how much I liked Drew being the first guy in to substitute Mitch. Against Cal, Mitch was on the floor with him, but tonight he was in charge of bringing the ball up and running the offense. His first stint at giving Mitch a breather resulted in a quick hook after he turned the ball over with a bad pass after he picked up his dribble too early. To be fair, he did get back on defense and fortuitously broke up the fast break opportunity. When UW started zoning, he was brought back in but had to guard Appleby for the waning moments of the first. Appleby promptly hit a 3 over him. It might just be me, but I'd prefer to give Kenny a shot. I know he doesn't shoot the 3 ball as well as Drew, but I feel he brings much more to the table (and Drew missed his semi-open look today).

Brook aside, no one else really lit it up on offense. Goods went down hard after a missed reverse lay-up attempt and didn't re-enter the game, most likely because the game was already in hand. Judging from his post game demeanour where he was chatting with some friends/family, I think he's fine. Law struggled from the field and free throw line, but I loved how he still found ways to contribute by hustling for offensive boards and tipping loose balls to team-mates. Mitch turned in another steady performance, hitting a 3 when they zoned and knocking down free throws when they were intentionally fouling. He did have an errant pass but more than made it up for it with some great entry passes.

All in all, this was a dominant win in a place that we haven't won at in a while. That's what top ranked teams are supposed to do and I'm glad that I was able to witness it tonight. I was especially pleased to see frustrated Husky fans head for the exit with 8 minutes left. With Washington State falling to Cal tonight (the fans who were still around cheered when it was announced), it appears that they are ripe for the picking. A win would be huge, and solidly establish ourselves as the number 2 team in the Pac-10. Getting to the game is going to be another challenge. Our current flight plans have us flying into Spokane and taking a shuttle from Spokane to Pullman. With the fierce snow storm that caused classes at WSU to be cancelled and part of a highway to be closed, it might be a dicey prospect. Nevertheless, we're going to give it our best shot.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ Cal 1/26/2008

2008-01-26T20:22:00.000-08:00

Stanford 82 Cal 77 Of all the trips that I've made to Berkeley for sporting events, men's basketball games are my favourite. We've always managed to have a sizable contingent and this year was no different. Two buses were chartered and over 200 tickets were sold through 6th Man. Tucked high up in Sections 12 and 13 and right next to the band, the students dedicated enough to make the trip up to Berkeley typically have an us against them mentality and are especially vocal. Aided by the great acoustics of Haas Pavilion and on our feet for the entire game, friends have said that they've heard us on TV. There is no doubt that our presence is felt.

A lot of trash talking goes on as well. Last year, two students walked by the Cal student section during half time. One of them was attacked by a Cal fan and the two Stanford fans were escorted out of the arena, only to sneak back in. I know our players get up for this rivalry game too. After we won at Haas last year, Lawrence Hill dedicated his entire facebook profile to beating Cal. This year, our band endeared themselves to the Cal fans by continuing to play as the national anthem began. In their defense, there is no way that they could have heard it. When Cal was singing their school song after the anthem, we started a "We have the axe" chant. As Albert commented, we were off to a good start.

What wasn't good when the game finally started, was Brook getting into early foul trouble and being forced to sit after only 5 minutes had passed. It was extremely frustrating. Thankfully, we managed to go on a run and break open the back and forth game thanks to good defense (we zoned when Anderson was on the bench), Mitch hitting a couple of jumpers and a couple of fast break opportunities. While the sample size is admittedly small since we don't really get that many fast break opportunities, I've decided that the only person on our team who I feel confident running a fast break is Fred. That being said, he led Robin too far when an easy breakaway dunk was in the offering. From my seats, I couldn't tell whether it was a bad pass or Robin seeming to slow down. Trent experimented with many different lineups - bringing in Prowitt for his first meaningful Pac-10 minutes, which sparked a Peter Prowitt chant. One of those lineups however, wasn't too hot (I believe it was Mitch, Law, Prowitt, Washington and Robin) and we stagnated on offense, allowing Cal to narrow the 10 point lead and gain some momentum. They eventually narrowed the gap and we only took a 1 point lead into the half.

During half time, Cal's men's waterpolo team (National Champions) took the floor. They also flashed something about Cal leading the Director's Cup Fall standings. I thought it was pretty pathetic and akin to Arizona State celebrating leading the Pac-10 after 4 games. It also made me want to ask Cal fans to name the sports that they had beaten us in this year. There's waterpolo (although we upset them in double OT at home), field hockey (although we beat then in the Nor-Pac championship game and made the NCAA tournament) and men's gymnastic (with our top two gymnasts absent). Off the top of my head, we've beaten them in football, women's volleyball (twice), women's basketball (total demolition earlier today), women's soccer (twice) and men's soccer. What a great senior year!

We started the 2nd half running the same play for Brook 3 times. Mitch made great entry passes and Brook quickly got on the board with 2 jumpers and 2 free throws. Meanwhile, we dominated the offensive boards and created numerous second chance opportunities. We needed every single one of them, especially during a stint when we struggled from the free throw line with a normally dependent Brook missing 3 in a row (including the front end of a one and one). It might just have been a coincidence, but I noticed that the free throw shooting slump coincided with Cal fans behind the backboard being issued blue and gold balloons. The good news was that we got Hardin, who had a field day in the post against an under-sized Taj and Brook who was in constant fear of picking up a 4th foul, in foul trouble. One other thing I noticed, was that starting around the 10 minute mark, Trent played offense-defense, subbing Brook and Taj in and out repeatedly. Even though Taj struggled to guard Hardin, it was a good way to keep Brook from picking up his 4th foul.

With Anthony struggling (I've heard someone mention a stomach flu) and Landry being ineffective in the 2nd after a promising 1st half, Trent gave Drew Shiller major minutes. On offense, he hit 2 big 3s and helped prevent Cal from completely collapsing on Brook since they had to respect both his and for this game, Mitch's 3 point shooting. He also managed to get the ball to Brook in the post. His entry passes don't quite have Mitch's touch but they got the job done. On defense, he was completely abused by Randle and racked up numerous fouls while trying to stay in front of him. I wonder whether Kenny could have done a better job. If only he shot the ball as well as Drew. We ended up trading baskets for much of the 2nd half which was good enough to preserve our slender lead.

Even though Cal intentionally fouled Fred and sent him to the free throw line, we hit enough free throws down the stretch to clinch the game. It was especially fitting that Mitch made 5 of 6 to ice it after his all around great performance. Credit must also go to Robin who had the task of defending the Pac-10's leading scorer, Ryan Anderson. His size clearly bothered Ryan who didn't hit a single 3 and was held to 11 points. Robin also grabbed 10 offensive rebounds. My one wish is that he finished around the hoop better. Finally, with all the scouts who I'm sure were in attendance, Brook had a phenomenal 2nd half. Not to be greedy, but could he possible stay out of foul trouble and put together a complete game one of these days?

The upcoming Washington road trip would be the perfect time. While I would take a split, I think we can play with anyone - even Wazzu in Pullman. If anything, they've shown themselves to be vulnerable with the drubbing at Arizona and 1 point win over Arizona State who fell to Washington. I'll be heading to Seattle on Thursday and Pullman (via Spokane) on Friday. Hopefully the forecasted snow won't put a damper in my travel plans. If anyone has suggestions of things to do in Pullman, I'm all ears.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs ASU 1/19/2008

2008-01-19T23:19:00.000-08:00

Stanford 68 Arizona State 52 With USC's upset win over UCLA earlier in the day which propelled an unlikely Arizona State to the head of the Pac-10, it also meant that the middle of the Pac-10 got a little more bunched up and we needed to protect home court to separate us from the pack. 6th Man turn-out before doors opened was pretty paltry and I heard a couple of seniors reminisce about freshman year when the line for the Ike Diogu led Arizona State game went all the way up to the swimming complex. Ah, those were the days. On a completely separate and somewhat sad note, this was Albert's last home game as an undergraduate, as his softball managing schedule takes him on the road for the next 5 home games.

I was worried that with the various dorm ski trips going on, the 6th Man section wouldn't get filled. But it did, as people started appearing minutes before tipoff. Those who did come early were treated to some relentless ASU heckling with Duke transfer Eric Boateng and bench warmer "Big Head" Steve Jones being the main targets. It was pretty funny and some of the ASU players cracked up too. Phil Helmuth, who seems to only get courtside seats for the lesser game during any given weekend (USC and Arizona State instead of UCLA and Arizona) was spotted almost tripping and falling while trying to get to his courtside seat.

It was a pretty ugly first half for Stanford as ASU's zone stymied us on offense. We turned the ball over and didn't generate good looks, Brook was a black hole and forced some tough shots instead of finding the open man, our passing wasn't crisp when we had shooters open for 3, and every single loose ball seemed to go in ASU's favour. Our defense was decent and kept us from falling even further behind, but there were a couple of breakdowns when the twins lost their man on the high screen and roll. It was pretty embarrassing to only have 20 points at half time at home.

Thank god for the adjustments made during half time where we crashed the boards, had Anthony attack the zone with some dribble penetration and got the ball to Brook when he had better position. Pendergraph's foul trouble helped as well. The key momentum shift occurred when Trent subbed in Robin, Taj and Landry, who joined Anthony and Fred on the floor. They brought energy, played some stifling defense, and overcame the 7 point deficit. I was especially pleased to see Landry's effort on the defensive end. Hopefully he's turning the corner and gaining Trent's trust. With the 6th Man section rocking and the momentum on our side, the starters came back and Brook finally got it going against a Pendergraph-less ASU. We hit our free throws, executed well with Anthony driving when they overplayed him in the zone and managed the clock rather well down the stretch. It was probably the finest half we've had in Pac-10 play this year.

The win was especially crucial as we have our next 3 games to finish up the first half of Pac-10 play on the road. It's not going to be easy but winning 2 out of 3 should be our goal. First up is Cal which is probably our most winnable game. Hopefully we'll get a sizable 6th Man contingent up in Berkeley and make ourselves heard thanks to the wonderful acoustics they have in Haas Pavilion.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs Arizona 1/17/2008

2008-01-17T22:51:00.000-08:00

Stanford 56 Arizona 52 Unable to camp out for the game, I got to Maples at around 1pm and found 3 tents set up. 2 belonged to Larkin (a freshman dorm). It was organised by one of our fellow camp-outees from previous years who is now an RA there. Hopefully they'll keep the tradition alive once the class of 2008 graduates.

In other news, all 6th Man members were sent an e-mail this morning stating that ID card sharing is no longer permissible. Instead, a ticket transfer system has been instituted where 6th Man members can transfer their tickets to other current students through a website. What has happened in the past is that 6th Man members have lent their IDs and shirts to friends when they were unable to attend games. A number of alums have used this method to get into the 6th Man section and I guess they want to crack down on this.

As someone who was planning on doing this after I graduate, I guess I’m somewhat biased. That being said, I don’t understand the need for this crack down. It’s not as if we’ve been filling the whole 6th Man section two deep this year. Tonight was our best shot (Arizona, early in the quarter, no skip trip) and I still feel like we could have fit more people. If a young alum is committed enough to find a way to get into the 6th Man section, he should be allowed to.

By making the process of sharing 6th Man membership more complicated, I worry that student attendance will fall. With an already small pool of people who get 6th Man and classes/studying/ski trip getting in the way, every person counts. In any case, it wasn't really enforced tonight since the card swipers were new and just happy to have the cards swipe properly. We’ll see what happens down the road.

Coming into the game, I was worried about Bayless after he torched Houston for 33 points and 9 assists. It great to see Goods contain him and Fred get in Budinger's face. Early on, the refs were also allowing a lot of contact on defense, which I think works in our favour. Brook got some nice blocks coming from the weak-side but he needs to do a better job of staying on the ground when defending his man since his length is enough to bother most other bigs. Jordan Hill got him to bite on some pump fakes and caused him to pick up his second foul which promptly sent him to the bench and prevented another career first half. It puzzles me why both Oregon and Arizona needed a full half to adjust to Brook, but I shouldn't complain. Kudos to Fred and Mitch for throwing some nice entry passes to Brook in the 1st half. Mitch also had a great bounce pass to Taj for a layup.

In the 2nd half, Arizona made better adjustments to guarding Brook and used Nic Wise to attack Mitch on offense. While some of it was on Mitch, Wise made some tough shots too. We also were careless with the ball and gave them some easy baskets, enabling them to go on a run which negated our once 10 point lead. Our inability to run any sort of break when we have numbers hurts, although I guess we now realise that and try and grind it out in our half court offense instead of attacking and rushing bad shots. In crunch time, Lawrence's 3 was huge, and it was our defense which saved the day as we managed to do just enough to get the crucial stops, even after missing 2 front ends of 1 and 1 free throws. It was especially poetic that Fred, who had gone 0-6 from the charity stripe against Oregon, redeemed himself by taking his time at the stripe and clinching the game with 2 clutch free throws that were 1 and 1's.

Whew, I'm glad we escaped with the win. I was beginning to worry that we would blow it in the second half with our sloppy play. We really need a sweep this week and Arizona State isn't going to be any easier, especially after they topped Cal in double over time. They are now 4-0 in the Pac-10. Could they be this year's Washington State? Time will tell, but let's give them their first conference loss of the season.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ Oregon 1/13/2008

2008-01-13T20:12:00.000-08:00

Stanford 66 Oregon 71 Having heard that there’s more to do in Eugene than Corvallis, I took the greyhound to Eugene the day after our game against Oregon State. I was joined by Ben Spielberg who does radio for KZSU. Seeing as he wasn’t travelling with the team, we decided to coordinate our travel plans and split a room in Eugene. Other than the hour delay and a weird guy sitting next to me who wet himself during our one hour bus ride, the trip was rather uneventful.

With the game falling on Sunday, we spent Saturday morning watching the UCLA-Washington State game, and the afternoon walking around the U of O campus. Once the rain stopped, the day cleared up and we enjoyed our stroll around the small but pretty campus, adorned with many red brick buildings. We familiarised ourselves with the location of the basketball arena (McArthur Court) and apart from a pick up football game on a muddy field, nothing much else was going on. The evening was spent watching the NFL playoffs and getting some work done as we readied ourselves for game day.
We got to Mac Court a good 2 hours before tip off and while waiting for my tickets and Ben’s media credentials, chatted with a scout from the Wizards who was buoyed by their victory over Boston the previous day. He’d been racking up the frequent flier miles this week and was heading to Sacramento tomorrow. According to Ben, there were tons of scouts on press row – one for the Cavs who took offense when Ben tried to steal a peak at his notes. It appeared to Ben that he was looking at the Lopez brothers, Hairston and maybe one other player, and was especially interested in Brook who he took extensive notes on.

Unlike the Oregon State game where I was seated directly behind the bench, this time I was up in the nose bleeds where there was a small contingent of Stanford alums. I was seated next to a gentlemen who had driven down from Portland and had gotten his tickets by, and I quote, “donating”. As tip off approached, the first thing that struck me was how loud the place was. While the Pit Crew (Oregon’s student section) was roughly the same size as a typical Pac-10 6th Man turnout, it was more spread out – covering most of one side line, a base line and an eighth of another sideline. This probably contributed to the noise level. I spotted a couple of signs among the Pit Crew, one referring to the “Lopez Sisters” and another which read “I love Leunen… no homo”. They were also throwing around a rather large blown up male genitalia with the words “Brooks like this” on it. It was promptly confiscated during the first time-out.
We started out the game well with two nice entry lobs by Mitch to Brook for an emphatic dunk and Law for a lay-up, and were up 6-0 after a nice Brook move and score. Ernie called a time-out and the Ducks came back with a couple of 3s, the first by Leunen when Brook didn’t close out quickly enough. It was apparent as the half continued that Goods was ice cold and Brook red hot. Robin also had a nice first half for us. We made some great entry passes and Brook was able to make quick strong moves to the basket before the double team came. He ended up being 8-9 for the half with 20 points.

Coming into the game, Oregon was shooting a high percentage from the field. They continued this trend and just like last year, Tajuan Porter killed us as Oregon ran screen and rolls all day and every shot that he took seemed to go in. Leunen played really well too and used his 3 point shooting ability to draw the twins out of the paint and his speed to beat them off the dribble. Their foul shooting was pretty good too, unlike ours. Fred, who has been shooting pretty well of late from the charity stripe, missing 4 straight free throws and Kenny missing 2 at the end of the half. I was pretty happy to see us weather their 10 point lead down to 1 thanks to Brook and a zone defense off made baskets that mixed things up and prevented Tajuan from abusing us too much.

During half time, I made an appearance on KZSU and chatted with Ben about the first half and my impressions of the Pit. I expected a lot more doubling of Brook whenever he got the ball and more of our zone in the second. Neither really materialised as we had trouble getting the ball to Brook in the post and relied on crashing the boards to get our points since our outside jumpers weren’t falling (even though some were good looks). We did manage to get to the free throw line, much to the chagrin of the Oregon crowd. During one time out, their mascot came out in referee colours and a poked around with a stick, pretending that he was blind. It was rather amusing. Unfortunately, apart from Taj and Brook, we were terrible from the line with Fred missing another 2 to put him 0-6 for the game.

Thankfully, Oregon cooled off from the outside although they managed to get some easy layups off good ball movement, especially when Porter was in the game and running all over Mitch. I would have liked to see more zone. It was back and forth but ultimately came down to 3 plays: Porter’s layup after getting around Mitch with our big men pulled away from the basket, Mitch trying to force a lob to Robin that wasn’t there and Brook air-balling a tough shot from the baseline when we were down 2 and Oregon played solid defense. Sure there were things earlier on during the game like Goods hitting one extra 3 or Fred hitting free throws, but these 3 plays really stood out. The final nail in the coffin was the turnover when we were down four and Mitch tried to hand it off to Goods.

It was a heartbreaking loss on the road with our team coming so close to pulling it out. Brook and Robin had great games and Taj was outstanding in the limited minutes that he had. Oregon did a great job of protecting home court and this makes the upcoming home games even more crucial. Both are dangerous teams – Arizona with Bayless who looked incredible yesterday in his first game back from injury, and Arizona State who are still unbeaten in Pac-10 play. Hopefully the 6th Man section will be rocking now that students are back on campus and it’ll be as loud as it was in the Pit today.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ Oregon State 1/10/2008

2008-01-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

Stanford 66 Oregon State 46 With an 8am class, the only direct flight I could take to Portland left at noon. This left me with a tight connection since I had to catch a shuttle from Portland to Corvallis which ran only once every one and a half hours. Thankfully, Southwest (ranked #3 in terms of flights leaving on time) came through and I got into Portland airport with time to spare. One of the first restaurants I saw was called Stanford Restaurant. A good omen, perhaps?

I arrived on OSU's campus with about one and half hours till tip-off. The weather in Corvallis was surprisingly nice. The sun was out and it wasn't raining! I stopped by the bookstore to purchase a Beaver souvenir and while waiting in line, heard the guy in front of me predict an OSU win. I also overheard two girls talking about watching Family Guy and getting drunk this weekend. I decided to check into the Days Inn that I was staying at before the game. It was a nice 20 minute walk past frat row. It didn't seem like too much was happening this Thursday night.

I arrived at Gill Coliseum about 40 minutes before tip-off and picked up my tickets which seem to be getting better and better. Today, I was seated right behind the Stanford bench. Seeing as there are no courtside seats at Gill, I was as close to the floor as one could get and was able to overhear the bench talk/encouragement:

Unsurprisingly, there weren't that many Stanford fans in attendance (25 at most). In fact, the overall turnout was dismal. Even though attendance was listed at 4017, I'd say it was more like 1500 tops. I sat next to the parents of one of the managers of the basketball team and had a nice chat with them. His mum graduated from OSU and they decided to make the trip up from the Bay Area.

We looked great during warmups and everyone (Goods, Hill, Fields) was draining 3s. It translated to a quick start to the game. It was especially nice to see Law get back on track and I liked the starting lineup of Brook, Law, Fred, Goods and Mitch. Our defense was solid too and when OSU tried to zone us, Goods calmly drained a 3 pointer. One things of note was that OSU played a full court press off makes and dead ball situations the whole game. A couple of times we inbounded the ball into the corner - usually not a good thing, especially when the double team comes. Goods was trapped once and turned the ball over. Fields also got caught in a 10 seconds back court violation, and was subsequently pulled. We looked great in the first half but started the second somewhat slowly, turning the ball over in repeated possessions. Our defense held strong for the most part and kept OSU at bay till our offense picked up again. It's nice that we can rely on our defense. I also noticed that unlike the USC game, the referees were calling lots of hand checks and touch fouls. If anything, they were pretty consistent.

On the whole, it was a decent showing against an overmatched team. Mitch had some nice plays intermingled with bad entry passes that sailed out of Brook's reach. Law ran off screens and defensive breakdowns to hit 3 3's in the first half. Fields had one nice defensive play where he drew an offensive foul and was extremely pumped up. Fred played great defense, made some nice drives and was also poked in the eye during one exchange. Taj and Kenny hustled on the defensive end. Kenny was especially disruptive. I'm liking him more and more as our back up point guard. Robin brought the ball down yet again in traffic, but managed to make the basket and draw a foul. Someone near me overheard Trent emphasizing not bringing the ball down during the next time-out. Brook and Robin also picked up silly reach in fouls while going for offensive rebounds. Brook's foul was his 4th with about 6 min left. Even though the game was clearly out of reach for OSU, I was annoyed at his lack of discipline and might have shouted my displeasure at Brook a bit too loudly. It was embarrassing since I was so close to the bench.

As the game came to an end and OSU fans cleared out, one gentlemen came our way and wished us luck in Eugene. We thanked him and he mentioned that U of O fans probably wouldn't be that nice. I'm sure he's right. It should be a good game in Oregon. I wish we were playing them on Saturday since we're more rested and they have a short rotation. In any case, we'll need to play a complete game - offensively and defensively.

In other Pac-10 action, I watched the USC-Wash St game at a sports bar just off the OSU campus after our game. What impressed me most about WSU is their passing and how they took care of the ball. After a slow first half, they came out and executed very well on offense in the second. WSU-UCLA on Sat should be ugly but fun. I'm heading to Eugene tomorrow where I'll soak in the sporting action this weekend. I can't wait.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs USC 1/5/2008

2008-01-05T23:53:00.000-08:00

Stanford 52 USC 46 We weren't too happy with our place in line on Thursday for the UCLA game and made an effort to arrive earlier today. We ended up behind two other people. It should get better once school starts and we can actually camp out. While waiting to get in, I found out that Oregon beat Arizona in Tuscon. That was a surprise but then again, Arizona was playing without Bayless. It looks like the middle of the Pac-10 is wide open. It could also be that everyone is mediocre. I'm not quite sure yet.

With USC in town, there was great potential for good signs in the 6th Man section. There were references to Hackett's jaw getting broken by Mayo and Jefferson being academically challenged. Speaking of Jefferson, we were surprised that he didn't start or get much playing timetonight. My favourite signs were "Orange Juice + Mayonnaise = Vomit" & "OJ + 32 + USC = Murder". The latter was flashed in the background while the FSN announcers were taping their pre-game intro. One of the camera guys caught it and they had to retape the whole segment. When alerted, the head of the red-coats wasn't amused and gave the culprit a talking to.

Some time ago, I wrote that there are no ugly wins in Pac-10 play. I take that back. This was probably the ugliest games I've ever seen at Maples. It reminded me of the drought-fest we played at Wazzu 2 years ago that we won on a Goods put-back. This time, however, there were a lot more turnovers and it was sloppy as hell. The positives I can take out of this are our defense, free throw shooting, offensive rebounding and Fields and Brown showing that they can contribute when given playing team. We did a great job of blanketing Mayo. Goods, Washington and Brown (for a few minutes) fought through screens, kept him in front of them, and funnelled him towards the Lopez twins who forced him to alter his shots. The weakside defenders did a good job of keeping USC off the boards in the second half. I also liked how we kept our hands active on defense and got many deflections and tips. Today, most of these loose balls fell in our favour. USC failing to hit the handful of open shots they got helped too. One last positive was the play of the half:

Other than that, it was pretty ugly. Mitch plummeted back to earth from his UCLA performance. While he's still our best at bringing the ball up the court and feeding the posts, I don't know why he abandoned the controlled pull up jumper he scored with against UCLA for a rushed, leaning, let's-pray-it-goes-in shot. When we had that 3 on 1 break against Hackett who already had 4 fouls, Mitch could have a) taken it himself since Hackett wasn't going to challenge him or b) dished to Law who Hackett wasn't going to challenge. Instead, he had to bust out a behind the back pass that Anthony clearly wasn't expecting (who would blame him). We still look like a team that doesn't know how to run a fast break.

In addition, Robin needs to have it drummed into him that whenever other teams make the mistake of doubling him, unless he is deep in the paint, he needs to pass the ball to the open man, who should then make the extra pass to the next open man until one of our shooters gets an open look. Under no circumstances is he allowed to put the ball on the floor. None. How many times does it take for him to put the ball on the floor and get stripped before he learns? I wish Reveno was still here. In fact, Robin should be yanked the next time he does that, unless of course Brook is sitting on the bench with foul trouble. (Note to Trent: No Lopez twin on the floor against USC = bad)

Of the 4 fouls Brook committed today, 3 were cheap, dumb fouls. One was a handcheck on Mayo off a pick and roll, one was a clumsy over the back type foul on the offensive end and one was a debatable elbow he left sticking out as someone was running past him. Brook not being on the floor hurts us so much and frustrates him even more. He needs to play smart. As does OJ who should have taken it at Brook (when Brook had 4 fouls) when he was one on one with him. Instead, OJ settled for a deep 2 pointer that he missed with Brook in his face.

Our end of game clock management was also terrible. In fact, it's been pretty terrible for the past few years. When you are up 7 or 8 points with just over 2 minutes left to play, there should be a rule (just like how Robin should never put the ball on the floor when double teamed) that no shots or drives to the hole are permissible with more than 15 seconds left on the shot clock unless you are getting an open lay-up or dunk. I've noticed that Law likes to get trigger happy in situations like this (not just today). In fact, I'd be much happier with a shot clock violation than an out of control drive with more than 20 seconds left, since it burns precious time and allows us to play our half court defense. We shouldn't even be initiating our offense until there are about 15 seconds left. If all else fails, just give it to Anthony and let him create with the shot clock winding down. Speaking of Anthony, even though he didn't have a great shooting day, he abused OJ whenever OJ tried to guard him. It was beautiful to watch.

It wasn't pretty but at least we got the split that we needed. The Oregon road trip is probably one of the better ones to start the season. On paper, it's the easiest and hopefully will give us time to get our act together. I'll be up in Corvallis and Eugene from Thursday to Sunday. If anyone has any tips or suggestions for things to do, I'm all ears.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs UCLA 1/3/2008

2008-01-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

Stanford 67 UCLA 76 It was a tough match to start off the Pac-10 season especially with school only starting the following Tuesday and most students not back yet. I was staying with my cousin in SF while Albert and Alex flew in today. There was no way we were missing UCLA. On the way up, someone on the Cal Train asked me whether I had any extra tickets to sell. I recognised him as a scalper from the Women's Volleyball Final 4 in Sacramento. He told me he was from Sacramento and had made the trip down.

After grabbing a sandwich at the Alumni Cafe which was serving its pre-basketball game hot dinners, I headed over to Maples about half an hour before doors opened. There were about 12 people in line with the earliest group arriving before 5pm. The turnout ended up being surprisingly good for a game over the break. It's true that the 6th Man Section was reduced but we were packed two deep with people spilling over by the sides. There were a fair number of alums who might have gotten 6th man shirts from students who couldn't make it. I'm not sure whether it was UCLA, the beginning of Pac-10 conference play or our team being ranked, but hopefully the excitement will build and the student section will swell when school resumes.

There were a decent number of Bruin fans in attendance, some seated in the chairs placed right beside the reduced 6th Man Section. Those who made the mistake of walking past the 6th Man Section to get to their seats were heckled pretty badly. Before tip off, some were heard complaining that they wouldn't be able to see with us standing up during the game. Someone commented that they were lucky to have gotten such good seats. The rather annoying Bruins fan who was standing in the aisle between our section and the seats (also next to the rather annoying Stanford fan who had an OJ Mayo sucks sign) was finally ushered to his seat after half time amid vehement protests. I'm surprised it took the red coats so long, especially after Albert was thrown out of last year's Senior Day game for body painting a Carlton Weatherby jersey (and hence not conforming to the required 6th Man shirt attire).

In the first half, Brook struggled mightily from the field but everyone else stepped up. Mitch probably played his finest half and game in a Stanford jersey. Sure, he had some turnovers due to aggressive passes and wasn't able to finish at the rim, but he met the challenge of playing Collison (admittedly not 100%) and penetrated well, and for the most part, under control. His step throughs on the high pick and roll double were a thing of beauty. He's not the Chris Hernandez that we all wish he was, but he's definitely improved over the past 2 years. Hopefully this game will give him some confidence and he can continue his improved play while cutting down on the mental lapses.

Fred did a great job of driving and finishing at the hole in the first. It's been just under a month since his knee surgery and I'm hoping that he's close to 100%. We definitely need a healthy Fred to drive, handle the ball and play lock down defense. Anthony also had a good first half, hitting some step back jumpers. Defensively, we were ok in the first. UCLA did a good job running their offense with lots of screens (many that appeared to be moving although only one was called) and the pick and roll which we seemed to defend rather awkwardly with one of the twins showing. They also got a couple of buckets off turnovers which we really needed to avoid. Love got great position in the post and scored even though the twins' length bothered him. UCLA also shot well from 3 point land with many of them being pretty good looks because of a break down on our part. Each team cleaned up their defensive boards pretty well.

I noticed that we had a 7 man rotation in the first half (and game). My main concern with that is fatigue and the lack of outside shooting besides Anthony, especially with Law struggling. I'm sure Trent has his reasons, but as Albert mentioned, it would be nice to give Fields or Kenny a few minutes to see what they can do. It would also be nice to perhaps have someone bigger than Goods in-bound the ball from under the basket. We had huge problems with that tonight and twice Goods tried to bounce it off the foot of the player guarding him to no avail.

In the second half, we started off well on offense but just couldn't get a stop on defense, thus allowing UCLA to maintain their lead. Then we went cold and when UCLA finally started missing, they beat us to the boards as well. It was a less than inspired effort and we let Shipp drain multiple wide open 3s due to defensive breakdowns. One of them occurred when we had Mitch on him instead of Law (and he shot over Mitch) and the other when we forget whether we were zoning or playing man after our made basket that UCLA pushed up the court. Maybe if we had practiced our zone more during non conference play, that wouldn't have happened. At the end of the game, we also should have shot more 3s instead of driving to the hoop although UCLA did a great job of taking away the 3 point shot and basically daring us to drive.

While it's tough to open the Pac-10 with a loss, there are some positive to take out of the game, especially the first half. Mitch's play was great. We hit our free throws. Fred is getting back into shape. We were also in position for a lot of layups. We just couldn't convert them in the second. Finally, UCLA is a great team. Shipp, Westbrook, Love and a healthy Collison are a handful. With the opener out of the way, we really need to bring our A-game against USC. Unlike Collison who seemed content to run the offense for the most part, Mayo is going to be looking for his shot every chance he can get, and we can't let him get hot. With Cal beating USC tonight, we really need to protect home court.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs Fresno State 12/29/2007

2007-12-30T01:09:00.000-08:00

Stanford 55 Fresno State 48 Today was the last of our non-conference games and also the 10th last home game of my college career. It's really scary to think that there will only be 9 more games at Maples this year. With the expected reduced attendance due to the break, they wisely filled up much of the 6th Man Section with seats. I wonder whether that will be the case for the LA schools next week. There were many Fresno State fans in attendance. It was probably the best away showing we've had all year at Maples.

While we got the win today, it wasn't the best tune up for Pac-10 play. The optimistic side of me wants to say that we won't struggle as badly on offense as we did today (even against better defenses) and this game will motivate the players during practice over the next few days before UCLA. The pessimistic side of me is worried that we won't be able to get a split against the LA schools. While we played pretty good man defense for the most part, Mitch's guy blew by him with ease for several easy layups and dishes. I was surprised they didn't keep on giving him the ball. That being said, Mitch proved his worth as our point guard with many nice entry passes to Brook. He also had some nice steals and was able to bring the ball up and initiate the offense - something that both Drew and Kenny struggled with in their limited court time. I suspect we're going to see a lot of zone next week.

With Goods and Law struggling in the first half, thank goodness that Brook is back (and starting). He single-handedly kept us in the game in the first. I was surprised we didn't post him up more in the second half. If Fresno St was playing him differently, I didn't pick it up at all. In the first, Goods was cold and settled mainly for 3 pointers. It was nice to see him catch fire in the second and take the ball to the hoop. That step back shot of his is perfect for setting up a defender for the drive and I hope he takes it to the rack more. Law had lots of open looks but just couldn't convert. I'm sure everyone hopes he gets out of his funk soon. His stellar play in the post against UCLA last year was one of the main reasons we won.

Coming in as 20 point favourites, cold-shooting aside, we also struggled with turnovers and rebounding. The first half was turnover after turnover, many of the travelling variety. That's been a feature of the past two games. It doesn't lead to fast break points but definitely affects our offensive flow. We also didn't dominate the offensive boards as we are accustomed to (credit must go to Fresno St for doing a good job). Those are two key aspects for our success. Robin also needs to keep himself in the game by not picking up cheap fouls. Even though we have a deep bench and it's going to be interesting to see how Trent manages minutes, it's always nice to have at least one 7 footer in the game.

Today wasn't our finest game. In fact, it was probably one of our worst offensive performances at home this year. Hopefully, it'll only go up from here even when we face much better defenses. As I've said before, I wish we weren't playing the LA schools to kick off Pac-10 play. The students won't be back and it doesn't leave much room for error. But we are a veteran team and we definitely have the capability to beat both USC and UCLA, and for that matter every single Pac-10 team. Whatever happens these next 18 conference games, there will no longer be any ugly wins. It's going to be a fun ride and I can't wait.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs Texas Tech 12/22/07

2007-12-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

Stanford 62 Texas Tech 61 I got into Dallas on Thursday night and stayed with a friend while Albert drove down from Houston on game day. On Friday night, we were watching the Mavs-Clippers game which featured former Stanford point guard Brevin Knight. The commentators mentioned that they had met some of the Stanford players during the day. I wonder whether our team met up with Brevin at some point.

We met up with Albert at will call and picked up our 3 tickets. They were right behind the bench and probably the best seats we've had so far. There were quite a few Stanford fans in attendance and we saw a bunch of students from the Texas area. Kenny Brown apparently had a huge guest list for all his friends and family. I think one of our commits was present too. The Texas Tech band was right next to us. There was a fair amount of trash talking between our section and the band who played the same song over and over again. My favourite comment from them was "Way to be ranked" at the end of the game as the clock was running out. I'm not quite sure what they were going for. One of their cheerleaders also taunted us with her pom pom in the first half. It was all pretty entertaining.

It was good to see Fred back but slightly worrying when he played minimally in the first before coming out. I suspect it was because we wanted shooters on the floor since he played substantial minutes in the second and made a couple of his patented drives to the hole. He also grabbed some crucial offensive boards and was part of the great second half zone defense. We definitely need a healthy Fred for the Pac-10 season.

We started off the game well - moving the ball and getting some easy buckets. But then turnovers began to set in and Texas Tech got into the bonus as we picked up fouls. Brook wasn't able to get the ball in good position and struggled with his shot. He was visibly frustrated and committed an over the back foul which was his second of the half. When Robin picked up his second and had to sit, Texas Tech went on a run as our offense stagnated, Tech hit free throws and we didn't have a big man in the paint. Goods finally took it upon himself to drive to the hole to stem our offensive drought. Hopefully he'll do that more.

It was a pretty bad first half after a promising start. With Brook out of sorts, no one stepped up. We turned over the ball too much and didn't defend very well either. With our 3 point shot not falling, it was beginning to feel a lot like Siena. The only difference this time was that we had Brook and fortunately he stepped it up in the second. We started the second half with a Lopez, Lopez, Fred, Goods and Mitch lineup and played zone. Even though we gave up a bunch of offensive rebounds, our defense was excellent. We were also able to get the ball to Brook (who played all 20 minutes in the 2nd) in good position and he made some nifty moves on the baseline to either score or get fouled. It seemed like the few times we didn't get Brook a touch or at least swing the ball in his direction, we would miss. It was a complete role reversal of the first as we stayed out of foul trouble while playing solid defense and got into the bonus early.

We finally got back into the lead as Mitch hit a big 3 pointer (our only of the game) off a Fred offensive rebound and we managed to get some nice stops and hit key free throws - 2 by Robin when we were down two and 2 by Brook to put us up two. After Texas Tech missed a 3 that would have tied the game, we managed to put the game away. While the first half wasn't something to write home about, I liked the adjustments we made at half time and the zone that really stifled Tech in the second. I'm pretty confident that we'll see a lot of that in the future. With Fred back, our team is finally at full health (minus Prowitt who doesn't seem like he'll get much playing time anyway) and hopefully everyone can stay healthy and we'll have some time to gel on the court.

While our out of conference schedule hasn't been spectacular, it's given us a chance to work out some kinks. Texas Tech was a solid victory, as was UCSB at home. I'll take 11-1 (assuming we beat Fresno State) going into the UCLA and USC games. While the Pac-10 season is going to be competitive, if we can stay healthy, keep up the defensive intensity and take care of the ball, we can definitely do some damage. Go Card!
~ Zhihao
Since it's been so long since I've posted, I decided to add some of my thoughts on the game. I was unfortunately not in Dallas, as I will be heading to Texas on the 30th (after Fresno State but back morning of the 3rd for UCLA), but watched the game at the Old Pro with maybe 10 other Stanford fans (although 6 of them were not watching the game as much as chatting but would cheer every once in a while). It was frustrating to listen to the tip-off in my car and then get to the bar and have the football game on ESPN2 not over yet. It finally got started about three minutes later with the score already at 10-9. Despite only having two points in the half, Brook's presence on the floor was clearly essential to our team's 7 point lead in the first ten minutes. Most notable was our final field goal before going on a nearly 6 minute drought, when we got the ball to Brook in the paint, drawing not two but three defenders and leaving Taj open under the net for the easy layup. I hope we see some more of that in conference play, especially once Law returns to his usual playmaking-self. We have a lot of guys who should be able to take advantage of the double-team, and I think with Brook back there is a lot more potential, because he has shown that he is really capable of taking care of the ball under pressure.

Without the Lopi on the court, how were we possibly going to keep the game going? It says something about the improvement of our offense over last year- we are actually using the post in order to make plays, instead of swinging the ball eleven times until Fred or Anthony drives in or someone finds an open jumper. However, with Brook not scoring and the threes just not falling, followed by Brook sitting on the bench, the 21-8 run was not at all surprising, and really disappointing heading into halftime. All credit goes to Anthony for ALL SIX of our points in the last eight minutes of the game.

This was our chance to prove that we can be clutch... and I knew at halftime that this would be that game. We were not going to let them run us over, but at that point there was certainly no-way we were going to run away with it. Could we fight tooth and nail? It's certainly been a trademark of Stanford Basketball for three years running, and I was waiting to be shown that this year's big games have as much potential for amazing basketball as ever.

My thoughts on the second half are scattered... Brook stepped up on offense, obviously. The zone looked great. I kept expecting them to break through it and it just never happened. They got a few nice jump shots in... but never got into a rhythm and the Lopi in the post were clearly not to be challenged- Brook's enormous block on Voskuil at the end of the game was great evidence of that. Unsung hero of the game was indisputably Mitch Johnson (ok, you're welcome to dispute). However, Mitch not only keyed the offense, he completely stepped up his D in the second half, after letting shots fall uncontested in the first, he left no shot unchallenged. The only moments at which I felt we had a defensive weakness in the 2nd half were when Mitch was out and Kenny was in. I am pretty sure it was their second-to-last missed three (because I remember the last one was a prayer- they said he got a good look but he certainly wasn't open), with us up by 1, when Kenny was MIA and Singletary got a wide open look which he really really fortunately missed.

But back to Mitch, in ADDITION to keying the offense and great defense, he also scored four of his six points in absolutely clutch situations. The three to take the lead and the free throw to put it out of reach. Those were both absolutely huge... who knew six points could be huge? (The answer- KB's 3 points vs. UCLA in January...). So I'm singing Mitch's praises for getting us back in the game and scoring where it really mattered.

Everyone came up big in the last few minutes- Fred had a couple big plays (assist on Mitch's 3 and a layup) before sitting for the last five, Brook with a jumper and three of four free throws, Robin with a pair of free throws, and Kenny and Taj both with big defensive rebounds (Taj's clinching the game). We played really smart in crunch time, and I was really excited to see that. It was an exciting win! Bring on UCLA! (Right, let's take care of business with Fresno State first).

I bought my dad and brother lower section tickets for $30 a piece for the Fresno State game- whoever is selling them for so cheap is wonderful!!
~Alex

Men's Basketball vs Santa Clara 12/19/2007

2007-12-19T23:56:00.000-08:00

Stanford 74 Santa Clara 48 Today marked the first game that Brook was back from academic ineligibility and I (along with everyone else) was excited to see how he would look. I was also able to coax a friend, who had said that she wanted to go to a basketball game since freshman year, to attend the game. That in itself was a victory. And with the luck that she had, things looked promising.

After last year's disappointing loss at the hands of the Broncos, I'm sure our team was fired up. With Fred still out, Taj started and Brook was the first off the bench. Taj brought his usual hustle and rebounding to today's game. There was one play when Santa Clara boxed out well and it looked like the ball would go out of bounds in the corner but Taj found a way to get around his man and save the ball to Mitch who unfortunately had his shot blocked. Taj also brought his shooting stroke for good measure and found nothing but the bottom of the net on some long jumpers.

Robin had the job of guarding Santa Clara's top scorer, John Bryant, a wide center who used his girth very well in establishing good position. Even though he let Bryant get great position, Robin used his length to bother his shot and did a great job on him, especially in the first half. He also had a well-timed swat where he came out of nowhere to block what appeared to be an easy dunk. Offensively, he struggled somewhat in the post, but did have one incredibly sweet spin move that left Bryant completely flat-footed. He managed to pass out of the double team with reasonable success. Even though it didn't always look pretty, he was usually able to find someone in a good position.

Brook came in to cheers after the first media timeout and if I'm not wrong, our lineup was Lopez, Lopez, Taj, Goods and Mitch. He missed his first close range shot but then made a short jumper off an assist from his brother. Brook was back! He looked pretty good out there on offense and had a couple of offensive boards that he converted for layups as well as one nice spin move in the post. He faced the usual Santa Clara double teams and like his brother, passed out of them with reasonable success. It would be nice if both of them could find the cutter or kick it back out quicker but they definitely look better than they did last year. On defense, Brook picked up cheap fouls and had some difficulty guarding Bryant. Santa Clara also wisely went to Bryant when Brook was in foul trouble and clearly trying to avoid picking up another foul. On the whole, it was great to see Brook back and ready to go.

Law and Good were solid offensively. Law had a nice one handed dunk which rattled in, and also hit some 3s. He's been struggling somewhat from the 3 point line this year and so it was nice to see him regain his long range touch. On defense, he had a couple of breakdowns, losing his man on an inbounds play (much to Trent's chagrin) and a screen or two. It clearly bothered Law but I'm not too worried about him since I'm sure he'll work on keeping his defensive focus. Mitch uncharacteristically struggled with ball handling tonight. Usually he has pretty good handles but tonight was called for palming and lost the ball while driving at the end of the first half. He did have a nice drive and pull up where he looked completely under control, something that I usually see in practice but not always during the game.

All in all, it was a good effort by the team. We started out slow offensively in the first half but played solid defense. Santa Clara turned the ball over quite a bit due to sloppiness but we pressured them and forced some steals too. The one that stands out is Anthony's steal and breakaway dunk right after Robin's imposing block that sent the ball out of bounds. In the second half, our offense was clicking and we were getting and making good shots. Hopefully, we can sustain this play against Texas Tech, a good but not great team. I'll be flying in to Dallas tomorrow. Should be fun!
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs College of Idaho 12/16/2007

2007-12-16T22:40:00.000-08:00

Stanford 81 College of Idaho 53 After last year's post finals embarrassment against Santa Clara, I was glad that an exhibition game had been scheduled to let us shake off the rust. The turn out at Maples wasn't that spectacular but who could blame anyone for skipping what was essentially an open scrimmage. The students had also been chased out of the dorms the day before. There were about 60 people in the 6th Man Section - many not even wearing 6th Man shirts. The red coats tried to regulate initially, but were told to back off, perhaps in line with the holiday spirit.

The first thing that struck me when I glanced at the Idaho team was that they were tiny. A couple of the players looked like they were in freshmen in high school. They also had purple jerseys with Albertsons on the front. This prompted some "Safeway's better" cheers from the 6th Man Section. With Fred out after having one of his knees scoped, Taj entered the starting lineup. It wasn't very necessary for this game where the average height of Idaho's players was probably 6 feet 3 but might be a sign of things to come for the upcoming matches. Brook wasn't dressed and I suspect his TA's/Profs hadn't got the message to grade his finals and enter them as soon as possible (for the record, I hadn't received grades for any of my classes either). It would have been nice to get him some action but I guess it'll have to wait. More intriguingly, Will Paul was also not present.

We started the game on an 8-0 run with Robin hitting another 3 pointer to make him 2-2 on the season (although this game doesn't count). It looked like it would be another Harvard like massacre but Idaho's coach called a quick time-out and they hit some outside shots to tie it up at 8 a piece. Idaho played zone exclusively and we threw in some zone looks on defense as well. With our size advantage, they were content to shoot long jumpers and hit at a pretty good rate to keep the score from getting out of hand. We cleaned up on the offensive boards with Robin and Taj. We also tried to get it in to Robin in the post but his close in shots were simply not falling. I'm not too worried though.

In a game like this, it's really hard to get a feel for our team. I suspect that we were using it to work on our zone offense. Kenny was also given the chance to play point guard (with Drew on the floor). He's looked decent whenever he's had to in the past but didn't do himself that many favours this time. Defensively, we could have closed out on their shooters better and stopped helping as much when they penetrated since one big body inside was usually enough to deter them from shooting and kick it out to the perimeter instead. Some of the highlights included a nasty Landry dunk (and the foul) in the first half when Idaho was still keeping it close, a Robin offensive board followed by a spin and authoritative dunk, and Landry playing great defense on his man (granted this was against an NAIA player).

The game lasted 1 hour 30 minutes and I suspect the referees were instructed to swallow their whistles unless something egregious happened. There's not much else to say except I'm looking forward to seeing Brook (next game pending passing his classes) and Fred (hopefully soon) back in action and it would be nice if we came out sharp against Santa Clara on Wednesday.
~ Zhihao

Women's Bball vs Baylor 12/15/2007

2007-12-16T18:12:00.000-08:00

Stanford 87 Baylor 63 With our first game after finals being against the #10 team in the nation, I was slightly concerned that we might be rusty. As I mentioned to a friend who was attending his first ever women's basketball game, home games are usually blow outs, but this one would probably be close. Good thing I was wrong!

With students being chased out of the dorms on Saturday, there were hardly any in attendance. It basically was my group of friends (all 6 of us) and the band. It's too bad that our two highest profile home games (Baylor and Tennessee) are during the break. In any case, what was supposed to be a close game turned into a rout when Candice and Kayla got it going. One thing that really impresses me about our women's team is how fundamentally solid we look. There were times when we just tore apart Baylor's half court defense for easy layups. Our bigs passed well, especially out of the double team. We ran the fast break well. Two of our freshmen, Kayla and Jeanette (who must have recorded a career high 10 assists), looked like veterans on the court. We were also very opportunistic in the passing lanes and forced a bunch of turnovers. With our up-tempo style of play, the game was so much fun to watch.

Without a doubt, the play of the day went to Candice. She stretched to catch a high and long outlet pass, got her first defender up in the air with a vicious pump fake and then took it straight at her second defender for the bucket and foul. She converted the 3 point play with the crowd on its feet. That play alone was worth the price of admission. What a special player. Kayla was no slouch either and made some nice catches and finishes in the paint. Albert likened her to Brooke with so much more upside since she's a freshman. JJ had a nice all around game too and could challenge for the starting point guard position. She stepped in comfortably for Ros who forced a couple of bad passes and got into foul trouble trying to keep up with Baylor's speedy guard. Jayne also struggled with foul trouble with 2 fouls being called on the offensive end - one for a questionable illegal screen 60 feet from where the ball was and the second for an offensive foul while battling for position in the post. It was nice to see us perform so well even without a stellar performance from her. One big reason was Jillian who had a nose for the offensive rebounds and passed the ball extremely well.

All in all, it was a great game to watch. Baylor wasn't bad. We were just better. We shot and moved the ball well and there was no apparent rust after the long layoff. Hopefully we can take care of business on the road against New Mexico and get ready for the big showdown against Tennessee. I'm not sure when was the last time we won one of those, but I'll definitely be watching it on TV.
~ Zhihao

Women's Vball NCAA Championship Game 12/15/2007

2007-12-16T00:43:00.001-08:00

Stanford 2 Penn State 3 (25-30, 26-30, 30-23, 30-19, 8-15) With my long week of finals finally ending early Saturday morning (with a paper), all that was left was volleyball. We were kicked out of the dorms for break and so I had to pack all the stuff that I would lug around during my travels. Needless to say, there was a lot of red. I traveled separately from Albert and Alex today due to car space constraints (maybe that's why we lost) and arrived in Sacramento early. I ended up going to a sports bar to kill some time and saw a couple of Nebraska fans enjoying their basketball victory over Oregon.

When we arrived at Arco, I was pleased to see lots of cardinal. Seeing as I only had uppers, I asked a scalper the going rate for a lower ticket. It was $40 - substantially more than the $15 that someone had received for his ticket on Thursday. I declined. I guess there's a reason why scalpers are in business. As we entered Arco, there was a line to get autographs from some of the AVCA All Americans who had shown up. Since we had time to kill, we figured why not. When they were later introduced during the break between games 2 and 3, Nebraska's players received some of the loudest cheers. Oh those Nebraskan fans!

As the clock ticked down to the first serve, it struck me. This was it. The whole season came down to 1 game. Coming into the game, I felt that Penn State had the edge. They hadn't dropped a single game in the tournament and looked spectacular against Cal. But at the same time, we'd shown that we were tough as nails, and wouldn't back down from a fight. The match that ensued captured just that.

While the first game was sloppy with lots of nerve induced service errors, we seemed tighter and let Penn State pull away. In Game 2, Penn State seemed unstoppable. Their defense was breathtakingly amazing and the variety of offensive weapons they had made our block redundant. It wasn't that we were playing badly. They were just at a whole other level.

Even though things looked bleak, I wasn't about to concede defeat, not with these girls on the floor. I knew that there was no way that any of them would give up, especially Bryn. At the same time, I felt that Penn State was the better team and if they didn't let up, we might not be able to beat them. Thankfully, they stepped down their level of play and we went on some nice runs. Bryn targeted their libero who had lots of difficult handling her serve. We'll miss her next year. The Stanford fans really started getting into the game and Bryn's setting was impeccable. She was setting it in all the right spots and our hitters were mowing down kills. The momentum carried over to the 4th where Franci played incredibly. Tonight was definitely one of her finest games. Our defense also got it together and confidence was high.

Going into Game 5, we had all the momentum. But as has been the case many a time in volleyball, it can turn at the drop of a hat. We played by far one of our worst offensive games in Game 5. Penn State's defense was good but we just ran out of gas. Even down 7-11, I still dared to dream that Bryn's serve which had been troubling them all night, would help us go on a run. We had the Penn State overpass but Alix was stymied as she tried to put it away and Cynthia's kill sailed a fraction long. In my mind, that was the ball game.

Wow, it's been a great journey. After last season's runners-up finishing and a great incoming class, expectations were high. We met them all and showed true grit and determination in many a game. I'm really happy that we didn't fold after being in a 0-2 hole. That would have been disappointing and totally out of character of this team. While it might sting slightly more that we came so close, the girls can be proud that they gave it their all. Penn State was definitely a formidable and worthy opponent. Full credit to them. They are going to be scary next year.

And so it ends. It was not quite the ending that we had hoped for. But you can't win them and all. All you can ask is that you give it your all. We did and the girls should hold their heads up high. Thank you fellow seniors for your contributions, and thank you women's volleyball team for a stupendous season.
~ Zhihao

Women's Vball NCAA Final 4: 12/13/2007

2007-12-14T01:15:00.001-08:00

Stanford 3 USC 2 (23-30, 30-20, 30-25, 20-30, 16-14)

The road trip that we'd been hoping for materialised. All through the volleyball season, it had been on my mind, but I didn't want to jinx it and make plans too prematurely. Albert got done with his morning final and we left campus around 2pm with another friend, hoping to beat traffic. With 3 of us in the car, we were able to use the carpool lane and cut 20 to 30 minutes off our travelling time. It was a good sign.

This was the first time either of us had been to Arco Arena. The only impression I had of Arco was the numerous Lakers vs. Kings playoff battles where Arco was reputed to be loud. The outside of the arena was impressive. It was well designed with multiple points of entry. Upon stepping inside, however, I was surprised that it was an NBA Arena. It seemed rather small and the floor area compact. That probably explains why fans are able to get right up in the faces of players.

In any case, it was a nice cosy venue that accommodated a less than sell out crowd. While the official attendance was recorded at 13,000 people, I doubt that many people showed up. Albert was far more impressed at Omaha last year where the atmosphere was electrifying. Speaking of Nebraska, I was surprised to see a sizable contingent of Nebraskan fans in attendance. They'd probably made plans long in advance, figuring that they'd be a shoo-in for the Final 4. It was amusing to hear loud cheers erupt when they showed highlights of last year's final. There was also a Nebraksan fan who had a sign: "Nebraskans for Cal".

Both Albert and I had purchased our tickets through the Block Party. They weren't able to guarantee which seats we'd get (upper or lower) and so we found out at will call. Albert had lowers and I had uppers. Albert had gotten 4 tickets (for friends with finals on Friday morning who made bets worth the price of tickets that we'd beat USC), and so I was saved from the nose bleeds. Our seats were excellent. They were right behind some of the players' families, with a mid-court view. I thought it was cute that two girls who I presume to be Alix and Gabi's younger sisters were decked out in Stanford gear and wearing their older sisters' numbered jerseys. A couple of people tried to sneak down from the upper levels but were shut down by the attendant patrolling our section. She was unrelenting, continuing to check tickets during Game 3 of the Cal-Penn State game. A guy who had snuck down with his family tried to give her cash but she refused the bribe, telling him to go back up while calling a fellow attendant over when he initially didn't budge.

There was a decent showing of Stanford fans. Not including the band, I'd say that there were around 30 students. Hopefully with finals done by Saturday, the turn out will be better. There were numerous families with kids. My favourite sign of the night was:

I have to admit that I was pretty nervous coming into the game. We hadn't looked that great against UCLA and USC was a much more formidable opponent. When we struggled and lost Game 1, I felt that our title chances might be slipping away. We simply came out flat and out of sync, struggling with pass receiving, setting and blocking. USC (especially Asia Kaczor) looked phenomenal. The turnaround in Game 2 when we looked phenomenal and USC terrible really shocked me. Reading post game quotes from the coaches, it seemed that the match ups were in our favour for Games 2 and 3. It's funny how volleyball is a sport where the momentum can change so easily from game to game.

In any case, I was proud to see our girls fight back after the poor showing in Game 1. But even with a 2-1 lead, I still wasn't completely settled and anticipated a hard fought Game 4. I was clearly wrong as USC proceeded to destroy us in Game 4. While we were sloppy, they played inspired defense and it was clear that our outside hitters were getting frustrated. As I heard someone comment, Game 5's (first to 15) are a crapshoot. At that point, I might have taken a coin toss to decide the match because we looked frazzled and USC had all the momentum. When we were down 1-4 with Foluke in the front row, I thought it was over. Albert and I still have trouble figuring out how we managed to win that game. It seemed like we just willed ourselves to victory. I also noticed how eerily similar it was to our victory against Cal (that gave us the overall #1 seed). We staved off a match point at 13-14 (thanks to Asia's service error, whew!) and then won the next 2 off Bryn's serve. The first point was heart stopping, as Asia hit the ball (thank god she was in the back row) off our block and time seemed to freeze as everyone stared at it fall just in bounds on USC's court. Match point was equally exciting as Cynthia hit the ball off USC's block and out of bounds. What a game!

While we definitely did not play the best game we are capable of, just like UCLA, we gutted it through for another victory. Against UCLA, we raved about Alix's offense. Tonight, it was her defense. It's a pity that Arco's scoreboard was not able to keep track of any volleyball statistics and so we didn't realise that Alix had 30 digs, but wow! Hopefully, both her offense and defense will be clicking against Penn State. Foluke was amazing as usual. She won the game for us on offense and we really struggled when she wasn't in the front row. The other attackers really need to step up when she's not in. Gabi was great on defense as usual and we needed every dig we could get, especially with our block not being that effective. The block did come through in the 5th though. I just wish we could get a consistent block for the whole game, which is arguably hard to do when you're up against a hitter like Asia who was breathtakingly good, although we did a much better job on her as the game progressed.

At the end of the day, there are no ugly wins at this stage of the tournament against teams of such high calibre. USC was 8-0 in Game 5's coming into this game. We somehow pulled this one out of the bag. Judging from how Penn State demolished Cal (Cal's setter was awful), they are the real deal. Even though we beat them in 5 early this season, I would say that they'd be the slight favourites on Saturday. I do know, however, that if we play to the best of our abilities, we can beat anyone. And this year, we don't have to worry about peaking too early in the Final 4! Go Card! 1 more win. Let's bring it home!
~ Zhihao

Women's Vball NCAA Elite 8 12/8/2007

2007-12-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

Stanford 3 UCLA 1 (28-30, 30-28, 30-26, 30-27)This was game #50 for us. Not too shabby for a quarter! One game away from the Final 4, I was taking nothing for granted, especially after Cal's 3-0 dismantling of Nebraska. I was also not about to repeat yesterday's mistake of not going early to get the free student tickets. I got to the ticket office as it opened, and managed to persuade a couple of fellow seniors to come to the game. What better time to attend your first ever volleyball game than the last "home" game of the season?

It was unexpectedly, a rather pro Stanford crowd, but I was surprised that there were so few Bruins fans in attendance. Their band didn't show up either (maybe they were at the UCLA-Davidson basketball game). In any case, the atmosphere was great and I was excited. While I wasn't that impressed with UCLA the day before, I had this nagging feeling in my mind that we might come out flat after our great performance yesterday.

The first few points of the game assured me that we were the better team but then things started to fray in Game 1. Full credit to UCLA who played some tenacious defense and made our block look non-existent at times, but we just weren't on our A-game with service errors in Game 1, receiving errors in Games 3 and 4, mistimed sets and a lack of block for most of the match. Nonetheless we managed to gut out the victory and as people like to say, the true mark of a great team is one that manages to eke out the win when things aren't going their way. Bryn and Franci struggled early on but ultimately came through in the end. I wonder whether it was the emotion and pressure of knowing that this would be the last game they ever played in Maples.

There were many positives from the game. As Albert texted to me in Game 3, Alix played out of her mind. From the digs on defense, to the kills on offense which blended both power, finesse and her amazing court vision, it was extremely fitting that she got our match winning kill. What a performance!

Erin was amazing too. It seems that she always steps up her game come post-season play. Not to dismiss her solid play during the regular season, but she's like the Robert Horry of women's volleyball. Foluke was on fire as usual and it was a pretty sight whenever she and Bryn managed to connect. Cynthia was targeted incessantly by the UCLA servers and even though she struggled on her serve reception for stretches, she didn't let it affect her attacks. Franci who I thought had an extremely rough night, stepped up her blocking in the 4th and was a wall at the net. Cassidy was rock solid on serve reception. Finally, I liked Dunning's rotation adjustment coming out in the 3rd which gave us more front row balance with Franci struggling.

I'd like to go on, but finals week is upon me and the trip to Sacramento on Thursday + 6 finals and a paper does not leave me with that much spare time. All I will say is that USC is going to be a tough match up and we'll need to play some solid volleyball. It's definitely well within our capabilities and I'm ecstatic that after scheduling my classes/finals such that I'd have Thursday off, it was not all in vain. Now, we just have to win it all, one game at a time.
~ Zhihao

Women's Vball Sweet 16 12/7/2007

2007-12-08T02:59:00.000-08:00

Stanford 3 Cal Poly 0 (30-15, 30-24, 30-20) I arrived around 7:20, hoping to catch most of the UCLA-Oregon game, and snagging the free tickets they had for the first 100 students. Lo and behold, the student tickets had run out and there was a long line outside the ticket office. I was happy, and somewhat surprised, that there was so much student interest. Judging from the students in the stands, I would say that it was the regular volleyball crowd + fellow athletes. The men's volleyball team was there as were members of the men's cross country team. I also saw Josh Owens of the basketball team and Tavita Pritchard of the football team.

Neither UCLA nor Oregon really impressed me with their play. After seeing UCLA up one game when I got there, I was hoping that they would sweep Oregon so our game would start and I could get back early for a holiday party. It was not to be as Oregon (down 0-2) pulled out a lucky win in the 3rd after getting a block that looped straight off one of their player's head and onto UCLA's side, as well as the final game winning kill that barely trickled over the net. At that point, I wouldn't have minded Oregon winning since a 5th game wouldn't take that much longer, but UCLA clinched the match.

Cal Poly brought over a nice contingent of fans who were pretty loud. It didn't really matter that much since we were all over them once the match started. There isn't really much to say. We looked absolutely dominant tonight. It kind of reminded me of how we played against Washington in last year's Final 4 match up. If we can sustain this level of play (minus the few sloppy plays at the end of games when it looked like we weren't paying attention), I'm highly optimistic. Everything seemed to be clicking. Our attack was on fire and once Franci (who started semi slowly) warmed up, we were unstoppable. The percentage we were hitting was ridiculous. I believe that it was 0.741 at one point in the 3rd. That's crazy!

If there is one thing I could possibly pick on, it would be our blocking. I couldn't really tell whether it was Cal Poly being good or us being a step slow, but we didn't seem to get the block going in the 2nd and 3rd although Bryn made some nice solo blocks. Some of the better hitting teams might give us trouble but our offense, when firing on all cylinders, will give them some trouble too. In any case, we have UCLA up tomorrow. We've beaten them pretty handily the past 2 times we met and we looked awesome tonight, but you never know. One last game for Bryn and Franci at Maples. Let's hope it's special and we'll be going up to Sacramento on Thursday, just like I had planned at the beginning of the quarter.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball @ Colorado 12/2/2007

2007-12-03T03:32:00.000-08:00

Stanford 67 Colorado 43 This trip had special significance to me because it was the very first one that we booked back when we decided to embark on this journey. The timing wasn't great with finals approaching and it being the day after Big Game, but how could one possibly turn down a Sunday one-day trip to Colorado. As mentioned in my previous post, post Big Game celebrations which included an impromptu but shortened band run with the axe that Albert and I sadly did not partake in, were crazy. Neither of us got any sleep before we left for Oakland airport for our 6am flight to Denver. We didn't really want to sleep either for fear of not being able to get up. Both of us were exhausted and slept through the entire 2 hour flight.

Before the trip, I was terrified that it would be freezing cold in Colorado, especially since it had snowed the previous day. My fears were allayed when we were greeted by clear blue skies. It was a beautiful day - not cold at all and definitely nicer than it's been at Stanford this past week. We took a bus from the airport to CU's campus. A friend from Boulder had kindly lent me his bus pass and so I rode for free. I definitely owe him a meal or beer. I suspect he'll take the latter. We got to Boulder in about 75 minutes, tired and hungry. We found a nice breakfast/lunch place ala Stacks or Hobees, except more reasonably priced. The service was great and the servers friendly. After a hearty breakfast, we wandered around the campus. CU has a pretty campus with the Rockies as the backdrop. It was very serene and quiet. There was hardly anyone around. With its reputation as a huge party school, I wondered whether everyone was still hung over from Saturday night.

We stumbled upon the basketball arena and got the tickets that the basketball office had obtained for us. The team was warming up as we arrived. I noticed Peter hadn't travelled with the team and was amused to see Kenny Brown and Robin doing the dribbling drill against each other during warm ups. Since the game was televised on ESPN U, they had some mini TV monitors. I was able to catch the second half of the USC-Kansas game. It was fast paced but sloppy. There was a stretch when USC was unable to get a single defensive rebound and Kansas pulled away. It would have been a nice win for USC and the Pac-10.

We met up with an alum who read our blog and e-mailed us a couple of days back. It was great chatting about Big Game (especially since he used to play on the football team). We also talked about the general decline in student interest at football games which he seemed disappointed by, since things were much better in his days. I recounted how I knew of people who left during half time of Big Game when we were winning! Hopefully a football program on the rise will turn things around. We also noticed a lot of Stanford alums at the game decked out in cardinal. It was great to see.

As for the game, we played good defense throughout although we didn't force a steal or block a shot. Offensively, we weren't that inspired in the first half and missed some easy shots. But at the same time, I was ecstatic that we weren't sloppy with our ball handling (we did travel and charge quite a bit but at least that doesn't result in a fast break opportunity). Taj played well and seemed to be the only one crashing the boards with success. We tried to establish Robin earlier on but he struggled with a couple of turnovers and missed shots. He also got into foul trouble after a charge (which I thought might have been questionable). Fred did a great job against Colorado's best player Richard Roby who was also plagued with foul trouble after Law stepped in to take a charge.

Colorado was pretty sloppy with the ball and turned it over quite a bit. Their 3 point shooting wasn't stellar either. Still, we weren't able to fully capitalise, clinging to a 3 point lead after a sloppy end to the half where we bumbled a defensive rebound off a missed free throw out of bounds and allowed Colorado to nail a 3. Nonetheless, it was good to see Anthony hitting 3s and Law making his patented jumpers. We were also able to break the press pretty easily and as mentioned earlier, took care of the ball.

The half time show featured dogs catching frisbees. It was pretty entertaining.

In the second half, we took control - making shots, penetrating, dishing and hitting our free throws. Fred shut down Roby for stretches and seemed to anticipate his moves, always having a hand in his face as he shot. Kenny was a spark off the bench and seems to be earning playing time with his play. Goods and Law were solid and got their points. Colorado tried an aggressive trap off the inbounds, double teaming along the baseline. We didn't look very comfortable dealing with it, but didn't turn it over either.

I wouldn't say that Colorado is a great team, but definitely not a terrible team either. We looked far more composed on the road this time, compared to Northwestern and Siena. Hopefully dead week and finals week won't throw the guys out of sync and we won't repeat the embarrassing loss to Santa Clara. We'll also hopefully have Brook Lopez back and ready to raise his draft stock.
~ Zhihao

Women's Vball NCAA Round 2 12/1/2007

2007-12-03T03:09:00.000-08:00

Stanford 3 Sacramento State 0 (30-23, 30-11, 30-28) While I would have loved to linger on the field after Big Game to soak in the atmosphere, there was a 2nd round NCAA tournament volleyball game to attend. I made it to Maples during player introductions and instantly noticed how small Sacramento's team was compared to us. The crowd wasn't as big as I would have expected but I suspect that people wanted to celebrate/eat after Big Game.

We went early and often to Foluke and after establishing her, distributed it evenly to Alix and Cynthia. My favourite part of going to Foluke early is that it is demoralising for the opponent to have her hammer down devastating kills, and does wonders for our psyche. Sacramento State looked pretty bad in the first, struggling with serve reception and setting. Our block wasn't working well though (maybe it took us a while to adjust to their timing of their attacks) but it wasn't needed at all. With a 29-13, we subbed in Alex for Alix. Sac State went on a huge 10 point scoring run as Gabi had some trouble dealing with serve. After a time out, Duning finally put Alix back in and we won. I felt sorry for Alex because it wasn't entirely her fault.

Any momentum that Sac State might have gotten after staving off 10 game points in the first was quashed in the second which we absolutely dominated. Dunning used what I think will be his tournament rotation of Cassidy in for Erin in the back row with Jessica spelling Alix occasionally. I don't think Gabi will be serving much either. Janet got some playing time in the second and contributed with 3 kills off 3 attempts.

I wasn't too worried about the 3rd but we started making some hitting errors and Sac State was able to get through our block with worrying regularity. They definitely raised their level of play. We traded points back and forth for most of the game but as 30 approached, had a clutch back row kill from Alix. It was a win against an outmatched opponent that fought hard, as we witnessed in the 3rd.

There seem to be several upsets in the tournament with seeds dropping like flies. Washington is out at the hands of BYU and USC was taken to 5 games. We have Cal Poly up next on Friday (a team we swept earlier in the season) and if we win, an all Pac-10 showdown against either Oregon or UCLA on Saturday.

What a day! Big Game and then volleyball. And the weekend was not even close to being over yet. Albert and I were leaving for Oakland airport at 4:30am to catch our 6am flight to Denver for the Colorado men's basketball game. With a Big Game concert featuring Roots (I heard they were great), celebrating in SAE and KA till the wee hours, and a Christmas party turned surprise birthday party for me (thanks guys), it was a busy but amazing night. December 1st - definitely a day to remember!
~ Zhihao

Big Game 12/1/2007

2007-12-03T02:03:00.000-08:00

Stanford 20 Cal 13 This was the last chance for me to see us reclaim the axe as an undergraduate. Since freshman year, each Big Game had been progressively better, but with our performance against Notre Dame last week and the 13.5 point spread, I was not optimistic. That being said, Cal was slumping too - losing 5 out of their last 6 games - and was without star wide-out Desean Jackson. This was also the first Big Game in the new stadium. With entry to football games being free for all students this year, there were 2400 allotted seats for students based on a first come first serve basis, with a priority line for students who had attended at least two previous games. I personally felt that students who attended more games should have been rewarded but it is always hard to enforce administratively, as I would find out first hand later.

Since it was pretty easy to qualify for the priority line and it was a first come first serve, a couple of guys camped out the night before so that they could ensure themselves front row seats. Now, that's the spirit that is sorely lacking at Stanford. With kick off at 4pm and doors opening at 2, I got there just before 12 and was dismayed to find a couple of freshmen and their staff ahead of me. Judging from prior experience, this was a sure sign that the rest of the dorm would show up minutes before doors opened and cut in front of me, as was the case. When doors finally did open, they opened up multiple gates and let people behind to jump ahead. It was rather poorly done and many people who arrived early and waited for a couple of hours were frustrated. The students who designed the whole priority system should have regulated the lines better because it wasn't the event staff's job to figure it out.

In any case, I managed to get 3rd row seats and was pleased to see the student section slowly fill up even though it was more than 60 minutes to game time. I thought the band did a pretty good job with the "Big Game" hunting themed field show. Speaking of the half time field show, a Cal student was made to leave the stadium during it. I'm not sure why but I think they were yelling "Take off that Red Shirt" to event staff and someone might have thrown something or gotten out of hand. The drum major's raptor costume made me laugh when I saw it (freshman hall inside joke).

As kick off approached, the student section and stadium as a whole swelled. I still feel that that more Notre Dame than Cal fans showed up at our respective games, which is an impressive achievement on Notre Dame's part. The honoring of seniors on senior day is always one of my favourite moments as they are joined on the field/court by their parents to recognise their contribution to the program. Today was no different. By kickoff, the student section was packed. The first few rows of my section were doubled up and more people were streaming in (I don't think they really capped student entry at 3400).

When our defense forced on a fumble on Cal's first possession and TC found Bradford wide open on a crossing route for the easy score, I was pumped and it crossed my mind that today might be one of those days where things would go our way. The game was also broadcast on Versus. The last game that was on Versus was the USC game and we all know how that turned out. Cal responded with a score but we held them during their next possession after our intercepted trick play. Nevertheless, I liked the creativity, and according to Albert, the double reverse Bradford to Moore throw worked a lot more effectively when they ran it on the practice fields. During warmups, my eye was on Belch and he looked significantly better than during warmups against Notre Dame (and we all know how that turned out). He came through with two field goals in the first half that really made the difference from a strategy point of view. Full credit to him for bouncing week after last week's debacle and playing through his injury.

Offensively, I liked how we were able to sustain drives and keep the defense off the field in the first half. I also liked how we rotated our QBs with 2 series for TC and 1 for Tavita to keep the Cal defense off balance. I didn't even realise when Tavita was inserted for the first time, until we pulled out the naked bootleg that TC would never run. I don't think Cal was ready for him either although they adjusted much better as the game went on. Our O-line did a phenomenal job for the whole game (picking up blitzes superbly) despite playing without two original starters Fletcher and Mattran. If I'm not wrong, they only gave up 1 sack (which was a coverage sack). McBride and Phillips, who took their place really stepped up. TC played really well too and I liked how we played to his strengths by focusing on a short passing game (and avoiding sacks). The receivers also made key catches to sustain drives (except for Sherman although he did draw that crucial pass interference) instead of dropping the ball as they have been prone to do. Tyrone was huge for us with Kimble out. His ability to catch out of the backfield and turn the corner was crucial although I cringed every time he was hit. Finally, I loved the play-calling, especially the play action roll out at the goaline which was set up by Tyrone's run (that was the play that USC used against us last year to much success).

Our defense won us the game in the second when our offense stalled thanks to the adjustments made to defending screens and two great picks by Sanchez. They struggled somewhat against the run and were bailed out by several drops, but they wrapped up pretty well at the line of scrimmage (Snyder was a stud) and did just enough to slow down the offensive player when they missed, allowing the rest of defense that was in pursuit to catch up. Maynor had some huge hits on Longshore which shook him up enough to throw him off in the 2nd half. I also liked the fact that we committed so few penalties while Cal seemed to get a holding or personal foul every other series (I also felt that they were holding much more than was called). Their ill disciplined plays and drops were definitely keys to our victory. When time expired. the rushing of the field was a foregone conclusion. We had finally reclaimed the axe.And it wasn't just that. During the critical last few minutes of the 4th quarter, when we were on defense after Stewart's fumble, the whole stadium was rocking. It wasn't just the student section (an achievement in itself) and the people on our side of the stadium, but the "old people" on the far side too. I had never experienced such noise from our own fans. I think Albert sometimes wishes that he had gone to a football school in the SCC, but for one game, one critical juncture, we were a football school. The atmosphere was electrifying. As the fans and players celebrated on the field, I saw the joy on players' faces and felt especially happy for the seniors like TC, Bradford, Evan and the list goes on, who underwent 3 coaches, 5 losing seasons and futility against Cal. I can't even being to imagine what having this as the last game of their college careers means to them. I'm glad they did.

Thank you seniors and Jim Harbaugh's coaching staff. Harbaugh has definitely grown with the team, improving alongside them. He's far from perfect but I really feel that the program is about to take off under the Harbaugh era. At the beginning of our odyssey, I wrote: "In Harbaugh I trust". In my wildest dreams, I never imagined wins against USC and Cal. 4-8 never felt this good.
~ Zhihao

Women's Vball NCAA Round 1 11/30/2007

2007-11-30T21:58:00.001-08:00

Stanford 3 Santa Clara 0 (30-22, 30-28, 30-27)To paraphrase gostanford.com, the road to Sacramento began tonight. Thanks to our tough wins and strength of schedule, we secured the overall #1 seed in the NCAA tournament and received a pretty good draw. If the seeds hold, we'll face UCLA in the Elite 8 and Texas in the Final 4, which is definitely better (in my mind) than USC, Washington or even Cal in the Elite 8 and Nebraska or Penn State in the Final 4. But as I mentioned previously, we need to take it one game at a time.

The first 75 students got in for free tonight although I'm not quite sure that all the tickets were used up. It was understandable though, with the final night of Gaieties coinciding with the game. Gaieties is an annual production that runs the 3 nights before Big Game. Alex is on the Board of Directors and this year, the Lopez twins were in it too although I hear that Robin didn't perform tonight, probably because of the trip to Colorado.

While we may have been the overall #1 seed in the tournament, Santa Clara is definitely not the 64th team in the nation (for volleyball, they seed the top 16 teams and then figure out other match-ups based on location). They definitely made us work in games 2 and 3. We started out the match really strongly, looking very fluid on offense and winning the long rallies with scrambling defense. It looked like we would waltz to a very comfortable victory.

In games 2 and 3 especially, we seemed to go away from Foluke. Even when Bryn received a good pass, she didn't set to Foluke in the middle, instead choosing to go to Alix or Cynthia outside. Santa Clara adjusted to this and while we still scored our fair share of points, it seemed like they managed to get some digs and touches (I might just be quibbling too much because based on the hitting percentage from box scores, we actually did a better job in 2 and 3). Sitting directly behind the players as opposed to midcourt, I was able to appreciate the amount of movement that certain serves have. I guess I'm more understanding now about serve reception, but still, it was iffy in parts and we especially struggled with #1's serve, which moved quite a bit in the air. I also noticed that Santa Clara didn't have that many service errors - one reason they were able to keep in the game.

But at the end of the day, we responded to the challenge with a monster game from Alix, who had 3 consecutive solo blocks in the 3rd to swing the close game in our favour. We face Sacramento State, who upset Minnesota earlier today, tomorrow after Big Game. 1 win down, 5 more to go (but really 1 more tomorrow and then we'll worry about the next one). As a side note, I can't believe that tomorrow will be my last Big Game as an undergraduate. Let's Beat Cal!
~ Zhihao

Women's Basketball vs USF 11/28/2007

2007-11-28T22:09:00.000-08:00

Stanford 96 USF 61

Having played a string of 6 games on the road, I'm sure the girls must have been happy to be back in the friendly confines of Maples for their first regular season home game. The overall turnout wasn't that great and I find it rather unfortunate that our women's team, despite consistently being one of the top teams in the nation, does not get much support from the students. That being said, the marketing team, could definitely do a better job promoting the Brickyard Club. I also shouldn't be one to talk since I will be missing most of the Pac-10 games because of my travels to the men's basketball away games.

This was the first time I'd seen us in action and it was a lot of fun even if USF wasn't that great competition. In the first half, most of our baskets came off layups, putbacks and the occasional short jumper. We would feed our posts who'd either make a strong move to the hole or hit whoever was open for an easy bucket when they were double teamed. We also made a concerted effort to push the ball whenever we got a defensive rebound and out ran USF down the floor several times for layups. Last year, one of my frustrations was free throw shooting. We've been shooting pretty well from the line this season and were 13-14 tonight! Our men's team could definitely learn from their counterparts at the charity stripe as well as passing on the fast break.

In tonight's putting contest, Maple witnessed another successful half court putt. A friend of mine who clearly learned from my ugly previous attempt, calmly slow rolled the ball straight down the middle for a cool $500. Since hardly any other students were in attendance to witness it, I'll post it as proof that it actually happened.

In the second half, we shot more jumpers. I think it was partly a concerted effort to test our outside shot rather than USF taking away our post play. We struggled from the 3 point line which judging from previous games, is going to be an issue this season. I'll fondly remember the days when we had Rap draining 3 after 3. On the whole, I was pleased with the play of our freshman. Kayla was the dominant force I had been reading about and waiting to see in action. Donaghe and Pohlen looked good and hit a 3 pointer each. Hopefully they'll develop into reliable shooters from behind the arc. The upperclassmen were solid. Jillian especially stood out - getting boards and always in the right position for a lay up.

We definitely need all the help we can get from our freshmen this year with Melanie and Michelle done for the season. Hopefully everyone else will stay healthy and this will be the season where we finally get over the Elite 8 hump.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs Sacramento St. 11/27/2007

2007-11-27T20:59:00.000-08:00

Stanford 84 Sacramento State 58 Even though the 6th Man Committee was giving out pizza at the door, I decided to have my pre-game dinner at the Alumni Cafe where they are serving hot meals 2 hours before tip off of selected home basketball games. Dinner was great and I was able to catch the second half of the Indiana-Georgia Tech basketball game. Not having a TV this year, I've definitely missed watching college basketball. It's probably a good thing though, since there's no way I could cope with everything I have going on if I could watch basketball on TV every night. Indiana went on a run as I finished up my meal and one thing that I noticed was that the refs allowed quite a bit of contact and didn't call cheap fouls (just like our game against Colorado State). How ironic that we got our favourite, whistle happy Pac-10 ref, Libby, for this game.

The 6th Man Section had a decent turnout for the game tonight. It wasn't fantastic but I guess my expectations have been tempered by previous games. As I mentioned in my last post, Sacramento State isn't that good. We were favoured to win by 30 and quickly showed why. Even though we weren't hitting our long range shots and missing some easy close range shots, we cleaned up on the offensive boards and got lots of put backs. We were also able to break their press with reasonable success and scored on some easy layups. That being said and it might be me being overly critical, but somehow, I never quite feel comfortable when we have numbers and are attacking the basket. Our rate of success seems lower than one would expect.

In any case, I liked our defense today. Mitch who I've definitely picked on in the past, stayed with his man and played scrappy, bothering defense. The Sac State ball handlers were really sloppy too and we recorded what I believe should be a season high 9 steals (5 by Fred). We had some great rejections too. Robin and Fred (who redeemed himself after a turnover) had two especially vicious swats that were rightfully named as "Plays of the Half". The 6'8 guy Robin was matched up against (#40) seemed intent on posting up and trying to take it to the hole. He got Robin to bite on a pump fake once for an easy bucket but Robin quickly learned and didn't leave his feet when challenging him. That led to about 4 more blocks. Who needs to jump went you're that much taller and longer? It kind of reminded me of the USC game last year when they were taking it to Brook over and over again.

Offensively, we definitely had some sloppy passes and could have ended up with several more turnovers if the ball hadn't bounced our way, but on the whole, I thought we dealt pretty reasonably with Sac State's aggressive trapping defense. We improved in the second half/they didn't press as much. Mitch made some nice dishes throughout the game. He did have one pass straight to the defender but I can live with that. We didn't shoot a great percentage from the 3 in the first but when they started zoning in the second, we showed that we could make hard passes, get people open and hit 3s. That was somewhat comforting after seeing us lob the ball around and struggle with the zone in previous games.

Robin had another solid outing. There was a play when he figured out that he had several inches over the next tallest Sac State player and made a nice hook leaning towards the basket. Yay for not fading away. Josh Owens got some minutes and had a nice fast break dunk. He's definitely a fan favourite among the 6th Man Section and everyone is excited about his potential. Goods also found his stroke tonight and was draining 3s. Let's hope it carries over to Colorado. Finally, Taj was scrappy as usual. He got boards, made put backs and ran the floor well for a nice catch and finish off a sweet Goods pass.

It's sometimes hard to tell how well we're performing when playing against an over-matched opponent. Nevertheless, I was pretty happy with the game tonight (just need to work on the free throw shooting). Let's hope we don't lose our baggage like last time against Sienna and bring our A-game against Colorado this Sunday. I'm not looking forward to the cold and potential snow, but excited about the game. We need the Pac-10 to have a good showing against the Big 12 in the Pac-10 Big 12 challenge. All these out of conference losses (even to good teams) aren't helping the Pac-10's RPI.
~ Zhihao

Men's Basketball vs Colorado St. 11/24/2007

2007-11-24T22:05:00.000-08:00

Stanford 73 Colorado State 53 After the miserable football game, there's nothing like watching some basketball to cheer you up. The game was never really in doubt after the first 10 minutes or so when the second team came in and incited some scrappiness and defense, but it was nice to see only 5 turnovers and Robin do well against another 7-footer (#30 Stuart Creason). Brook and Daveed got a huge kick out of Robin's 3 pointer to get us on the board and the 6th Man Section loved his tenacious defense which included a couple of nasty swats of Stuart.

Speaking of Stuart, he apparently played on a 4th grade YMCA basketball team with a guy in the 6th Man Section. They exchanged greetings during warmups and Stuart told him that his dad, who coached the team, was behind the visitor's bench. 6th Man guy promptly went to say hi to his former coach and they had an extended chat. Meanwhile, we talked to Stuart and found out that he wore New Balance instead of Nikes because he had surgery on both his feet (which might explain why he was pretty slow) and New Balance provided greater support. He also said he wished he remembered 6th Man guy's name but definitely recognised him from elementary school. Seemed like a nice kid.

Back to the game, it was nice to see one where the referees weren't calling every single touch foul or bump as Pac-10 referees like to do. They might have slightly favoured Colorado State in the latter stages but that was only after the game was a blow out. In the opening few minutes, they were pretty consistent with the non-calls. I'm sure if Pac-10 refs were calling the game, Robin would have picked up some early fouls for his aggressive defense.

It also seems like we are going to be a team that lives and dies with the 3, especially when teams zone us and double Robin as Colorado State did. Even on fastbreaks, Goods was pulling up for 3 pointers instead of driving to the hole. He did break out of his slump but was still only 3-9 from 3 point land. We took less 3s in the second half, and I guess it's fine when we're hitting them, but there are days (especially on the road) when we won't and give up transition baskets off long rebounds. I also feel that we utilise the pull up jumper on fast breaks too much. Sure, there are times when the defender is clearly backing off but there are other times when the pass and maybe pass back results in an easy bucket. Finally, it seems to me that we'll always have trouble guarding the opposing point guard. #43 was quicker and stronger than Mitch and blew by him with ease. I was surprised that Colorado State didn't isolate him, let him create off the dribble and kick to open shooters when we collapsed. That's going to be our weak link come Pac-10 play and hopefully we have some sort of defensive scheme in mind.

At the end of the day, it was a win against a not very good team. But hey, I'll take it especially after the football debacle. There were also several entertaining moments like when Prowitt air-balled the ugliest looking free throw I've ever seen and neither the 6th Man Section nor Coach Robinson could contain their laughter; or when someone in the 6th Man Section started heckling Colorado State's #22 during a dead ball situation in the silent arena, causing several Colorado State players to laugh and promptly allow Taj to get the inbounds pass under the basket for an easy lay up; or when Taj had a crazy inadvertent tip of Drew Shiller's 2nd missed free throw (come on Drew, you got to make those).

Sacramento State on Tuesday should be another easy win and then it's off to Colorado for the Big 12 challenge, against a team that is probably better than people initially thought. They have Air Force's old coach who might run some version of the Princeton Offense that we've struggled with in the past. It'll be a good challenge and one that we need to overcome if we expect to compete on the road.

~ Zhihao

Football vs Notre Dame 11/24/2007

2007-11-24T16:58:00.001-08:00

Stanford 14 Notre Dame 21 Wow, what a frustrating game. I feel bad for TC. It was finally his chance to shine and he made two perfect throws in crunch time while nursing a hand injury. His receivers let him down. End of story. The defense missed some tackles but they did force 4 turnovers and numerous punts, and were on the field way too long, oftentimes in bad field position. Derek didn't warm up well and missed 4 field goals. I know he's been hurt and has struggled recently. Should another kicker (Zagory) have been dressed?

What made the loss even worse was that it was on ESPN. So much for the recruiting image that the USC win helped restore. There were also numerous recruits in the stands. I found it amusing that the volleyball girls had to sit with them. I was also pretty impressed with the Notre Dame crowd. They showed up in full force despite a terrible season (although maybe they felt they had a shot at this game) and were extremely loud. It definitely felt as if they outnumbered us.

Even though we should have sent the game into OT and made a few more of our field goals, it's debatable whether we really deserved to win the game. Maybe our defense did but we definitely dodged a bullet with the hail mary interception turned The Play II, thanks to a personal foul and it really looked like the TD that was reversed was good, although I guess they had a better view from the replay. In any case, Moore and especially Sherman who cost us another 7 points with his drop turned interception in the 1st quarter, should have made their catches in the end zone. We might not necessarily have won it in OT and ESPN would have probably switched to the Kansas vs Missouri game, but that's would a halfway decent offense would have done.

With the injuries that our O Line sustained (Mattran and Fletch) and how our whole team has played, I'm not too optimistic about Big Game. Fletch looked like he could have come back so he might be probable but Mattran didn't look too good. I also don't know what the deal with Tavita is. TC did look good out there today, standing in the pocket and making a quick throw before the one blitz that they threw at him came (and then hurting his hand). At least Cal isn't looking that hot either. Good thing I have the basketball game tonight to look forward to.
~ Zhihao