March 2010 Stanford Women's Basketball Archives

March 8th New Old Stanford Friends

Happy International Women's Day to You!

One of the many neat things about writing this Stanford Women’s Basketball Blog is we get mail from people connected to Stanford and we get to talk to people we otherwise wouldn’t get to meet. C and R recently got a letter from a former Stanford player named Riki Sorenson (aka Erica Mueser Sorenson '87). She was there before Tara VanDerveer under Coach Dotty McCrea and there when Tara VanDerveer came in. What a unique perspective to play for both coaches and systems. We asked her to compare the two. Here’s what she graciously contributed: 

I played back in the dark and dreary days of sub-.500 seasons. A coaching change was made at the end of my sophomore year. I remember during Tara's interview she said, "so how much fan support do you get?" We mentioned that we could usually count on my parents, a handful of fans, and that's it... they didn't even pull out the bleachers. We thought she'd never leave Ohio State (top 8 in country) for Stanford. Tara came in and got a huge budget and serious commitment from the A.D. so things changed VERY quickly. I loved playing for Tara. She didn't scream at players or at refs, she studied the game, she was efficient in practice, and she knew her stuff. The song "I can see clearly now the rain is gone" would come on and it was my theme song. Wasn't so happy when she'd say things like, "we've got to get some real horses in here," like we were just chopped liver, but really, we probably were. Still, I've never worked so hard in my life. Even Jennifer Azzi and Katy Steding learned how to work hard from us liver-choppers. The highlight of my career was during my senior season - we beat CAL at home after 3 1/2 years of losing to them (1987). When I left after the game there were people directing traffic with FLARES in the road (that's how many fans had come!). I knew that Stanford Women's Basketball had arrived! Three years later there were SCALPERS selling tix! 

One funny story... we had an award that the seniors (grandmas) would bestow on the most gullible freshman at the end of the season. It's called the "Lizard Lung" award because there was this weird stuff the trainers gave us to put on blisters and they called it Lizard Lung. One freshman, hearing about it, was horrified because she thought it was real lizard lung. Thus the award was initiated (Kami Anderson, first recipient). Jennifer Azzi won it, hands down, as a freshman, for asking, at the first day of practice, "How many teams are in the Pac-10, anyway?" I believe the award continues even now! 

A teammate had a really good line (Emily Wagner Gallagher, '89?)... before Tara came to Stanford if you told someone you played basketball at Stanford, they'd say "Wow! you must be really SMART!" After Tara and the National Championship they'd say "Wow, you must be really GOOD!"  So I get to enjoy the legacy even though I played a very small part in it...  

Cheering for Jayne Appel, the only other Stanford WBB product of Contra Costa County! 

Let’s see what would make a good sub heading?

-Nneka To the Rescue (Well, Kayla Pedersen did score that last second basket to end up with 23 points to Nneka’s 22. Did they have a little side bet going on to see who would be high scorer? However, it WAS Nneka Ogwumike’s ability to elevate and score when we seemed nervous and stuck offensively that saved the day. Although we saw Jeanette Pohlen looking for Kayla when she was pressured, and Kayla was so calm and collected when pressured and dribbled out of many jams so I guess they both saved the day and that is not an accurate headline.) 

-Surprise, Stanford wins by Defense (Yes, Stanford is not known for their defense, but their defense was phenomenal in stopping Cal and making them miss when they did get a shot at the basket-more on that later-but that makes for a boring headline.) 

-Kill off One Head of the Three Headed Monster and the Other Two Will Rise to Eat You (No, too obscure, because then we would have to explain that with our Jayne Appel out, one part of the three trees, or monster heads, we still have Kayla and Nneka, and you can’t stop them, too, and oh never mind if you have to explain it it’s just not funny…so how about…) 

-Jayne Appel on Sidelines with Sprained Ankle. C and R Have Heart Attacks! (That’s more like it for a sub headline. Wait, hold it, we are getting ahead of the story, and whenever C and R go anywhere, like Cal, there’s always a story, and this is no exception. So let’s start at the beginning) 

Perhaps a headline should be "Surprise, Surprise, Stanford fans find parking in Berkeley". After we find our parking space, C and R stop for a snack and R has a breakfast burrito and C has a falafel with extra tahini sauce, in an only-in-Berkeley Greek/American restaurant. Food was excellent BTW.

So C and R continue our walk in to Haas Pavilion for the game between the Cal Bears and The Stanford Women’s Basketball Team. A large and spirited crowd is outside Haas Pavilion and it is a carnival-like atmosphere.

Once inside, the place is about 3/4 full with and an announced attendance of 5,137. We try to figure out where our general admission ticket allows us to sit, while eyeing seats we could possibly move down to… (I know, we are shameless. C blames R). While moving around, R sees her friend from Cal, who we will call P (I know, R has a friend. A friend not named C). She introduces C and R to her other Cal friends. We make it a point to promptly forget their names. No hard feelings, just C and R are old and forgetful. Then P says what’s up with your girl Jayne in sweats with that boot? You could have knocked C and R down with a feather. We stare at the blonde women in black sweats and a gray T-Shirt (she didn’t want to give in totally to the black sweats of injury). You would think we would know that Jayne was injured. We excuse ourselves and say we need to go find out. 

C spots a lot of reporters at press row. She thinks she could go down there and ask, say she is part of the press, find out what happened. She starts down the stairs (which are angled a little too steeply, if you ask her, what’s up with that, Cal?) when a big Usher appears before her and C abruptly alters course down a tunnel. Rats, foiled again. They are checking tickets before anyone can move into the closer sections. 

C and R locate the one section where Stanford fans are allowed to sit with their general admission tickets. We figure we will be safe here and can even break out our tinkle bells. Another group of Stanford fans has theirs already out. They look like Christmas bells from the tree. C congratulates them on the bells and smiles inwardly. We see a large group of people across from us courtside, so large that they take up an entire section to themselves and are all wearing the same red shirt. Must be more Stanford fans. 

While sitting in the Stanford section, C sees the Ushers are distracted with something, so she quickly moves, jumping over rows of seats and winding her way down to the front row. Unfortunately, Haas pavilion has a sunken floor, so the first row of seats stops at a railing and then drops away 10 feet to the floor. On Stanford’s court, courtside means you are sitting on the floor and can reach out and touch the players (and R once touched the ref as he ran up and down the floor). So even though the Ushers have not caught her and C is on the front row, she cannot easily get to the reporters. A group of fans blocks her access to get closer to them to shout so she is stuck on the side, right behind the Stanford bench. C sees assistant Coach Bobbi Kelsey alone. She figures this is her one chance. She yells, “Hey, what’s the matter with Jayne”. Bobbi looks up and says, “She’ll be all right.” Translated, she means, “Get away, crazy person”. C asks again and Bobbi gives the same answer, and is now wondering where security is when you need them, and the Stanford Tree gets protected from fans, why can’t I? C finally catches on and skedaddles out of there before the Ushers discover her. 

Walking back to the Stanford section, a Stanford fan asks what she said to Bobbi. C says she was trying to find out about Jayne Appel’s injury. The fan says Jayne sprained her ankle in practice and it is not that bad, and head coach Tara VanDerveer is just resting her as a precautionary measure and to have her ready for the Pac-10 Tournament. C repeats that to R when she is seated and another fan says, oh no, it was quite bad and almost broke and she will be out indefinitely. Just goes to show you can’t believe everything you hear from fans, and can’t believe everything you read on the Internet, especially if it is from us. 

(No, we watched the taped game and the annoucers confirmed she rolled her ankle in practice doing a lay-up-by herself and she could have played today but Tara did want to keep her for the tournament. Jayne packed her gear just in case Tara changed her mind. She didn’t. Also read in the paper that a tour of 40 little girls were watching practice at the precise moment Jayne rolled her ankle and was hugging the basket post and trying not to swear and/or faint in front of them… poor Jayne!) 

So anyhooo, thinking fast, C quickly texts our blogging partners at California Golden Blogs and asks if they can revise their prediction of the final score of this game. Actually, C and R are nervous about Jayne being out. She is our emotional leader and if she does well on the court, our team does well and vice versa. We could very well lose this game. 

Cal does a very nice senior tribute before the game for the Cal seniors. Alexis Gray Lawson is everyone’s favorite and the Stanford section even stands up for her. They also thank the Cal seniors in the band and on the spirit squad. We thought that was classy. They gave flowers to the Stanford seniors, too. Then they introduced the Stanford starters. Freshman Joslyn Tinkle gets the nod to start in Jayne’s place. Maybe Tara thinks Cal might think Joslyn is Jayne out there, they do look alike. Then they do a lot of theatrics with lights and stuff for the Cal starters. Reminded us of an NBA game. It was fun and certainly energetic, but we know Tara would never stand for that at Maples. 

We win the jump but we look nervous. Cal is pressuring point guard Jeanette Pohlen, just one guard on her, not a full court press and yet she turns it over. When we do get it to our basket, we have no inside presence and it is clear we are missing Jayne offensively. It’s like four players are on the court and the fifth is missing from the middle. What do we do? This does not look good. Then our defense kicks in. 

When we are on the defensive end of the court, it is like Stanford mentally says, okay, this is what I know how to do. I don’t need Jayne, just cover my assignment. Every PAC-10 coach’s pick for defender of the year, Ros Gold-Onwude is on Cal’s Alexis Gray Lawson like glue. 

C and R have been watching Stanford for years and C has even written a post conveying her surprise that Stanford is holding PAC-10 foes to low scoring totals because we are not known for our defense, but she sees she has clearly been off the mark all season long. Our defense, while not flashy, is stifling. They just do it so effortlessly you forget it is there. UConn likes to defend by stealing the pass and quickly taking the ball the other way for points. That creates highlights you see on ESPN. Stanford really just shuts you down. They shut down your leading scorer. They shut down your passes. They shut the door on getting any rebounds. They might guard you for the whole shot clock and make you take a bad last second shot or get the shot clock violation. Those plays might not make the highlight reels, but they consistently stop offenses from scoring. How could C have been so blind all season? Oh, they do one more thing on defense really well, something C has never seen another team do, and that is defend the screen really well. 

So let’s say Ros is guarding Alexis at the top of the three-point line, Ros’ back is to the basket. A Cal player comes up and makes a wall on Ros’ right shoulder. Alexis will continue moving to Ros’ right and get around both bodies and either pull up and shoot uncontested or dribble around both bodies and head to the basket. This usually works. What Stanford does in a case like that is double team the ball handler. So as the Cal player on Ros’ right shoulder is holding her in place, Nneka is behind the Cal player, now on Ros’ right side, too. As Alexis dribbles to Ros’s right, Nneka comes out to meet the ball as Ros fights over the top of the screen. Alexis cannot shoot uncontested or drive to the basket. If Alexis crosses over to her other hand away from Nneka, she meets Ros. So the most logical thing to do is…dribble backwards away from the basket. Now, in that fleeting moment Nneka and Ros are both on Alexis, the screener is open. But the guard cannot see her or get a clean pass to her because of Ros and long-armed Nneka. It is a little thing, but done well and stops the scoring. All the Stanford bigs do it well: Kayla, Jayne, Joslyn, Nneka. Cal tried to screen all night and could not get their best scorer, Alexis, free. Around the second or third play of the game, Nneka came out to double team off the screen and harassed the ball handler so much she stole it. She was alone with a path to the basket. Unfortunately she had to dribble the ball half the court. Did we mention Nneka is not the best dribbler? She lost it, of course. Hmm, might want to work on that in the off-season! 

Just under the 15-minute mark left in the first half, Nneka committed her first foul. C and R held their collective breath. Tara takes her out of the game. Nooooo, not with Jayne on the bench. I mean, we hate it anyway when she takes Nneka out any time, but we need Nneka and Kayla if we are to win this game. Tara agrees with us because a minute and a half later she puts Nneka back in. Whew. It was just a token punishment. Later Nneka dribbles off her foot. Nneka, off-season. 

With about three minutes left in the first half, the score is 17-20, Stanford. We have held them without a basket for 6 minutes and then 4 minutes. So yes, this is a low scoring game for both teams, and we are only up 3 points. Tara puts in veteran Micelle Harrison with 4 minutes left. We like the fifth year veteran, and even though she might not score a lot, she can add her maturity and poise to Stanford.  She gets a lay-up, a rebound, an assist and a block, followed by another rebound in her four minutes of play. She also looked aggressive and gave us a spark off the bench. We go into the locker room with a 26-19 lead. Seven points is great, but had we had Jayne in there, you could probably add about 8 more to that total. We are still not out of the woods yet. 

We wander around at half time and see that group of Stanford fans with the matching red shirts. They say “House of Jayne” and “UnstoppAppel” on the back and a picture of Jayne on the front. We find out it is about 60 of Jayne’s family and friends who came out to support her. We figuratively cry that Jayne could not play this last game of her regular season. We later find out from the TV broadcast that Jayne didn’t know about the shirts and said to her Dad a typical teenage, “Oh Dadddd,” when she saw them. We also read later that Jayne had missed only one other regular-season game, the first one of her freshman season. She had played in 138 straight games since, the most by any female player at Stanford. More than Candice Wiggins! What an incredible career! 

Then as we where coming out of the bathroom, R says to a woman in a Jayne shirt, “You’re Jayne’s Mom, aren’t, you?” She answered yes and we would have bugged her more, but another stranger was already talking her ear off and asking about Jayne’s ankle as we eavesdropped. She confirmed it wasn’t that bad. Cool, we got to see Jayne’s mom! 

Than in the closing seconds, as we were getting ready to go back to our seats R says, “Hey, there’s Jayne Appel!” Sure enough, Jayne, Sarah Boothe and assistant coach Kate Paye were heading to the women’s bathroom. (What, Cal, you don't have enough women’s facilities in your visitor’s locker room?). 

C and R, like the good stalkers we are, follow. Okay, R hates when C says we are stalkers, we are just fans who get star-struck and don’t really stalk or break the law or hide in bushes and take photos or anything, but this was stalking. C starts meticulously washing her hands. R announces loudly, “Boy I sure like those ‘House of Jayne’ shirts that group was wearing.” C embarrassed, looks at her and mouths, “Shut UP.” R announces again that the picture on the front sure was cool or some such nonsense, C can’t remember because she is thoroughly mortified and staring daggers at R. The women emerge from the stalls and surround C to wash their hands. R hides behind a wall mostly because she knows C wants to kill her. C says, “Give ‘em Heck,” to the trio, well, what she really said rhymed with tinkle bell, but the trio just want to get out of there as fast as they could. So Jayne and Sarah and Kate, that was us, those two idiots in the bathroom grinning like, well, idiots. Hi, we are usually not so dorky. We text the California Golden Blog Boys “Sorry we couldn’t meet, we were too busy stalking Jayne Appel and family!” 

The game blessedly begins again so we can’t make ourselves into fools anymore and Cal comes out in a full court press this time. They pressure Pohlen and they pass quickly to either Nneka or Kayla, our two remaining trees. We break the press and get some fast break points. We said it at the top of this (very long) blog, Nneka to the rescue, but we’ll say it again, she rescues us offensively again and again. We are up by 15, with the score 45-30 with 10 minutes gone in the second half. That means Cal has only scored 11 points in 10 minutes. 

At one point Nneka makes a great basket and gets fouled and looks to the Stanford beanh and screams and pumps her fist. We love the attitude! Wait, we recently wrote a post saying we didn’t like Brittney Griner’s attitude when she blocked our dunked on people. The difference is Brittney would look at them and make the gestures to intimidate. Nneka did the gesture to her bench and it was a celebration, not an intimidation play. That’s what we think about our polite and precious Nneka, anyway. 

Tinkle gets s a three and a lay up to go with her other 3 in the first half for a total of 8 points and our tinkle bells were busy. 

All game long during breaks the Cal spirit squad has been throwing T-Shirts to the crowd. C instinctively stands up and waves her arms, but for some reason when they see the sea of red, they don’t throw any our way. Now in the closing minutes of T-Shirt tossing, C stands up because it is an in-joke now with the Stanford fans, wink, wink, we know they won’t throw one our way. The guy in blue looks at C for a long moment…Will he…. 

He does. 

He lets it fly and it lands right in C’s hands. She doesn’t’ even have to climb over anybody! 

Someone says, “throw it back” like in baseball when the opposing team hits a home run ball. But no, C is keeping this. First, she breaks out her knife, because what good Stanford fan doesn’t travel to Cal with their knife? No, just kidding, just kidding! Really! C was a former Girl Scout and Boy Scout Leader so she is always prepared and carries one of those mini pocketknife all-in-one-tools around with her everywhere. You never know when you might need to unscrew a Phillips head screw (no serousily, she bleives that). So her little pocketknife thingie has scissors and she cuts the sleeves off the Cal shirt. Then she gets out her sharpie marker (remember, always prepared) and scratches out anything Cal on it and writes Stanford and “Fear The Trees!” (She forgot to get to Stanford to buy the real deal shirt) She was going to then draw pictures of a healthy Kayla and Nneka and a forlorn Jayne in her boot when she realized she really should pay attention to the game. Tinkle blocks the heck out of Cal. The TV announcers said that Tinkle contributed well with her rebounding. She had 9 for the game. 

She put the shirt on over her Stanford shirt so her red sleeves stick out. She watches Kayla gets that last basket as we mentioned to send Stanford home with a 63-48 victory. Kayla and Nneka combine for 45 of those 63 points and each had double figures in rebounds. Joslyn, our baby tree had 8 of those 63 points, so the those trees combined for 53 of the 63 points. Wow! Oh, those three trees had 33 of the 42 rebounds.

Hi, this is C here, reporting on something about women’s basketball that doesn’t have anything to do with Stanford. One thing I have been meaning to do is write about Baylor’s freshman sensation Brittney Griner, but I have been too busy/lazy. I thought I could continue being busy/lazy, but this week’s circumstances have sorta forced the issue. So here I am talking about Brittney Griner. 

Let’s recap. Brittney Griner is a freshman that stands 6’8" and has already been a You Tube sensation for her dunking abilities in high school, and was expected to "play above the rim”, meaning dunking many times in college and being an incredible shot blocker. Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey, perhaps giving in to the hype, started her in their first game this year, against powerhouse Tennessee, of all teams. In my opinion, she was not ready to play college level ball, especially not against a well-coached Tennessee team. I watched her being tentative and she stood around with her hands down while rebounding. She did not move if the rebound did not come directly to her. I was sure she would be great player soon, but questioned the coach’s decision to start her with so much media attention on her. Looking back, even Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer did not start Jayne Appel in her first game as a freshman, but used her off the bench wisely. She made sure she was ready before inserting her (permanently) in the starting line up. 

Since that first game Brittney has become more confident, has dunked in several games, and even twice in a game, the first women’s player to do so. Not only do defenses have to worry about her dunking and shooting at the top of her elevation, which is nearly unstoppable, but they have also have to worry about her blocking shots like nobody’s business. She makes opposing players alter their game when they drive in on her. She already holds the Big 12 single-season blocks record. Good for her, glad to see her coming along. ESPN’s Graham Hays agrees.

Although I did read one team beat Baylor by raining threes down on Griner and company, with Griner standing helplessly under the basket. If Stanford does play them in the NCAA tourney, I am sure Tara VanDeveer will take note of that.

However, something disturbing happened. On March 4^th, Brittney Griner punched Texas Tech’s Jordan Barncastle in the face after the two tangled in the second half. Watch the hit (and Jordan’s Barncastle’s foul) here. Brittney broke Jordan’s nose with that swing. 

In case you can’t get that video, Griner and Barncastle were battling for position near the lane before Barncastle spun around and sent Griner towards the ground. As a foul was called on Barncastle, Griner straightened up and took two steps toward her before throwing a roundhouse punch with her right hand. Make no mistake, Barncastle was playing dirty. However, it’s about on the same level we here at Stanford have seen teams do to Jayne Appel and Nneka Ogwumike. Neither has punched anybody. 

After the hit, both teams pushed and shoved, players had to be separated and technicals were given. Officials stopped play to review the tape for about 10 minutes before assessing a flagrant and technical foul against Griner and ejecting her from the game. Baylor’s Morghan Medlock was also given a technical foul and the Tech bench also received a technical.  Baylor still won 69-60.

Brittney will be suspended for two games. She will miss the last regular season game and the next game she will miss happens to be the start of the Big 12 Tournament. She also issued a written apology. 

Mechelle Voepel, also with ESPN weighs in with her opinion, one C and R highly value. Mechelle makes a very astute observation. In that same game where Brittney dunked twice, her team was beating Texas State 99-18 at the time. Brittney, being about 19 years old, got a little emotional. Mechelle wrote:
“At one point, she swatted away a shot, and then sort of hovered over and stared down at her opponent. It was brief but noticeable. And after one of her dunks, she ran back up the court yelling, shaking her head and tapping her chest.” 

C and R never like “showboating, trash talking, taunting or bullying” of any kind, and it has no place in sports. Neither does punching.

Quoting Mechelle again:
“People can, and will, point out the physical contact that came before the punch. But players getting locked up, frustrated and overly forceful with each other happens quite often in basketball. Usually a foul is called on one side or both, and the official tells the participants to cool it…. However, taking it to the next level of ‘losing your cool’ -- throwing a punch -- is a place you just don't go. And if you do, you know you're in trouble.” 

I agree. There is no place for throwing a punch in basketball. And if so, you get punished. Okay, I just paraphrased Mechelle, but I think you know where I stand.

See ya at Cal for an early 12:30 PM tip-off,
C-

Last post, we answered questions about the upcoming Cal vs. Stanford Women’s Basketball game posed by the TwistNHook and Nor Cal Nick of California Golden Blogs. Today they answered our Q’s. The answers were surprisingly intelligent! Hee hee. No, really! 

Check out the link below to the story about the Stanford Tree! It’s a classic and they have won a special place in C and R’s hearts, even though they are still from Cal. BTW, C once bet R that she wouldn’t touch the ref as he ran up and down the court when we were sitting court side. She grabbed his pants twice before we had to stop her. He didn't notice but C was sure we were all going to get kicked out. Funny the Tree gets special protection at Cal games! 

Here we go (and of course C and R can’t be quiet for more than a paragraph, so we added some comments in parenthesis).  

1) A lot was made about the incoming freshmen crew Cal recruited. We have been too busy paying attention to Stanford to notice. Give us a run down on how have the Fab Freshmen have been this year and what they can improve upon for next year. 

A: Inconsistent, but not in a way that’s particularly surprising.  Unfortunately, one of the seven, Tierra Rogers, was diagnosed with a heart condition prior to the season and will never suit up again.  But besides that setback, most events have been positive.  The names you’ll hear most often would be Layshia Clarendon and DeNesha Stallworth.  Layshia is the best guard of the class and can look pretty great at times, especially when she’s attacking the basket.  DeNesha has impressive post moves for a frosh and dropped 30 points on USC earlier in the year.  Gennifer Brandon is a great rebounder and is gradually learning to control her explosiveness.  Eliza Pierre has great defensive instincts and has been a solid distributor when she plays the point.  Talia Caldwell and Brenna Heater are the other bigs.  Talia is a solid all-around player with the exception of her free throw shooting.  Brenna’s season has been derailed by a number of injuries and her main goal for next season will be to not get concussed again.

(We were very saddened to hear last fall that Tierra Rogers was diagnosed with a heart ailment and could not continue her career in basketball- C and R) 

2) This explanation of the PAC-10 standings and the place Cal could end up for the PAC-10 tournament in is form the Cal website:  Cal enters the week in sole possession of third place in the Pac-10 standings, holding a half-game advantage over the USC Trojans. Cal and USC both have six losses, but Cal has 11 wins. USC will play a pair of games this week, hosting Arizona on Thursday and Arizona State on Saturday. If Cal and USC end up in a tie for third, USC holds the tiebreak advantage over Cal and would earn the three seed in the Pac-10 Tournament, pushing Cal into the fourth seed. If Arizona State wins both of their games and Cal loses, then ASU and Cal would be tied for third. Once again, Arizona State owns the tiebreak advantage and Cal would be seeded fourth. Cal could also end up as the five seed if ASU, USC, and Cal tie for third place (with a Cal loss, two ASU wins, and a USC victory over Arizona)  Between this, the infield fly rule in baseball and the biased way soccer refs call off sides, which is easier to understand?

A: Well, I’m a gigantic basketball nerd, so the only thing I don’t understand about the scenario is the necessity for conference tournaments.  I’ll say that the infield fly rule probably causes more confusion.  It’s easy to understand soccer calls, but only if you have connections with the Italian mafia that dictate the calls.  This question also reminded me that Cal lost to ASU and USC on two different buzzer beaters.  So I guess what I really don’t understand is why the cruel hand of fate mocks me so!

3) At the same moment, the Stanford band leaves Stanford by train for the PAC-10 tournament in LA at USC and the CAL band leaves Berkeley by bus for the very same tournament and the train from Stanford is moving at speed of 40 miles per hour, and the bus from Berkeley is moving at speed of 60 miles per hour, except when they got pulled over and ticketed for doing 60 in a 45 MPH construction zone and the distance to LA from Stanford is 370 miles and Berkeley is about 40 more miles up the road and a plane takes 6 hours to fly from San Francisco to New York, and 5 hours to return back. What is the name of the guy in the Stanford Tree outfit? 

A: Twistnhook is the most qualified to answer this question, based on his up close and personal relationship with the Stanford tree. And since I majored in Geography my ability to answer a math question died upon my alleged graduation from high school.  So I’ll have to make a wild guess…Condleezza Rice?

(No, sorry, we were going for Dayton, Ohio, and Jeff Tedford, but keep that last part a secret-C and R)

4) PAC-10 SCORING RACE- Going into the final game of the regular season, Alexis Gray-Lawson leads the race for the Pac-10 scoring title. Gray-Lawson is averaging 18.1 points per game with Stanford's Nnemkadi Ogwumike at 18.0. Gray-Lawson has scored three more points this season, with 508 to Ogwumike's 505. In Conference games, Gray-Lawson is averaging 20.6 ppg to Oregon's Taylor Lilley's 19.7. Ogumike is in third with 17.9. How long will it be before Nneka gets a foul and Tara VanDerveer banishes her to the bench? Bonus points for correctly guessing the minute mark and estimating how many points she would have scored if not on the bench!

A: Man, Ogwumike burned us for 24 last time, and unless the high pitched cheering of a few thousand children sway the refs, Cal will have their hands full.  Hopefully Gennifer Brandon and DeNesha Stallworth are feeling aggressive on offense, because foul trouble would be the best way to take the Appel/Ogwumike/Pedersen monster out.  If the Bears can hold Nneka below 20 I’ll be thrilled…but only if nobody else from Stanford scores over 20 to make up for it.

(Ohh, good point. You can stop one of the three trees, but there is always another to take its place-C and R)

5) Predict how many points Alexis Gray-Lawson will drop on Stanford.

A: Well, she scored 37 the last time in Berkeley, but only 9 earlier this year in Maples.  Average that out and we get…24?  Hmm, that sounds high when she’ll be the complete focus of the Cardinal defense.  Lexi is unusual this year in that she tends to score either 35 points or 15, but rarely in between.  When she knows she’s on she’ll keep shooting, but when she knows she’s off she usually doesn’t force up a bunch of shots.  Cal had better hope she’s on, but I’ll predict a conservative 17 points.

See ya Saturday at Cal. Anyone know of a good place to eat in Berkeley?

Most of C and R’s fans know we have been working with Swish Appeal, which is building up articles on Women’s PAC-10 basketball and the WNBA. Well, Swish Appeal put us in touch with…the enemy. Namely, TwistNHook and Nor Cal Nick of California Golden Blogs.

Here are CGB Qs. 
1.  I've heard a rumor that Jane Appel is a space alien from the planet Xyanatron.  I believe this rumor to be true, because no human could play as well as her.  What evidence do you have that Stanford has not been playing with an illegal alien recruit the entire time?????? 

A: Her green card

2.  Stanford is in a weird position - clearly the #2 team in the nation, but behind a historically great team they've already lost to.  What would qualify as a successful conclusion to the season for Stanford fans?  National Championship or bust?

A: Between National Championship or bust, C and R will always pick National Championship. Honestly, we hope to meet UConn in the final game and not embarrass ourselves.

3.  Besides UConn, the only time all season that the Cardinal came close to losing was on the road against UCLA.  Is there anything the Bruins did in that game that Cal could learn from when they try to pull the upset?

A: We don’t know because the game was NOT TELEVISED! All we saw was that stupid Gametracker with the little red and blue icons running around and jumping whenever there was a shot. If you want to stop Stanford, you have to stop the little red icons from shooting and make the little blue icons get every rebound.

4.  Stanford will be losing Jayne Appel and Rosalyn Gold-Onyuwe (and potentially JJ Hones, Michelle Harrison and Melanie Murphy, depending on whether they decide to return).  Any chance some other team has a shot at winning the conference next year, or will a whole new set of blue chip recruits fill the gaps?

A: Cal Golden Blogs, meet incoming freshmen Chiney Ogwumike, Nneka’s inch taller and just as good if not better than sister. Nneka’s sister, meet the Cal Golden Blog boys. Now jump over their heads.

5.  Predict a final score.

A: C will eat one hot dog with lots of mustard,
one soft pretzel with lots of mustard
and garlic fries.
R will have a sprite with lots of ice
and popcorn.
C wins the Pepto Bismol.
Oh, And Stanford 86 Cal 67

Here are C and R's Qs for CGB: 

1. A lot was made about the incoming freshmen crew Cal recruited. We have been too busy paying attention to Stanford to notice. Give us a run down on how have the Fab Freshmen have been this year and what they can improve upon for next year. 

2. This explanation of the PAC-10 standings and the place Cal could end up for the PAC-10 tournament in is form the Cal website:
-Cal enters the week in sole possession of third place in the Pac-10 standings, holding a half-game advantage over the USC Trojans. Cal and USC both have six losses, but Cal has 11 wins. USC will play a pair of games this week, hosting Arizona on Thursday and Arizona State on Saturday. If Cal and USC end up in a tie for third, USC holds the tiebreak advantage over Cal and would earn the three seed in the Pac-10 Tournament, pushing Cal into the fourth seed. If Arizona State wins both of their games and Cal loses, then ASU and Cal would be tied for third. Once again, Arizona State owns the tiebreak advantage and Cal would be seeded fourth. Cal could also end up as the five seed if ASU, USC, and Cal tie for third place (with a Cal loss, two ASU wins, and a USC victory over Arizona)-

Between this, the infield fly rule in baseball and the biased way soccer refs call off sides, which is easier to understand? 

3. At the same moment, the Stanford band leaves Stanford by train for the PAC-10 tournament in LA and the CAL band leaves Berkeley by bus for the very same tournament and the train from Stanford is moving at speed of 40 miles per hour, and the bus from Berkeley is moving at speed of 60 miles per hour, except when they got pulled over and ticketed for doing 60 in a 45 MPH construction zone and the distance to LA from Stanford is 370 miles and Berkeley is about 40 more miles up the road and a plane takes 6 hours to fly from San Francisco to New York, and 5 hours to return back. What is the name of the guy in the Stanford Tree outfit? 

4. PAC-10 SCORING RACE Going into the final game of the regular season, Alexis Gray-Lawson leads the race for the Pac-10 scoring title. Gray-Lawson is averaging 18.1 points per game with Stanford's Nnemkadi Ogwumike at 18.0. Gray-Lawson has scored three more points this season, with 508 to Ogwumike's 505. In Conference games, Gray-Lawson is averaging 20.6 ppg to Oregon's Taylor Lilley's 19.7. Ogumike is in third with 17.9. How long will it be before Nneka gets a foul and Tara VanDerveer banishes her to the bench? Bonus points for correctly guessing the minute mark and estimating how many points she would have scored if not on the bench! 

5. Predict how many points Alexis Gray-Lawson will drop on Stanford. 

We’re still waiting for your answers, boys…(We think they had a little trouble on the math portion)

Well, C and R are afraid this will not be a very good run down of the Stanford Women’s Basketball game against Arizona. It wasn’t on TV, of course, and Gametracker was down for every game, at least on our computer. We got KZSU live on the Internet, but it was hard for us to follow the action. But then luck of all luck, a fan who was there courtside sent us a first-person account of the game! Stick around for the end of this post to get an eye-witness view. 

We did hear JJ Hones was a starter for Ros. We found out later that Ros Gold-Onwude was in the “black sweat suit of injury” because she took a blow to the head in the win over Arizona State two days ago. They wouldn’t’ come out and say it was a concession, but rather they were being cautious. Well, with all the uproar about t concussions in the news lately, we are glad they are being cautious. 

And we did hear when Jayne Appel grabbed her fifth rebound of the game for a total of 1,215. When she did that around the 4-minute mark in the first half, she broke Lisa Leslie’s PAC-10 career rebounding record. Jayne would end up with 8 rebounds and 11 points it the game. 

Arizona kept it close in the first and got within 3 in the closing minutes. Stanford had the ball last and Jayne got a lay-up in the closing seconds so we took a shaky 32-27 lead into the locker room. 

Then C’s computer asked if I wanted to install updates. C absentmindedly clicked “yes”. Normally her computer installs updates in the background and she can keep working. This time the update was for stupid Windows Media Player, the device that was letting her listen to KZSU. Media Player shut down while it installed 11 updates. Several minutes later, the computer was still on one of 11 updates. (Apple computer fans, no need to write in). 

Ten minutes later, C gets KZSU back online and the score is 48-37. Still relatively close. Then Kayla Pedersen hits a three. Then she hits another and now its 54-37 and it doesn’t sound so close anymore Kayla would finish with 26 points and 8 rebounds.  Love hearing that Kayla is shooting and scoring, especially in front of friends and family as Kayla is from Arizona. Maybe we should fly them out to every game. Then all of a sudden it’s 64-38 us, with five minutes left and it seems we have really limited their scoring. With about two minutes left and the subs come in. The final score was Stanford 75-48 

Next is our Johnny-on-the-spot reporter, who we shall call MA, with his eyewitness account. The remarks in parentheses are C and R’s. 

>>>>>>
I'm back home from the game, a 75-48 win over Arizona, and ready to give my report.  I'm going to try this bullet-point style, since my memory doesn't seem to operate well in linear fashion...

• I have to note first that player of the game goes to Kayla Pedersen.  She was, as always, everywhere on the court, and with Nneka not too involved-more on that later, Kayla couldn't have been more clutch.  She was hitting three-pointers, putting in a couple of key put backs, and just generally seemed to be where she needed to be throughout the game.  I don't have the box score, but she accounted for at least a third of the team's points.
• Nneka Ogwumike didn't end up being a factor at all during the first half, primarily because of foul trouble.  The trouble all started with a phantom foul call within the first minute or so of the game.  One of the Arizona players was coming up the court with the basketball and tripped over her own legs on her way to half-court.  Nneka happened to be in the neighborhood, and even though the replay confirmed that Nneka didn't even come close to the other player, she got called for a tripping foul.  Tara yanked her right away and put Joslyn Tinkle in -and our bells got to tinkling!.  When Nneka went back in somewhere around the 12-minute mark, she got called for another foul pretty quickly -this one legitimate after Nneka didn't get position on a rebound- and came right back out.
• The upside of Nneka's absence was a good deal of playing time for Joslyn during the first half -not so much during the second, when Nneka stayed in the game for most of the half.  We started our bells ringing, and even had an extra set to pass to the Stanford-clad family sitting next to us.  They asked whether we had started the whole bells tradition, and we of course deferred credit to the C and R blog.  As it turned out, the nice folks sitting next to us were none other than the Tinkle family!  Joslyn's grandmother apparently lives nearby, and her mom was there for the game, too.  Mama Tinkle reads your blog, you will be happy to know, and loves the whole tinkle bell concept (Yes, C and R did know and a big shout out to Mrs. Tinkle and Family! And Grandma Tinkle, too! We gave a genuine Tinkle bell to Mr. Tinkle when he was at Stanford).  I, of course, turned into a gushing fan upon learning who the family was and went on and on about how great we think Joslyn will be for our team.  (Oh, aren’t we all just gushing fans?!) Joslyn, for her part, had a quiet but solid performance, getting just a few points but really playing good, active defense.
• I can't believe I've gone this long without mentioning Jayne, who got her Pac-10-record-setting 1215th rebound during the first half.  They played on for a little bit, and during the final media timeout of the first half, the stadium announcer recognized Appel for having broken Lisa Leslie's old record.  That's a heck of an accomplishment, and she's not done yet.  Any idea what the NCAA record is?  (Career NCAA Div 1 record 2,034—Courtney Paris, Oklahoma) Appel wasn't scoring a lot of points today as she got fronted and doubled all game long, but she was still a big presence, getting attention on the offensive end and doing her usual shot-blocking and rebound-gobbling on the defensive end.  And I only saw her get beat down the court once during the game, just over halfway through the first half, at which point I told my wife that Jayne was looking a little tired, and Tara apparently overheard me because she promptly subbed Jayne out for a breather.
• My wife, E, pointed out an amusing thing during the game.  One of Arizona's players, who was on Appel most of the game, would frequently supplement her defense by yelling/stuttering "B-b-b-b-b-b!"  I couldn't tell whether she was trying to communicate to her teammates-if she was, complete words might have been better or just trying to distract the ball-handler.  It was certainly amusing to listen to. (She was probably trying to say “ball”, and then yell “dead” if the player stopped dribbling, a common tactic to unnerve a player, but we are sure wouldn’t bother Jayne)
• It should be noted that Ros was in pants and a t-shirt for the game today.  She got knocked in the head pretty hard while scrambling for a ball Thursday at ASU, and was taken out of the game in what appeared to be a very appropriate precautionary move (we agree!).  The Tinkle family told us that Ros suffered a concussion from the incident-not sure of their source, but it was a reasonable inference, so she must have been kept out of today's game to make sure that she recovers.  I hope that she's feeling okay and that she's able to come back, but her health is top priority, and I'm glad to see that the team is protecting her.  We'll be glad to have her back when she's ready.
• My last note is a question:  what happened to Lindy LaRocque?  I haven't noticed her getting much playing time this season, but she did see a fair amount of court time in today's game, probably because of Ros's absence.  Lindy used to have more of a swagger, and would shoot the ball anytime she had a little bit of space -and sometimes when she didn't.  I don't think she shot the ball once in today's game, even though she had some open looks.  Maybe the coaches told her to cut back on her fire-away approach and she took it too much to heart?  I, for one, loved her fearlessness, and it just wasn't there today--I hope that's a fluke and not a trend.

OK, I think that about covers what stands out to me.  As for the Arizona fans, they weren't a problem because they mostly weren't there.  Attendance was barely over 2,000, and there were a sizeable number of Stanford fans accounting for a chunk of that total.  Arizona, for their part, didn't get a whole lot done to energize their fans.  They did hang around for much of the first half, but this was yet another game in the apparent pattern of Stanford starting slow and allowing teams to stay close until the second half march towards a big win.  Ibekwe, their best player-I think you all called her Arizona's version of Nneka- (yes, also baby Nneka and Nneka’s twin) was pretty quiet throughout the first, and didn't start making good-looking plays until it was already too late for them to mean much to the outcome (although we did hear Ibekwe wrapped her arms around Jayne at one point and Jayne got called for the foul).  But E and I had a lot of fun.  And I hope that you will give a big shout-out on our behalf to the Tinkle family, who were kind enough to lend us their Joslyn's talent for a few more years to come. 

Cheers,
MA