November 01, 2014

Up first: Vanguard

The Giants won the pennant, we've had two days of rain, and Cardinal basketball begins tomorrow — life is good!

The Cardinal begins play, as they have for the past six seasons, with an exhibition game against Vanguard.

The game is at Maples on Sunday afternoon at 2:00. Although it's "just an exhibition game", it's still a great opportunity to get your first look at Stanford's 2014-15 team of shooters and movers running Tara's new guard-oriented offense.

The game is FREE for kids 8th grade and under. Register here for a voucher, and bring all the young fans you know to Maples on Sunday.

Can't make it to Maples? You can listen to the KZSU broadcast here and check live stats here.

  Vanguard Lions

Vanguard, located in Costa Mesa, is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), which has almost 300 member institutions. Other NAIA members that you may be familiar with are Menlo College in Atherton and Mills College in Oakland.

The Lions are one of the elite NAIA teams, 12-time NAIA Golden State Athletic Conference Champions. They've advanced to the NAIA Division I National Championship for thirteen straight seasons, won one championship, advanced to the semifinals twice and to the quarterfinals four times.

Their NAIA All-American senior guard Nicole Ballestero graduated last year, and the Lions have been picked to finish third in NAIA Division I this season.

Vanguard and Stanford are familiar exhibition-game opponents. This will be their seventh consecutive game. Vanguard has yet to win, but it's never been for lack of effort. 19-year head coach Russ Davis likes to challenge his players. This season, Vanguard will play Cal on Saturday afternoon before coming to Maples on Sunday.

Here is Vanguard's roster.

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