Not in our house

... said Lindy, who made the hustle play of the game, diving head first on the floor to snag a loose ball out from under Cal's Vital and then feeding Jillian from her knees for the lay-up. Jeanette started the play by knocking the ball out of the hands of a Cal guard. The ball hit off somebody's shoes and rolled toward Stanford's basket. Lindy raced down the court with Vital and dove on the ball (making any defensive back proud), gained possession and in the same movement flipped it to the trailing Jillian, who hit the lay-up in stride. Lindy also had two other steals, an assist, and a beautiful 3-pointer that capped a 9-2 run by the Cardinal that turned the game around in the second half.

... said Ros, who was in charge of putting out the Gray-Lawson fire. She did a fabulous job, limiting Lexi to four points on 1-of-4 shooting and a couple of free throws. Ros also hit a 3-pointer and had four rebounds and an assist.

... said Jayne, who led the charge as the Cardinal rallied from its lowest-scoring half of the season. She finished with 22 points on 70% shooting and 14 rebounds for her tenth double-double of the season, an assist and two blocks. Her solid defense limited Devanei Hampton to seven points.

... said Jillian, who played her usual gritty game and contributed 18 points, four assists, four rebounds and a steal to the Cardinal victory.

... said Jeanette, who played the point most of the game. She had seven points, including two 3-pointers, five assists with just three turnovers, two steals, and a big gash on her forehead after she and Vital collided head-to-head late in the game.

... said Kayla, who wanted revenge for the Cardinal's loss at Haas a month ago She played tough for 38 minutes and had five points, three assists, six rebounds, a block and a steal.

... yelled the raucous crowd that almost filled Maples.

Here are:

• The AP game recap
• The game reports:
  • Stanford women rout Cal, by Daniel Brown (Mercury News)
  • Fit to be tied - Cardinal even Pac-10 race, by Michelle Smith (San Francisco Chronicle
  • Stanford women call it even with Cal from Palo Alto Online
• The game highlights video, which captures Lindy's play of the game.
• The press conference video with Tara, Jayne, Jillian, Ros and Lindy.
• An audio slide show, by Nhat V. Meyer (Mercury News)
• The box score and play-by-play

Battle of the Bay II

Lots of stories to whet your appetite for tonight's game:

Cal, Stanford ready to square off again by Graham Hays, ESPN.

Cal women want what Stanford has by Ann Killion, Mercury News

Whose Pac-10 crown will it be? by Jennifer Starks, Contra Costa Times

Cardinal warily wait for stronger Bears by Michelle Smith, San Francisco Chronicle

Catching up with Cal by Nate Adams, Stanford Daily

Powerhouses collide for Pac-10 supremacy by Jeff Goodman, Daily Cal

Remember to wear your pink!

Kayla is just what Stanford needs

Michelle Smith (San Francisco Chonicle) discusses Kayla's role on the team.

Last season she spent most of her time in the post as a power forward, where she averaged 12.6 points and 8.4 rebounds and earned Pac-10 Freshman of the Year honors.

This season she has been alternating between power forward and small forward — the position that Tara has always planned for her. In Tara's smaller lineup, Kayla is the power forward. In the big lineup, Kayla is the small forward and Nneka takes over as power forward.

Tara says that Kayla is one of the smartest players to ever come through her Stanford program. "In some ways, she's a point guard in a 6-4 body. She knows all the plays at the 3 and the 4. She'll play wherever we need."

And Kayla says, "I love it [on the wing], and I'm getting comfortable in the new role. We'll see where it takes us." Read more...

Bulletin board material

Michelle Smith (San Francisco Chronicle) writes that ESPN's online poll to pick the winner of Saturday's Stanford/Cal game, which the Cardinal are currently leading 60%-40%, makes the Bears feel like an underdog. She draws a parallel between the poll and the ESPN panel of analysts who unanimously picked the Cardinal to defeat the Lady Vols in last year's championship game. Read more...

Such opinions have little significance. The panel of analysts was four people. The Stanford/Cal poll has drawn about 2800 votes. But basketball is a game of the mind as well as of athletic skill, and anything may motivate a player or a team to make the extra effort that wins close games.

Ashley Walker provided some bulletin board material for the Cardinal after the Stanford/Cal game a month ago. Speaking of Alexis Gray-Lawson's amazing 37-point game and the game against Stanford two years ago in which she scored 30 points, Walker said, "This is one of the teams she feels she kind of owns."

A Cal player owns Stanford? GO CARDINAL!!

Battle of the Bay, Cal viewpoints

Just three more days before Act II of the Battle of the Bay, and the hype begins with some media reports from Berkeley.

In her weekly press conference, coach Joanne Boyle begins, "We are looking forward to this weekend. It's going to be a great matchup between two top teams and we're going to throw the record books out the window. It's obviously a tougher situation going over there to play them but we're going to have a good week of prep to get ready to play a big game will be huge." Read more...

Jimmy Tran (The Daily Californian) discusses what the Bears have done since their last encounter with Stanford. He has not thrown out the record book, and cites Cal's national ranking in various statistics to support his conclusions that, "As a team, the Bears are getting it done ... defense, without a doubt, has been the mantra of the squad this season." Read more...

Boyle is right to throw out the record book -- statistics don't win a game. But they are interesting.

This is where Stanford and Cal stand in the various statistics Tran cited in his article. The information is from the NCAA for games through Feb 8th. The number in parentheses is the national ranking.

Statistic	Stanford	California
Points scored	77.5 (10)	69.6 (51)
Points allowed	55.3 (27)	53.2 (9)
Scoring margin	22.1 (3)	16.4 (12)
Field goal percentage	46.4 (4)	44.9 (20)
Field goal % allowed	34.1 (7)	35.6 (28)
Three-point percentage	31.9 (138)	37.0 (15)
Rebounds	44.6 (n/a)	38.8 (n/a)
Rebounds allowed	31.4 (n/a)	31.3 (n/a)
Rebound margin	13.2 (1)	7.5 (18)

In the Pink Zone

The WBCA Pink Zone™ initiative is a global, unified effort for the Women's Basketball Coaches Association's (WBCA) nation of coaches to assist in raising breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in communities and beyond. In 2008, over 1,200 teams and organizations participated, reaching over 830,000 fans and raising over $930,000 for breast cancer awareness and research.

The WBCA's charity of choice is the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund™, in partnership with The V Foundation.

Next Saturday is Pink Zone night at Maples, your opportunity to show your support of breast cancer research by wearing pink. Here are some photos by Don Anderson of people in the pink at Maples last year.

Pink, New York style

How did Wally score a team t-shirt?

Ah, he was the guest on the bench

NCAA-sanctioned headbands

Do you think the refs will like my jacket?

Why not? It matches their whistles!

Dave's hat suits Mary Murphy ... Marian's does little for Jim Watson

She had to wash her hair three times to get the color out

John rarely has occasion to wear his tutu

Martha Washington called, she wants her mob cap back

More from Seattle

Dick Rockne (Seattle P-I) provides a detailed game report that is accompanied by a photo gallery.

John Boyle (Everett Herald) writes about the improvement the UW women saw while extending a record losing streak to 10. A positive was the season-high crowd of 4891. Tara said, "... it was fun to see such a nice turnout for a game with a team that's really struggling, but you wouldn't know it the way they played today." Read more...

Steve Kelley (Seattle Times) thinks that Washington will get better, but it's going to take time for Tia Jackson to build at team that plays the way she wants — aggressive, in-your-face, man-to-man defense like Chris Gobrecht's Washington teams did. Read more...

Cardinal win after earful from Tara

It was far from a blowout this time. The Huskies played good basketball in front of almost 5000 enthusiastic fans. But after a severe talking-to by Tara at halftime (see game report below), the Cardinal put down the hammer in the second half and won 76-54.

Jeanette was the top scorer with 19 points, including four of seven three-pointers. She was just one point shy of her career high — the 20 points she scored against Washington two years ago.

Kayla had a double-double, her sixth of the season — 13 points and 15 rebounds— plus three assists and a block. Kayla wore a black headband and black knee pads to match her Road Warrior uniform and looked as well as played the role.

Jayne wore her double-braid hairdo, but didn't quite score a double-double, 16 points and nine rebounds. She also had three blocks, and needs just 12 more to break the Stanford career record for blocks — 201 by Val Whiting.

Jillian moved ten points closer to joining the 1000-point club. She needs just 41 more.

Nneka started again and had eight points and six rebounds in 23 minutes. Fox color commentator Mary Murphy thinks she's a candidate for Pac-10 Freshman of the Year, especially now that she's a starter.

Here are:

• The game recap from the Associated Press.
• The box score and play-by-play
• More photos by Elaine Thompson (AP):

Out of uniform

These are the photos that Ros used in her blog about the team's trip to Hawaii over Thanksgiving break.

Thanks for sharing, Ros!

All dolled up for Thanksiving banquet

Embracing color

Beautiful view from Nneka's room

Posing on the beach

Back in black

The Cardinal looked tough in their black road uniforms and they played tough, defeating the WSU Cougars for the 48th straight time. They outscored them 76-46 and outrebounded them 46-34.

Jayne was the high scorer with 25 points on 10 of 14 attempts in 24 minutes. She also had three assists, nine rebounds and four blocks. Jillian was well on her way to a triple double with 13 points, eight rebounds and six assists, but she played only 25 minutes. Jillian is now just 51 points away from joining the elite 1000-point club. Sarah came off the bench and added 13 points and four rebounds.

No one played major minutes. Jeanette played the point for just 30 minutes. Nneka started for the third time this season and played 26 minutes. So the bench got a good deal of playing time, as Tara had planned.

The game engendered some interest in Pullman — the attendance of 1242 was the most this season — but almost none in the media. There are just:

• Several variations of the AP game report. The most interesting is Stanford women roll over Washington State from Mercury News wire services.
• The box score and play-by-play.
• And a few more photos