Anticipation and reflection

Rick Eymer (Palo Alto Online) anticipates the upcoming games against the Washington Schools: Stanford women's basketball tops busy home weekend slate

As does Alexa Philippou (The Stanford Daily): Women’s basketball seeks to strengthen position as Washingtons visit

Warren Grimes (SWBB fan) reflects on last weekend in LA:

Which Stanford player had the most minutes during the LA weekend?

If you guessed Amber, you are wrong, although she came in a close second at 67 minutes. The answer is Bonnie Samuelson, who had a combined 68 minutes. The highest scoring players over the two games were Amber (30 points), Bonnie (29 points), Briana (28 points), and Lili (22 points).

Yes, we are definitely still a guard-perimeter oriented team.

As far as rebounding, we out boarded UCLA but lost the rebounding battle to USC (USC had 41 boards to our 32), but the team was still performing at a level far above what happened against Arizona State. USC’s bad shooting percentage was at least partially responsible for the large number of offensive boards for USC. I was impressed with the determined boarding by both Samuelsons. Karlie, usually playing the three position, slightly outboarded her sister (for the weekend, .18 boards per minute for Karlie compared to .16 per minute for Bonnie). What is clear is that rebounding has become a team responsibility, not just left to the post players.

Not much new on free throw shooting. The team shot 72% for the weekend, but the percentages turn heavily on whether post players (not so good) or perimeter players (very good) are doing the shooting.

As to the pick and roll offense, I noticed one new wrinkle. The post players who set the pick were consistently breaking for the basket as soon as the defender made contact with them. This gives the ball handler (for whom the pick is set) an additional option (passing the ball to the post who is heading for the hoop). This did not work so well earlier in the game, but if memory serves, Kaylee Johnson got three late game layups off feeds from the ball handler. The defense can adjust to this, but if the post defender follows our post to the hoop, this will give more room to the ball handler to get to the hoop herself (or take the pull up).

Stanford has to continue to refine the offense to have a chance in the one time match up against Oregon State late in the season. But a lot to worry about before then, including this weekend against the Washington schools.