Why #3 Stanford's Win At #9 UCLA Is More Significant Than The Final Score

by Nate Parham on Feb 21, 2011 11:01 AM EST in NCAA: Pac-12

The difference between the Stanford Cardinal and the other two national title contenders in college basketball is their balance - no player accounts for more than 20% of their total statistical output. But the difference between Stanford and every other team outside the top three is that they arguably have two or three players who could be the top player on any Top 25 team.

That starts to explain what's meant by saying Stanford is the best "team" in the nation even if only one voter seemed to believe they deserved a first place vote in the national polls entering this week - their combination of depth, discipline, talent and versatility makes them as tournament-ready as any team in the nation. And since losing two games at less than 100%, they've been a different team, which those who do more than score-watch can tell rather easily.

Among the strongest arguments keeping Stanford from earning a #1 vote despite ending UConn's historic streak and flattening Xavier has been that they didn't have a road win against a quality opponent.

So in getting a 67-53 win at UCLA yesterday with Nneka Ogwumike sidelined due to injury - against a Bruins team that aims to make games ugly, pressures perimeter players into mistakes, and rebounds well - Stanford only reinforced the notion that they indeed have the best unit as a whole even if they don't have individuals like Brittney Griner or Maya Moore.

Statistical summary:

Key player: Toni Kokenis comes off the bench and starts the second half to help Stanford counter UCLA's defensive pressure

Cardinal coach Tara Vanderveer said in her video preview of the weekend in LA that they would need help from the bench to win this weekend. Today that player to step up was Toni Kokenis who played as well as she has all season with 13 points on 5-for-8 assists and a true shooting percentage of 73.19%. However, her numbers don't entirely capture why Vanderveer inserted her into the starting lineup in the second half - the freshman came into the game and actually had a calming presence and helped the Cardinal execute around the Bruins press.

Stanford statistical MVP: Chiney Ogwumike fills the void her sister left on the boards.

The player who really stepped up for Stanford was Nneka's sister Chiney. And if she can play this well as a freshman, she is going to be an unstoppable force with experience. It was clear early on that Nneka's ability to score on the block would be missed: put simply, Chiney is not yet as refined in the post as her older sister. As a result, Stanford never really established an inside-out or high-low game that they sometimes like and the fluidity of their offense suffered. However, Chiney does know how to find her way to the free throw line and ended up with 12 attempts of which she hit 10. But Chiney really led by being dominant on the boards in the second half after UCLA muscled them on the boards in the first She finished with 15 rebounds, including grabbing 30% of the available defensive rebounds, which there were plenty of.

Key statistic: UCLA struggles to make anything in the second half.

UCLA could probably stay with anyone in the country if they'd consistently make layups. In the first half, they dominated the offensive boards and established a 14% offensive rebounding percentage differential to go into halftime with a tie. However, their two point percentage of 30.43% also points to the fact that they weren't converting anything inside. Surprisingly for a team that entered the game ninth in the conference in three point shooting (26.9%), their 3-for-6 first half shooting kept them in the game.

In the second half, the poor two point percentage continued (33.33%) but they also stopped hitting threes (0-for-5). It reinforces that Stanford is not only a good defense, but also that they're an athletic defense that can run and keep up with a team like UCLA that thrives off athleticism, crashing the boards hard, and scoring out of chaotic defense. UCLA normally shot 44.8% from the field for the season; Stanford held them to 31.1% shooting for the game and 28.1% in the second half. That's without their veteran low post player.

UCLA statistical MVP: Jasmine Dixon continues her strong board work.

Despite shooting 3-for-13, Dixon did a lot of other things well throughout the game beginning with grabbing 27.77% of the offensive rebounds available to her. The game-high 8 offensive rebounds she pulled in obviously contributed significantly to the Bruins' rebounding advantage. But that's not entirely what made Dixon's 10 point, 12 rebound double-double performance impressive. Dixon still found her way to the free throw line at a rate of 38.46% and never truly disappeared even though Stanford's defense did their best to stifle them.

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Comments

Stanford Women's Basketball

It’s refreshing to read something with insight for a change. Stanford beat UConn by holding Maya to fourteen. Texas Tech beat Baylor by holding Griner to fourteen. Teams with six or seven scorers are much tougher to stop. After the Stanford loss, the first thing Geno said was he thought when Maya struggled at the beginning of the game it affected the team. This weekend the PAC-10 player of the year is confined to Stanford’s bench and her teammates make up the difference and beat the No. 9 team. Imagine Maya or Griner on the bench with an injury – Duke or A&M would beat either by twenty. Depending on a star player can be a losing proposition if they’re held in check or on the bench.

Malcolm McFall

by slocraftsman on Feb 21, 2011 12:02 PM EST reply actions

What I don't get is why it's so hard for people to grap that...

Instead people are looking at two losses that came a) essentially without Kayla Pedersen (out against DePaul, still clearly exhibiting concussion symptoms against Tennessee) and b) before they started clicking.

People forget that the Xavier game was significant because it was the healthiest they had been in a while. Developing an identity without Jayne Appel (and Ros Gold-Onwude) is not easy and it was disrupted by Nneka, Kayla, and then Chiney missing games early in the season. The difference in how they played USF and Xavier – a week apart in December – was like night and day. They’ve come together, Chiney has been amazing lately, and their bench is stepping up.

I’m not even saying they should definitely be number one and really all that matters is that they get a number one seed, which should be a done deal after beating UCLA. But that Baylor was such an overwhelming #1 while Stanford had 1 first place vote between two polls never made any sense if people spent more than five minutes thinking about it.

SwishAppeal.com for women's basketball...SB Nation Seattle for Seattle sports. Twitter: @NateP_SBN.

by Nate Parham on Feb 21, 2011 3:03 PM EST up reply actions

I've been keeping out of this because I don't want to diminish Stanford.

I think the world of them as a team and, if Tennessee doesn’t win, I’d rather see Stanford get it. But to be fair to the situation, Tennessee wasn’t in good shape health-wise in that matchup either. Two games previous, Kelley Cain injured her right hip against Texas. She played against Baylor but was terribly immobile and ineffective. She logged 25 off the bench against Stanford. Vicki Baugh had 13 minutes (also off the bench), but Baugh played more of necessity than readiness; previous games had seen her get more along 3-5 minutes of action to spell others (and she DNP’d most of the games over the next month for continued rehab). Brewer didn’t play at all because she was still rehabbing.

Tennessee also had similar identity issues at that time, most notably that Shekinna Stricklen hadn’t turned into the beastmaster that she has been the last few weeks. All in all, it was a very well-played game by two terrific teams that some injury issues and that have grown substantially as teams since then.

But enough of that; gauging the effects of injuries is speculative and prone to bias, so I’ll leave well enough alone. As far as Baylor’s ranking, I had no real problem with that. With one fewer loss than Stanford – and that on the road by a point to a higher ranked team than any of Stanford’s losses – and some really good wins on their resume, I had no problem with Baylor getting so many top votes. Their team is more fragile in the sense that the loss of Griner would likely hurt them far more than the loss of any one player for Stanford, but that really shouldn’t matter in rankings. If Griner does get hurt, hten we can see how they fare without her; until then it’s not fair to hold a hypothetical against Baylor.

by David Hooper on Feb 21, 2011 3:28 PM EST up reply actions

I'd agree that Stanford isn't getting enough of a look,

but I think it has less to do with geography and more to do with a lack of that one marquis name. Ogwumike gets the mention whenever Stanford is discussed, but it’s not like Moore or Griner.

by David Hooper on Feb 21, 2011 5:26 PM EST up reply actions

Right and I don't necessarily disagree with anything you said above either.

And honestly, I don’t care that much other than being a Pac-10 child with a East Coast Bias conspiracy mindset. :)

Anyway, obviously, all of this voting is going to have biased… but it’s difficult to look at game scores alone and claim that’s “unbiased” – as one coach told me, he once played that logic game of determining how good his team was by the scores of who’d they’d beaten and concluded that ultimately his team was 13 points better than themselves.

Even so-called “bad losses” don’t tell us much about a team, particularly if that loss came without a significant player. And it’s just odd to me that people look at two Stanford losses and hold those against them instead of the two outstanding wins (that happened after the losses) and claim being unbiased – that just becomes arbitrary rather than objective.

Regardless of opponent, those losses tell us about nothing about Stanford at full strength (and to your point about Tennessee, that particular win doesn’t tell their full story either). What might have told us something about Stanford is that they didn’t have a win over a good team on the road and given the home advantage at Maples, that was significant. Beating UCLA really helped. Even then, seeing how they are playing now vs. earlier is huge.

So at some point we have to look beyond the scores and focus on how teams are winning and losing – as we’ve discussed with UT, they’re winning games, but also showing a major flaw. I do think you’re 100% right that not having a huge star hurts Stanford … and the way WBB reps work, TV exposure/times do matter somewhat…but the bottom line then is that them not getting votes has little to do with a sound basketball argument.

SwishAppeal.com for women's basketball...SB Nation Seattle for Seattle sports. Twitter: @NateP_SBN.

by Nate Parham on Feb 21, 2011 9:33 PM EST up reply actions

I can see that.

And the East Coast bias, so far as I understand it, is because West Coast games are on too late and the Easterners are all going to bed (or, in the case of writers, working on postgame stories for the teams around them). I grew up in the Mountain; living in Eastern, I find it much more difficult to watch West Coast shows simply because of the time.

And I wonder if some voters get lazy because women’s basketball isn’t as closely watched as the men’s sports.

by David Hooper on Feb 21, 2011 9:40 PM EST up reply actions

A lot of win in that post...

Yes, East Coast Bias isn’t about malice (despite what East-West hip hop battles from the early-mid 90’s might have suggested…RIP Tupac) – it’s just an unavoidable reality of being 2-3 hrs behind the major media outlets.

And don’t get me started on voters not knowing a thing about women’s basketball. :)

SwishAppeal.com for women's basketball...SB Nation Seattle for Seattle sports. Twitter: @NateP_SBN.

by Nate Parham on Feb 21, 2011 9:51 PM EST up reply actions

Heh.

“Don’t get me started” is usually my cue to prod a bit further. (Fireworks are fun!) But it’s late out here in East Coast land, and I’ll be headed to bed in a little while. ;-)

by David Hooper on Feb 21, 2011 9:55 PM EST up reply actions