I don’t want to blame the freshmen for not showing up because for the most part, they were the most aggressive and most visibly frustrated with their mistakes. Aaron Bright did his thing, but he landed in early foul trouble and didn’t play for a good portion of the first half, forcing Robbie Lemons out on the floor. Anthony Brown worked really well with Jarrett Mann on the passing game in the backcourt, but he never really got in a groove save for his three pointers. Give the Ducks props for disrupting Stanford’s offensive flow all night.

Dwight Powell was the most aggressive of the freshmen and the most visibly upset at his mistakes. Offensively, he consistently drove to the basket and grabbed for the open rebound off a missed shot, even his own. On the other end of the court, he was maybe a tad too aggressive with three goaltending calls, but again, that was probably doing more than anyone else on the team for a rebound or a block. I can’t blame him for those calls, or his errant out-of-bounds play towards the end of the second half, but he has these stretches where its like a bug gets in his head and he can’t make a free throw for entire games. Of Stanford’s eight missed FTs, he was responsible for five of them. I have noticed that when he spends the majority of the pregame just shooting from the foul line, he does fairly well, but when he doesn’t, such as last night, he can’t make them. It may be an issue of confidence on his part or perhaps overthinking the plan for beating the press/zone combination.

The upperclassmen, though, were, well, not very good. When Green can’t find himself open he gets frustrated and doesn’t even try for a shot, or worse, turns the ball over. His shot output this game seemed drastically lower than in other home games, but that may be due to 30% shooting with all his made shots being three pointers. Owens, to Dawkins’ credit, simply could not get inside under the basket. He’s not a perimeter shooter, and Oregon crowded the paint like no other team whenever Owens was on the floor, forcing Stanford to the outside. Owens was the source of several key turnovers that turned into points for Oregon and probably helped justify his benching by Dawkins. Trotter and Zimmerman ended up being just bodies on the floor, save for two (missed) free throws by Zimmerman in the first half. Zimmerman in particular got really red faced at a horrendous turnover under the basket for an Oregon fast break. If there was an upperclassman that I can say played decently, it was Jarrett Mann, and the main thing with him was his superb passing. He did give up a few turnovers, but I believe those were again when the Ducks crowded in the paint and got to the ball on a pass.

Overall, this game was just a mess. Several boos were heard at the end of the game. Whether they were directed at Oregon winning or Stanford losing so badly, I’m not sure, but its never a good sign when even a single boo is heard in Maples. The line of expletives from a die-hard Stanford fan sitting nearby after Singler’s three-point play told me everything I needed to know about the game.