Card Clicks: Bright Leads Stanford Past Fresno State

He’s definitely impressed me while here on the Farm. I just hope that it isn’t a repeat of last year where he started off fast and then really tapered off once we hit conference play.

With Dwight Powell (my other favorite player), I hope that that highly touted freshman class is finally able to live up to its lofty ranking. Powell’s injury last week wasn’t great news, but luckily others have stepped in with their offense. Hopefully the ankle sprain is fully healed by next weekend (hopefully in Madison Square Garden).

My biggest concern right now is that with Powell out, Stanford can’t play an effective offense and defense in the same game. With Powell, they have a good presence down low that forces opponents to the outside. They didn’t have that last night, so the Bulldogs were able to drive to the basket and grab offensive rebounds fairly effectively (they were also helped by hot three point shooting in streaks). Fortunately for Stanford, Bright and the offense stepped up, but given last year’s defensive slogs, I’m a little surprised at how offensive-minded this team is and how the defense has regressed slightly. Then again, maybe I’m underestimating the loss of Jeremy Green and the play of new freshman Chasson Randle, as well as the fact that this is only the second game of the season.

Oh, and the free throw shooting was slightly more tolerable, shooting 66%.