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NCAA Tournament 2015: Stanford’s Bumpy Road

Stanford has traveled a bumpy road this season, but SHOULD still make the NCAA Tournament

By nickdempsey
Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

The Stanford Men's Basketball team has traveled a bumpy road this season at times testing our patience and sanity. John Reid of the San Jose Mercury News summed it up best:

"Patience of Job is first referenced in the Bible in James 5.11. Word was Job demonstrated faith and patience with God while suffering many severe trials.

Meet Stanford men's basketball Johnny Dawkins. Rather, make that "Cool" Johnny Dawkins, who has witnessed his team suffer many severe trials this season, but has shown Job-worthy patience. Oh, the Cardinal defeated famished USC 70-62 in a Pac-12 game at Maples Pavilion on Sunday, but the home five had to sweat bullets after trailing by six points at halftime."

To be very clear, Stanford still has much to accomplish in order to secure a spot in the NCAA tournament. Jack Follman from Pacific Takes had this to say:

"Stanford is quickly giving up ground to UCLA and really need to grab a big in-conference win, but are still probably solidly grounded in the 8-10 range as long as they don't start dropping bad losses."

The last half of this quote, of course, is concerning. The mere thought of not "dropping bad losses" brings the Washington State debacle to mind. Fortunately, Stanford was able to pull off a much needed win Sunday evening against USC.

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The victory, however did little to inspire confidence in Stanford's ability to score road victories against ranked opponents like Utah and Arizona. For now though, it appears that Stanford will secure a spot in the tournament as long as they can avoid more debacles like Washington State.


If the Cardinal secure a spot in the tournament, who knows what might happen. The tournament is referred to as "March Madness" for a reason after all.

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