If there’s an NCAA tournament this year, Stanford probably won’t be part of it.
A win today over Cal would’ve likely kept them on the right side of the bubble. The Bears entered as the lowest graded team in the Pac-12 per advanced metrics, and the Cardinal were healthy favorites. But you wouldn’t have known it from watching this one.
This team has played with a high level of energy all year long, which is a big part of why they’re the 6th best defense in the country. For whatever reason, they came out flat tonight, and stayed that way for the full 40 minutes. Perhaps the noise got to them, or the stage was too big. Whatever the reason, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
After some unmolested looks in the final minute, Stanford bumped up its shooting at the rim to 33% for the game. They made a concerted effort to get the ball into the paint and attack the teeth of the Cal defense. But the Bears and Mark Fox knew they didn’t need to honor the threat of pitches to the perimeter, so they converged onto ball handlers and made life miserable for rim finishers.
To make matters worse, Spencer Jones, the top floor spacer, came off the bench today. There simply wasn’t much room with which to operate. According to Jerod Haase, it was a “coach’s decision.”
It wasn’t all the rim protection of Cal, though. A lot of players simply went up weakly at the rim. Oscar da Silva entered with the 17th best field goal percentage in the nation, but went 2-11 today. He had more turnovers than field goals, as did normal second-leading scorer Tyrell Terry.
The two Stanford losses to Cal this year came on bizarrely memorable days. The first was the day that Kobe and 8 others died. This one was on the day that professional sports came to an abrupt halt and Sarah Palin appeared on the Masked Singer.
It’s conceivable there won’t be any postseason play in the NCAA this year, after the NBA suspended their season. If there is, Stanford is in line for at least an NIT invitation. An NCAA bid isn’t completely out of the question, but it seems like an improbability after this clunker.
Comments
Weird game, indeed.
Stanford’s 2 core offensive players, its 2 All PAC-12 nominees, were no-shows. Ty Terry had seemed out-of-sorts for the past couple of games; a couple of separate TV analysts had ventured that he and fellow frosh had hit a wall as the season’s grind got to them. However, Oscar da Silva, First-Team All Conference, had a really strange game. He was getting pushed out of the paint when he’d tried his usual rim assaults and he was throwing up shots that couldn’t hit the broad side of a whatzit, even some air balls from the 6’-8’ range. Except Daejon Davis, nobody was looking for a perimeter shot. Spencer Jones was 2-4 from outside, but he was only on the court for 18 minutes.
Davis and Bryce Wills were the only Cardinal in double figures. Somehow it did appear that only Davis and Wills could muster the step-up effort when the game looked to be getting away from Stanford. Cal had 3 guys in double figures and the Bears played like they wanted this game; as a team, the Cardinal wasn’t all there.
From the way that Stanford played in its last 3 games, it doesn’t look like a NCAA Tournament team. If the NIT is canceled, like the CBI, this may’ve been Stanford’s season end.
By Candid One on 03.12.20 2:36am
Agreed
Strange game indeed. The telecast included audio from an early Stanford timeout, where Haase told his players that they couldn’t expect to win based on individual efforts; it had to come as a team. And that they couldn’t expect the refs to bail them out. But throughout the game, individual Stanford players tried to drive and force shots without looking for the pass. And they seemed to be begging for foul calls that often didn’t come. I can’t remember another game with that many airballs from within ten feet.
Also, watching this horrorshow of a game was made so much worse by having to also listen to Bill Walton announcing it.
By StanWho? on 03.12.20 8:58am
No NCAA next year, then no more Haase
Jerod Haase came to Stanford in March 2016. His predecessor, Johnny Dawkins, was known as a coach who could not get his team into the NCAA playoffs and whose players never showed signs of improvement from year to year. So far in his tenure, Haase has been pretty much the same type of coach. No NCAA appearances. And no noticeable improvement in player performance year to year. Top that with an offensive game plan that is not geared to taking advantage of his players’ strengths. And, perhaps most importantly, Stanford players seem to have the basketball IQ of sophomores in high school. Keep in mind that Virginia didn’t win the NCAA because it was loaded with one and done athletic phenoms. It was a team that was well coached and the players played smart.
So next year should be the make or break season for Haase. He has everyone returning. (I don’t think De Silva will leave, unless he wants to spend an entire pro career in Germany.) What he lacks in athletic bigs, he can compensate with numbers. (Remember when Mike Montgomery’s team, a serious underdog, beat Tim Duncan, by rotating bigs who forced him to the foul line?) Stop this silly round the horn, going nowhere, passing display. Teach your players how to set screens. Run, Run, Run. Extend your defense, if only to shorten the clock. Stop this silly clearing out of rebounders when your player is shooting free throws. Get a copy of John Wooden’s basketball book and require every player to read it. Then drill, drill, drill on fundamentals.
If next year’s team doesn’t win 25 games and get into the NCAA tournament, then hire a new coach. Five years is long enough to turn a program around.
By SU74 on 03.12.20 9:39am
Last chance, either way
I like Haase in certain regards. His players often play hard, and I hear he loves to keep track of floor burns. They’ve also played excellent defense all season, and I think Haase deserves credit for that. But I agree that the strategy of conceding rebounds on almost every play is bad. It means we get one shot on offense, every single time down the court. And more than anything, I agree that the offense lacks both fundamentals and a coherent game plan. So we get one shot, which is often not a great shot, and then we’re back to defense. Defense is important, but we can’t be satisfied with a head coach who can only coach one side of the game.
I think next season should be the determining season, whether they make it to the tourney this year or not. My worry is that, if they happen to limp in to the tourney this year based on their early season success, Stanford will take some pressure off of Haase. But this team has the talent to be much better. If they can’t manage a top-3 finish in the conference next season, I think it’s time to move on, no matter what happens with the tourney. Given the youth and the positive trends this year (and the repeated loss of senior talent over the years), I have enough patience with Haase to see what happens next year. But we shouldn’t be losing any talent going into next year, so if we don’t have a much better season, then it’s time for a change.
By StanWho? on 03.12.20 1:28pm
For all of the glitches, Haase isn't at risk.
It has taken time to recruit "his guys", while working with Dawkins’ recruits. This is the most athletic team, across the main rotation, that Stanford has ever had. I’ve been a Stanford fan for 50 years, since grad school. This is the first team that plays entirely above the rim, across the main rotation. Even Terry and White can dunk.
This is one of the youngest teams in the conference and the nation…an oft-mentioned and promising attribute. The much-noted lack of depth, after the veteran core of Davis, Wills, and da Silva, is not simply about recruiting.
During the late preseason, the team lost 6’11" senior center Trevor Stanback to medical retirement; he’d been the expected successor to graduated center Josh Sharma. The team also lost 6’8" redshirt junior Kodye Pugh to a medical redshirt; he’s a versatile, athletic forward with a good midrange and outside game and his defense would’ve been better than frosh Spencer Jones. Very few TV analysts seemed to know about that unfortunate attrition. Without those losses, the Cardinal could’ve been solid title contenders, and they could’ve survived the critical injuries to Daejon Davis, Bryce Wills, and Oscar da Silva.
The remaining issue for next year is the lack of a veteran big man. While soph Lukas Kisunas is a developing talent and frosh James Keefe is looking promising, height and heft will continue to be a frontline lacking. Oscar’s finesse will improve but he needs help against the big front court players that are too common. Incoming frosh, 6’9" PF Max Murrell looks like some help.
However, 6’9" soph Jaiden Delaire looks to be the most immediate source of frontline bolstering. Fans forget that Delaire left high school early; he reclassified. So, his body is still developing. His skill will improve but his strength improvement will be more telling. Many of Jaiden’s missed attempts at the rim yesterday should’ve been dunks; instead, he regressed to finesse, which is still a work in progress.
Except walk-on senior bench warmer Rodney Herenton, everyone is returning next year. Considering the crippling timing of the Davis, Wills, and da Silva injuries, a 20-12 record is a red flag to the rest of the PAC-12. Oscar is already all-conference. Terry will be a prominent threat.
If Daejon hadn’t had to wear his inhibiting mask, he was #2 in 3-pt. accuracy until that point. Davis’ mask altered his court vision for passing and shooting. Davis was PAC-12 All-Frosh in his time. Last year, sans mask, Daejon was Stanford’s #2, and most reliable scorer. That mask cost Davis in performance, the team in wins, and conference recognition of his defense. Coach Haase and many TV analysts consider Daejon to be Stanford’s primary stopper. Jon Wilner listed Davis and Wills as first-team all PAC-12 defense.
This isn’t Haase’s last chance. This is how long it was expected to take for this team to become his team. The 3 critical injuries, with Kodye Pugh’s medical redshirt and Stanback’s medical retirement, will not be discounted. This was not a poor year for an unavoidably thin team. Stanford is not as myopic as many of the basketball powers. Dawkins got 8 seasons. Haase is midway on that span.
By Candid One on 03.12.20 3:35pm
Haase got bailed out by COVID-19
I think the cancellation of the NCAA’s saved Haase the embarrassment of not making the Tournament. Haase was one loss short of a total mid-season collapse by a mid-season team. Stanford’s inability to in-bounds the ball against USC was/is negligence by Haase. I think he just assumed Stanford could execute, rather than giving them hard-coaching on how to finish the game.
By Blackjoy on 03.12.20 9:18pm
The case against Haase
While I agree with some of what you say and disagree with other parts, I would submit that Haase is a mediocre coach, if not a poor one. Here’s my rationale:
1. The team offense hasn’t evolved. We’re running the same offense we ran at the start of the year. It should be obvious to Haase that he needs to adapt it and add permutations, but I don’t see it. Now, maybe he has…but I don’t see it, so someone will have to point it out for me.
2. Inability to leverage the team strengths. We have two three-point snipers in Spencer Jones and Isaace White. Neither of which can get more than one or two clean looks a game. White is used extensively and how many shots has he had in the last 10 games? 10? Against Cal, I don’t think Jones got a single open look from the offense. The point is that Haase can’t scheme them open and that’s absurd when you have TWO three point shooters on the floor at a time.
Now, I was going to say ‘total’ inability, but I will concede that one reason that Da Silva has been so much better this year is because of White and Jones being over played. This may also be what has allowed Wylls to be able to penetrate at times. Regardless, when you have a shooter like Jones, the offense shoulbe be getting him a minimum of five open looks a game. Not zero. Go look at the women’s team. Tara consistently gets the Hull sisters open looks. Fingall, Prechtel, all get open looks.
3. Both losses to Cal. If you watch those game, you’ll recognize that the Cal coaches was able to give Cal a shematic advantage. In the first loss, Cal used a screen play to get repeated layups. In the last game, Cal got a Bradley matched up against the physically weaker Wylls and Davis on the low block, where he abused them. Cal’s offensive plan was not the same in either of Cal’s victories, and Stanford’s was the same in all three games.
I will disagreee that Haase has not gotten improvement from his players. Delaire is better now than at the start of the season. To Haases’ credit, he stopped starting Delaire and then slowly worked him back into the rotation and built the kids confidence. But, by my score keeping, Haase is in the red in terms of player leveraging.
By Blackjoy on 03.12.20 9:15pm
Clearly, Stanford wanted to keep themselves safe by not traveling to the NCAA tournament
So by putting up a pathetic effort and letting themselves get bullied by Cal, they were playing the long game…
Of course, this doesn’t explain why they also lost to Cal in their first meeting, or why they had no game plan or team identity in either game.
By worldblee on 03.12.20 11:08am
Pac-12 Tourney Canceled
To make everything just a bit worse, the Pac-12 has now canceled the remainder of the tournament. Which makes it that much sadder that Stanford showed up just to add a bad loss to their resume.
By StanWho? on 03.12.20 1:31pm
NCAA Tourney Canceled
And now everything is canceled. I guess we’ll never know for sure whether or not Stanford played itself out of the 68-team field.
I feel particularly bad for the Oregon women’s team, who were chasing their first ever title and had a great chance of getting it this year. Without their senior core, including one of the best players of either gender in college basketball history, they won’t have another chance like this for a while.
By StanWho? on 03.12.20 2:03pm
Screw Oregon
I am glad to see Oregon denied a national championship. I can’t stand how Ionescu gets away with constantly palming the ball. That team got a Kevin Durant transfer i.e. that point guard from USC who only joined the team because she wanted to win a NC. Well, I am glad it didn’t work out for her. Without that guard, Oregon would have been substantially weaker. Now, they’ll never get that NC before SB206 blows up the whole thing.
Stanford will return virtually the whole team next year and Oregon will have lost it’s top four players (assuming Sabally follows through on leaving early).
And I can’s can stand Payton Pritchard. The refs let him get away with pushing off with his off-hand when he drives.
By Blackjoy on 03.12.20 9:22pm
Maybe refs will use this extra time to study the rule book
I’ve been saying for two years that Sabrina Ionescu’s signature move is essentially double dribbling, by dribbling, pausing with the ball, then dribbling again. So thank you Blackjoy for also pointing it out. I was hoping that once Oregon got away from Pac 12 officiating, someone might actually call it. Now we’ll never know unless it happens in the maybe, maybe-not Olympics this summer. Oh, and if the Olympics do happen, see how often Sabrina uses her off hand to give a subtle, Michael Jordan-like stiff arm to her defender. Not a real push, so it, too, is never called.
As for Haase, I disagree with the person above who suggested giving him 8 years like Dawkins was given. Five years is enough to see whether or not he has it as a coach. The USC debacle, the losses to Cal, the losses to Oregon. None of these should have happened or would have happened to a well prepared team. No team that plays man to man defense as well as Stanford should lose as many games as it has.
By SU74 on 03.13.20 9:09am
No, thank you.
You affirmed my sanity in that post on women’s basketball where you also called out Ionescu’s illegal moves and other things.
By Blackjoy on 03.13.20 1:14pm