I'm writing this one on the fly, so excuse any erroneous assumptions made on my part. I didn't figure there was much to say following the California game. The Huskies absolutely exploded. Hell, the game was statistically over with more than 13 minutes remaining in the second half. It helps when you shoot 54.8% from beyond the arc. We had six guys score in double figures, but more importantly, two of those were our freshmen, C.J. Wilcox and Terrence Ross.
I've said all along that we need a third guy to step up, but what if it's a combination of Wilcox and Ross that steps it up down the stretch? Justin Holiday and Scott Suggs obviously need to produce as starters, but Ross can get to the hoop and Wilcox is a sharp shooter. We get two out of those four working in any game, along with Matthew Bryan-Amaning or Isaiah Thomas (yes, I said "or"), and we have a shot. Now, if it's IT that's on and not MBA, we're going to have to see Aziz N'Diaye play like he did on Thursday; clogging the lane, altering shots and generally just being big.
We lost at Stanford on January 13th, 56-58. We only shot 50% from the line, and turned the ball over on almost a quarter of our possessions, and yet still only lost by a bucket. Three-point shooting was again an issue, We weren't terrible collectively, but nor we hot enough to have put up 26 attempts. No one really got going on offense for us, although no one threw up a stinker. It was our third game without Abdul Gaddy, and Venoy Overton was still getting the start at the second guard position. We'll see if a different starting line up makes a difference tonight. Playing at home sure will.
Both Stanford's team ppg (65.1) and ppg against (62.1) are good for only ninth in the PAC-10 (edit: ninth in this case means second. Oops. See below). In the loss to the Cardinal, we couldn't get it going offensively. After last night, look for that to change (duh). Just pray that Isaiah doesn't think that shooting 75.0% from three-land means he can put it up ten times and hope for the same results. We need to keep the ball moving, and make sure the Cardinal can't get F/C Josh Owens going against Aziz.
Partially out of laziness, partially out of (lack of) time, and partially because the Cardinal doesn't have a single player who's started every game, I'm going to skip the usual projected starters stuff and just say this: get MBA going, get some turnovers and points in transition, and we're looking good going into the key stretch of our season with games at Arizona State (a potential let-down), at Arizona (the importance should be obvious) and "at" Seattle University (another potential let-down). Lorenzo Romar needs to keep his team mentally up and avoiding the silly turnovers we all had that privilege of seeing over that three game stretch.
I'll take a look at both the Cal game and this game in more detail over the week and try to pinpoint what I want Ross and Wilcox to do more and/or less of. In the meantime: WOOF.
(edit: I'm an idiot. I've been reading the statsheet.com rankings backwards for stats against, i.e. tenth means you're best in the league. Never seen it like that. So, I guess disregard everything I've mentioned regarding stats against [thank God I've focused on offense].)