Stanford 62 Oregon 54
I told you Cameron Brink would triple with points, rebounds, and blocks. I didn’t think she’d do it the next day.
I also said Stanford would crush Oregon, because Oregon isn’t such a good basketball team, ranked in the Top 25 earlier because sportswriters like Coach Graves, and don’t like change. The final was 62-54, but it shouldn’t have been that close. Ducks hit a meaningless trey at the buzzer, and the Cardinal were sloppy. Last year’s Cardinal would’ve won that game by 30.
I said in October that the AP ranked Stanford #2 because 1) except for South Carolina, there were no other clearly outstanding teams (considering UConn losing Paige Bueckers); and 2) sportswriters weren’t properly assessing Stanford with the Hulls.
Look at Stanford today. Compared to their 2021 championship team — which was majestic — these Cardinal look clunky and vulnerable (if their freshmen grow up really fast, different story). I dunno if they’d lose to another Pac-12 team because they still have some mystical hold over the other 11, but their first opponent in the NCAA — remember Harvard in 1998? — isn’t bound by sorcery.
Cal 64 Oregon St. 62
I said Oregon St. would crush Cal, but Cal won by 2. I couldn’t stay awake for the end of that game on tape. Close games are supposed to be compelling by definition, but this one just was not.
The Beavers need Raegan Beers to play well, and she coughed up four fouls and three turnovers in 13 minutes (at Stanford on Friday: 1-of-5 shooting, two fouls in14 minutes).
The theory is freshmen get tired near February, because the high school players are mostly done by this time of year (the theory extends to WNBA rookies coming in tired because training camp begins right after the NCAA tournament). I don’t quite buy it in Beers’ case. Beers is a truck.
When Oregon State goes Mitrovic, Beers, Yeaney, Mannen or Marotte, van Oelhoffen, they’re scary. There isn’t a 4 out there who could prevent Beers from getting to her spots and finishing.
If the tournament began today, the first round would match the Oregons against each other, the Washingtons against each other, the Arizonas against each other, and the Californias (southern and northern) against each other. I’m all for that. Let’s begin.
Utah 71 UCLA 69
Alissa Pili scored nine points in the fourth quarter, including five in the last 40 seconds, and the Utes won a game that I, um, thought they were gonna lose. (The clue I have to share with Coach Roberts’ players is that if they look at the bench, and find Coach seated instead of standing, they’d better get it together.)
Am I the only one pondering where USC might be if Pili hadn’t transferred, and were playing like this for the Trojans? USC’s going to win a game 14-12 before they’re done — with Pili, they could be winning games 60-40.
Pili is unlike any crayon Coach Roberts has had in her box before. The closest thing Coach Roberts has had to a scoring threat like Alissa Pili was — you’ve gotta go back a dozen years — a 6-foot forward at Pacific named Christina Thompson.
Thompson was graceful and athletic, and could fill it up, but the other parts of the job — like playing defense and fighting for rebounds — weren’t to her liking. As a senior, Thompson lost the forward job at Pacific to a local (local to Stockton) kid named Kendall Kenyon.
Kenyon made me look smart. After my first visit to Pacific in her freshman year, I named her the chosen one. It took three months for Coach Roberts to get her off the bench, but Kendall rewrote the Pacific record books.
One of the funniest things I’ve ever heard a sportswriter say was in regard to Kenyon and Thompson. Thompson had flu symptoms (‘flu symptoms’ was the official word, but if you were there, you got the feeling Coach asked Thompson to get her uniform dirty, and Thompson began sneezing), and Coach said: “I’m thinking about giving your girl a start”. You can look it up: Against Long Beach State Jan. 12, 2012, Kenyon’s first start resulted in 18, 5, 2 steals, 1 block, 0 turnovers, and the Tigers won by 37.
The Stockton Record beat writer said: “Kendall Kenyon is going to turn Christina Thompson into Wally Pipp”. I laughed at the time because I was Kenyon’s most vocal supporter, and laughed for another three years because it came true.