Considering our respective rankings before last night’s chess game, I expected to beat my opponent quickly, leave the chess club early-ish, and save myself from watching basketball at dawn.
That’s as hazardous a manner of thinking for chessplayers as it is for basketball teams (and any competitive entity); our game was next-to-last to finish, and I got home at midnight to find that two of the recorded games went to overtime. In bed at 6 a.m., and my Saturday didn’t start until 2:30 p.m.
Utah 75 Oregon St. 73 OT
Since the turn of the calendar year, Oregon St. has played six games decided by two possessions or fewer, in which the Beavers are 2-4.
It’s easy to say “the Beavers are a young team, still getting to know each other”, but look around. Stanford has one senior. Utah has none. Colorado has one. UCLA has 10 underclassmen. Inexperience is no excuse in the Pac.
Had Coach Roberts said: “In your unusual way of looking at things, what must we do to beat Oregon State?”, the first thing to come to my mind would’ve been: “Make Mitrovic shoot the ball rather than pass it”.
I pondered that for a second, and thought: Good thing Coach didn’t ask you, because that’s crazy talk — why would anyone prefer the 6-foot-7 player to throw the ball away from the basket to her dropping it in the basket?
Because Oregon St. is a better team when they share the basketball, and Mitrovic sees open perimeter shooters as well as you’d expect from a kid who’s usually the tallest player on the court, and she has a rare ability to give them the ball where they can do something with it. In 21 games played, Mitrovic averages slightly fewer than 7 field goal attempts (141 total) per game — when she attempts 7 or more, the Beavers are 5-7. She averages slightly fewer than 2 assists (41 total) per game — when she assists on 3 FG or more, OSU is 5-2.
In Oregon State’s three conference wins, Raegan Beers averaged a ‘Hollinger gamescore’ of 16; in eight losses, 9. It was as close as it was because Beers looked like she’s gained that second wind that freshmen are said to need following tired Januarys. (Speaking of which, Grace VanSlooten — one of the other safe bets for end-of-year all-freshmen honors — recorded a Hollinger 0 against USC and a -6.6 against Oregon St. in January.)
Ines Vieira scored 0 points, and made an uncharacteristic 2-assists-to-2-turnovers-to-2, but annoying defense was instrumental in Utah pissing the host team off (probably a useful habit for the Utes to cultivate). Yeaney: 3 fouls, 4 turnovers. Mannen: 3 fouls, turnovers. Gardiner: 4 fouls, 4 turnovers.
On the other side, Pili: 4 fouls, 3 turnovers, but she made game highs in points and steals. Rees fouled out in 15 minutes (one of those calls was just wrong, another was suspect). The boxscore says Kelsey was near useless (2 FGM, 2 RB), but I was sort of there, and she pretty much wasn’t.
Utah’s reached that desirable state in which nine people can contribute rather significantly, and seven of ’em aren’t annoyed when two of ’em get all the credit. Kneepkens scored 7 points in overtime, Pili made the free throws to break the last time at 73.
Y’know whom Utah could’ve really used last night was Dru Gylten. While Oregon St. was getting close to even in the fourth (after being down by 18), Utah took a couple of offensive possessions off, and looked a little dazed. Gylten’s assured ballhandling, and steadiness befitting a ninth-year senior, would’ve prevented that. (If Utah loses a game during the NCAA tournament, I think they’ll endure a similar stretch in that elimination game.)
At Oregon tomorrow, Utah can demonstrate that the Ducks are nowhere near the same team they were in the Pac-12 tournament semifinal last season, when Utah’s win in that game was their biggest of the year.
Arizona 71 UCLA 66 OT
The Bruins led by 12 with 3:19 left in the 2nd. Wildcats went into half trailing by 6, after a 7-1 run. Bruins built it back up to 11 with 4:49 to go in the game, but they didn’t score again until 3:33 in overtime.
That’s what Arizona’s capable of, and they needed it. The Wildcats have the most difficult schedule remaining: four of their next five are USC, Stanford, and the mountain teams. (If Arizona beats USC tomorrow, then finishes 4th, they can point to this weekend as most critical: beating UCLA when both teams were 6-4, then USC when both were 7-4.)
UCLA was 3-1 in games decided by 5 or fewer, but have lost three in a row (two in overtime) by a total of 9 points. Their schedule gets easier, relatively speaking. Say UCLA goes 6-1 in their last seven; I think 12-6 will suffice for that coveted #4 tournament seed.
Looking further ahead than that, ESPN speculates that Washington St. and Oregon are both NCAA tournament-bound, though they might both finish worse than .500 within league play (easy to see WSU finishing 3-4, 8-10 in total). That’s how good the Pac is.
Stanford 71 Washington St. 38
If you’re hoping for someone other than Stanford to win league and tournament, this game wouldn’t’ve caused you to like your chances. Stanford got their 14th and 15th men off the bench before it was over.