During one of northern California’s coldest, wettest spells of the year, I spent Friday night in the garage.
Around midnight, while I was compiling numbers from Stanford at Cal —
Stanford 78
Cal 51
Stanford was better and Cal was worse while Cameron Brink was on the floor. After factoring out the last five minutes of garbage time, the Cardinal shot 16-for-32 with Brink, 13-for-35 without her. The Golden Bears shot 5-of-29 while Brink played, 9-for-30 while she didn’t.
Stanford sophomore guard Talana Lepolo had a career game: 6-of-10 3FG, 6 assists. Cal got a team-lead 12 from Ioanna Krimili, back for the first time since November.
— I went to rummage through the freezer for breakfast, and one of the housemates closed and locked the door behind me.
They’re older — one uses a hearing aid — and pounding on doors and rapping on windows around the house didn’t help. My feet got wet for tramping around the yard, but even so, not the worst night ever.
The comedy peaked in the morning when someone visited the kitchen, and couldn’t hear me at the door. With the sun peeking in and out, I sat outside until someone left the house. With 20 minutes until tipoff in Boulder, which is too bad, because I’d’ve rather missed that game.
Utah 65
Colorado 76
I thought we were terrible, dribbling more than passing (the first thing I look for in a Utah boxscore is ratio of assisted baskets; on Saturday 10 assists on 26 makes), 20 turnovers (how many were more dumb than coerced, I can’t say), inattentive to the ball.
It would’ve been amusing if terrible were enough to steal a road win, but the Buffaloes shot 8-of-11 in the 4th quarter.
Colorado was +11 points after turnovers (and won by 11, how about that), +21 fast break points. The Buffaloes didn’t suffer under much ball pressure — Formann had a woeful game shooting 1-of-9, but that one came while the Utes were running toward people without the ball.
I’d say this was our worst game since Baylor, but non-conference play is ancient history.
USC 64
UCLA 71
Southern Cal looked ordinary, though UCLA will do that to lots of teams as 2024 goes on.
The Oregons are the only conference game Sunday. I need sleep.
Southern Cal looked ordinary, though UCLA will do that to lots of teams as 2024 goes on. I wasn’t paying much attention, really, though the SoCal schools will be in the conference tournament semis (and they’re good enough for the national semis).
The Oregons are the only conference game Sunday. I need sleep.