ON THE FRIDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING WE TAKE ON THE LADY BULLS OF SOUTH FLORIDA!!

On Friday, November 26, in the Bahamas we'll take on the University of South Florida after they finish their tournament four days earlier at the Atlantis resort, fifty miles away. Stanford will play them with no days rest, having battled Indiana, another strong NCAA Tournament team, the day before. 

The USF Bulls finished the season at 19 and 4, ranked 18th in the nation. They won the American Athletic Conference regular season and tournament championships. In the NCAA Tournament USF defeated Washington State 57 to 53 in the first round, and then fell to N.C. State in the second round 69 to 57. 

During the off season they got two strong transfer players from Memphis - Aerial Wilson, a point guard, and Dulcy Mendjiadeu, a 6'-4" post player, both starters at Memphis.

I would expect we'll see a starting lineup for USF that looks something like this:

                                                                   REB       PTS

Dulcy Mendjiadeu    6'-4"    Grad    C        8.6        12.2

Bethy Mununga        6'-0"    Sr.        F      12.9        10.0

Elena Tsineke           5'-7"    So.        G       2.0        14.0

Sydni Harvey           5'-10"    Jr.        PG     3.0        12.0

Elisa Pinzan             5'-8"     Jr.         G.      3.0        10.3                  

Bethy and Elena were All Conference First Team

With no presumptions of anything but an exercise to make me feel better about our three games in three days in The Bahamas, I put together conceivable starters and backups for each game just to see who we could possibly start against Maryland on Saturday that would be as rested as the Maryland starters:

Possible Stanford Starters/Backups against Indiana on Thursday

Cameron Brink/Fran Belibi

Haley Jones/Ashten Prechtel

Lexie Hull/Lacie Hull

Anna Wilson/Jordan Hamilton

Hanna Jump/Alyssa Jerome

Possible Stanford Starters/Backups against USF on Friday

Ashton Prechtel/Kiki Iriafen

Alyssa Jerome/Elena Bosgana

Jordan Hamilton/Jana VanGytenbeek

Lacie Hull/Jzaniya Harriel

Brooke Demetre/Agnes Emma-Nnopu (or Jenna Brown, if ready)

Possible Stanford Starters/Backups against Maryland on Saturday

Cam Brink/Fran Belibi

Haley Jones/Ashten Prechtel

Lexie Hull/Lacie Hull

Anna Wilson/Jordan Hamilton

Hanna Jump/Alyssa Jerome

Anyway, now I feel better. Could be a lot of fun for everyone. And our starters on Saturday would be ready for a top ten team.

GO CARDINAL! BACK TO BACK TO BACK IN THE BAHAMAS AND HOPEFULLY WE COME OUT OF THERE WITH THREE BIG WINS AND TWENTY 3'S PER GAME!!

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OUR FIFTH OPPONENT OF THE SEASON WILL BE A VASTLY IMPROVED INDIANA HOOSIERS TEAM THAT RETURNS ALL FIVE STARTERS!

Tara feels our preseason schedule may be the toughest in the nation. We're playing eight teams that made it into the NCAA Tournament last season and two that made it to the Elite Eight - Texas and Indiana.

I've already covered our tough second game of the season against the Longhorns, and our games against Gonzaga and Portland. This week we'll get into our fifth game of the preseason against the Indiana Hoosiers. Last season was their best in modern memory. They made  it all the way to the Elite Eight before falling to Arizona in a hard fought battle 66 to 53. They have strong team chemistry and play great together. 

This season they'll have all their starters back plus a highly experienced grad transfer from Georgia, Caitlin Hose. Two of their returnees are All Americans, junior 6'-3" post player Mackenzie Holmes (17.8 points per game and 7.6 rebounds) and 6' senior guard Grace Berger (15.4 points per game and 6.8 rebounds).

Grace was a member of the FIBA Americup team, along with Haley Jones, that won Gold Medals down in Puerto Rico. I'd like to hear from Haley what she thought of Grace Berger - watching her play she seems super competitive and effective. You should dial up their NCAA Tournament game with N.C. State on YouTube to get a taste of how intense this group of Hoosiers are to play against. N.C. State was the number one seed in their region until they were eliminated by the Hoosiers. In several games of the NCAA Tournament the Hoosiers had all their starters in double figures and typically dominated the points in the paint. 

We're playing Indiana in the Baha Mar Thanksgiving Tournament in the Bahamas. They will be our first game on Thanksgiving Thursday. Stanford is the only team in the tournament that will play three games in three days - because the USF Lady Bulls are scheduled to play Stanford in the only game being played on Friday and the Bulls aren't even involved in the Baha Mar Tournament. 

USF is playing in the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament that finishes up four days earlier at the Atlantis resort fifty miles away. Then they're driving over to play Stanford on Friday. 

Our Saturday opponent is a top ten ranked Maryland team, and like all the other teams in the tournament, they get the day off on Friday. Our players will have had two tough games and resulting tired legs going into battle with the Terrapins. All day Friday the turtles will be laying around the pool, while our players are locked in an intense contest with a determined and well-rested bunch of Lady Bulls from South Florida. 

I'll review the Bulls and the Terrapins next week. I know we play three games in three days in the PAC12 Tournament, but all the teams play at least three games in three days.    

AS YOU WELL KNOW, I LOVE THIS CARDINAL TEAM!!

DO WE HAVE ENOUGH DEPTH TO PLAY THESE THREE STRONG RESTED TEAMS ON THREE CONSECUTIVE DAYS? I HOPE SO! GUESS WE'LL FIND OUT!

    

OUR JOB THIS SEASON IS TO PLAY LIKE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS. - EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY GAME.

In my last blog piece I mentioned previewing our six "toughest" preseason opponents. Bear this in mind, I sure don't want to be a party to any underestimating of our other preseason opponents. 

Three years ago we went up to a packed arena in Spokane ranked in the top ten and lost to an unranked Gonzaga team. Our fifth game is against an unranked Bulldog team that will be feeding big-time off their great fans. Our team is not used to being defending national champs and we've all got to realize the size of the bullseye we're wearing this year. We certainly don't want to go into any game flat and make some hungry team's year. The Zags arena will be rocking and its a great opportunity for the Cardinal go into Spokane and play like national champions.

This season will be a re-building year for the Bulldogs, as their three leading scorers are gone - Jill Townsend, and the Wirth twins. But re-building at Gonzaga is different than at most other schools. As you know, their men's program is fantastic and for years their women's program has been at the top of the West Coast Conference and a tough "out" in the NCAA Tournament. As mentioned above, their fan base is voracious and their games are packed - especially when Stanford comes to Spokane. 

So, even with mostly new players in 2021, the Zags will be a strong opponent. For instance, Bree Salenbien a 6'-2" freshman guard is their highest ranked recruit in program history. She's the 7th ranked guard in the 2021 Class nationwide. She was the Gatorade Player of the Year for Michigan for her last season in high school and averaged 25.6 points, 11 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and 3.6 steals. (See what I mean?)

Esther Little is another 6'-2" freshman guard from Ipswich, England who has had 50 games of international experience. Last season she averaged 15.5 points, 19.5 rebounds (no, that's not a misprint), and 6.8 assists in the Women's Elite Academy League.(I wonder if Hannah Jump has come across Esther in her English national age-group experience?)

Payton Muma is a 5'-8" freshman guard who was the #2 ranked high school player in Colorado last season. (I would hazard a wild guess that Lauren Betts was #1.)  

Maud Huijbens is a 6'-3" freshman forward and a long-time member of the Netherland's national age-group teams. Last year she averaged 12 points and 6.5 rebounds in the European U18 Championships.

Anamaria Virjoghe is a 6'-5" senior transfer from Targoviste, Romania. She was the MVP of the Romanian national team in the U18 European Championships.

Melody Kempton is a 6'-1" senior forward. She was the program's first WCC 6th woman of the year last season on Gonzaga's conference championship team.

Calli Stokes is a 5'-11" freshman guard who averaged 21 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.5 steals, and 3 assists per game as a senior and league MVP at Redondo Beach High last season.

And I can't omit their current set of twins, Kayleigh and Kaylynne Truong. Kayleigh was a starter and solid contributor for the Zags last season. So, you can see, Lisa Fortier - who replaced Kelly Graves as head coach - and her staff are great recruiters. Re-building at Gonzaga is not a multi-year process full of angst and disappointment. No, the Zags will come out smokin and you take them lightly at your peril. 

Our fourth game is against the Portland University Pilots in Maples. Eight of their players are from Australia and one is from New Zealand. I have no idea what we'll be up against that night, but one of their Aussies is 6'-8" and another is 6'-6". They had a so-so year last season, but many of their players are freshmen or transfers. Once again, our mentality has to be that of a powerful highly prepared defending champion with 12 of our 13 players returning from our team last season. Let's control this game from the opening tip - no letups and no coasting. 

The message of this piece is the absolute need to be mentally ready for every game and play 100 percent every minute, especially if our four freshmen get in late. Each game is our chance to show the nation that the eastern pundits have very little understanding of what this program is all about. It's an insult that they've ranked us #3 in this preseason and we need to play every minute of each game as the defending national champions. We're not running up the score. We're just that good from top to the bottom - and we're not letting up.

TO PARAPHRASE MR. CHURCHILL, IF THIS PROGRAM LASTS 1000 YEARS - IT SHOULD BE AGREED THAT THIS WAS OUR FINEST SEASON.

   

 

OVER THE NEXT SIX WEEKS I'LL PREVIEW OUR SIX TOUGHEST PRESEASON GAMES. THIS WEEK WE'LL START WITH THE LONGHORNS!!

I know everyone was anxious to see the new 2021/2022 preseason schedule! AND WHAT A PRESEASON IT IS!! I could almost see Tara's smile as she looked at the new schedule for the first time. We start with a small Division III school with 662 students that has been very successful for years playing schools their size.  

We end up before Christmas with the #1 ranked South Carolina Gamecocks in Columbia, in front of 18,000 raucous fans in Colonial Life Arena. These are the same Gamecock fans who lay awake nights re-living that NCAA Tournament semi-final game. The same Gamecock fans and players who are dead set on avenging that one point loss we inflicted on them in the Final Four. 

Our preseason amounts to about as wide a spread in size, talent, and motivation as is humanly possible between early November and late December. The exhibition game on November 6 will be with Clarke University from Dubuque, Iowa. Then we welcome Morgan State University from Baltimore, which you could safely say is a non-major, but is ten times the size of the Clarkies.

Then the Longhorns get driven right down Palm Drive into Maples.    

This will be Vic Schaefer's second season at the helm in Austin and he has every intention of re-installing the Longhorns as a permanent fixture in the highest echelon  of women's basketball. From today until November 14th - he, his assistants, and his players will be devoting themselves to laying out a fool-proof game plan for beating the Stanford Cardinal. Can you imagine what a blockbuster win that would be for the resurgent Longhorns? 

In the NCAA Tournament, Vic and his sixth-seeded kids took down the mighty second-seeded Maryland Terrapins when many media types and pundits were predicting that Maryland - the nation's highest scoring team - would just roll right through everyone and win the whole thing. How, you might ask, did Texas do it?

Defense, my friend, with a capital "D". Maryland didn't score their usual 93 points - they were lucky to score 61 and they lost by three. Also, the Longhorns used every second they could of every shot clock, then went all out to get offensive rebounds so they could take another thirty or more seconds off the shot clock. Maryland got sick and tired of playing defense. 

The Maryland team T-shirts flashed their season motto at everyone, "ALL GAS - NO BRAKES!!  After making the Turtles play what seemed like endless defense on every possession - Vic took away their fast break points. He had his players totally focused on breaking the press with careful sure passes, with precious few live ball turnovers, allowed almost no steals, and very few careless ball-handling turnovers. They played the slowest dullest most careful basketball they could muster. And it worked.

So, what will he cook up against us. When he was the defensive coordinator at A&M in 2011, they had the most lethal full court press I've seen and beat us in the Final Four, before beating Notre Dame for the national championship. Our ball-handling was our weak spot that season and they were all over it.

The 2021/2022 Texas team actually has some large holes to fill. Charlie Collier (leading scorer, 6'-5" number one WNBA draft pick), Celeste Taylor (second leading scorer, team leader), and Kyra Lambert (veteran point guard) will be replaced by Junior 6'-4" Post Lauren Ebo; Audrey Warren, Junior Guard, great effort player; and Joanne Allen-Taylor, their new point guard.  

Our third game of the season will need to be our soundest most error-free game of the preseason and we'll be fine. Whoever we put at point guard will be the key, in concert with our other strong ball-handlers. We'll need to keep our turnovers in single digits.

LET'S GO STANFORD!! CORRAL THE HORNS!!