A TON of Exciting NEWS and some Questions

LOTS of news!  

 

First, the Red and White scrimmage is happening on Saturday, Oct. 29 - doors open at 11 am.  This will be our first chance to see the team ranked #2 in the country in preseason polls and, not surprisingly, picked as the team to beat in the PAC-12. 

 

Next. there is a new game on the schedule -- Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 6:pm with Cal State Northridge (CSUN) at Maples.  That gives the CARD back-to-back 6 pm games at Maples starting with their official season opener Monday, Nov. 7 against San Diego State.  (The 7 pm game Wed. Nov 2. game against Vanguard is an exhibition.)

 

In pre-season honors, two players -- Haley Jones and Cameron Brink have been named Pre-Season All Americans, with Haley being named a 1st team APA All American.  FOUR Stanford players have been named to the preseason watch list for positional awards.  Haley Jones is on the list for the 2023 Cheryl Miller Award given to the top small forward.  Cameron Brink is on the list for the 2023 Katrina McClain Award to the nation's top power forward.  Senior Fran Belibi was named to the 2023 Lisa Leslie Award list along with Freshman Lauren Betts, the WBCA High School Player of the Year for 2022.  That is a LOAD of recognition for the Cardinal players.  Additionally, Stanford Senior Hannah Jump has been identified by ESPN writers as one the the 10 players poised to have a breakout season (https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/34823666/women-college-basketball-top-breakout-players-2022-23).  WOW!

 

Overall, this year's Stanford team is LOADED!  Eight players of the 12 players who attended high school in the US were McDonalds All Americans with two (Haley and Lauren) being named High School Player of the year in their senior seasons!  It seems quite reasonable to think that history might repeat itself, the CARD following a National Championship with a Final Four appearance and then a second National Championship just like 1990 and 1992.  We'll see.  But, regardless, we can expect an exciting year of great basketball from a team and coaching staff that set the bar for student-athletes as student-athletes.

 

As we gear up for this sensational season, there are some questions we are waiting to have answered:

1.  Who will play point-guard?

            Most pundits note that Stanford's biggest weakness last year was at point-guard against quick, physical, athletic teams - and that was with Anna Wilson backing up Lacy Hull.  Haley Jones can do it, of course.  Haley has proven that she can play almost every position on the floor -- making Coach Tara's comparison of her to Magic Johnson quite appropriate.  But, playing at the point limits other aspects of Haley's game and many believe the Cardinal will be stronger if one of the three true-freshmen or our redshirt-freshman is able to step up and play the point.  Given how reluctant Coach VanDerveer has been to start a freshman at point-guard, it will take something for her to turn over the direction of this star-studded team to an untested player.  However, at the Pac-12 media day Tara was very complementary of her potential point guards -- calling Telana Lepolo one of the best freshman point guards she has seen and mentioning the excellent play Indy Nivar, who played on USA Basketball's gold medal winning U18 team this summer. Tara also said good things about red-shirt freshman Jzaniya Harriel and Carto Valley native freshman Lauren Green.  So, by tournament time, who will be getting the major minutes at the point?

 

2.  Which sophomore will be the most improved -- and will she match the Jeanette Pohlen standard?

            Tara has often said that the biggest changes often come between a player's freshman and sophomore seasons.  Those who have been around a while will remember the way Jeanette Pohlen came back for her sophomore season with almost unrecognizable changes to her body and her game after a grueling summer of workouts.  There are rumors that Kiki Irafen made impressive progress over the summer (we've seen the videos of her two-handed dunks) and Brooke Demetre is also said to have made real progress -- but where do their improvements rank on the "Pohlen scale"?

 

3. What will the offense look like on a team with 5 players listed at 6'3'' or above (and that doesn't even include Lisa Leslie Center Award nominee Fran Belibi)?

            For the last few years Tara has often used a three-guard or even a four-guard offense.  But, given all the talent among her tall trees it seems likely that the Stanford offense will be some version of Fear the TREES! How that will mesh with a Princeton offense may have the Cardinal watching Warriors tapes...Part of the answer may revolve around how quickly Lauren Betts makes the adjustment to the college game and how smoothly she and Cameron Brink are able to work together. Fasten your seat belts for this high flying team.

 

4. Will Hannah Jump set any 3-pt records? 

            With 183 career 3 pointers, Hannah would need to obliterate the single season 96 made 3-pointers record jointly held by Jeanette Pohlen and Karlie Samuelson to get even close to Kianna Williams' 311 career record.  But, merely equaling that single season record would move her up to third, behind only Kianna and Candice Wiggins....

 

5.  What other single season or career records might fall this year?  

            Because there was no NCAA tournament their freshman year- meaning as many as six fewer games -- (and we have no 5th year seniors taking a COVID year), it is unlikely that any records for career totals will be set this year.  There could easily be a lot of single season records falling - and possibly some career percentage records.  But, let's face it, for Stanford players team success and not individual records are the goal -- those individual records only matter if they were in the service of the CARDINAL doing well -- and hopefully they will. The sustained excellence of this program is amazing.

 

6.  Will this finally be the year that Stanford Women's Basketball gets the home game sell-outs it deserves?

            It is somewhere between ridiculous and crazy that virtually the only sell-out crowds the defending National Champion Stanford team played in front of last year were in other team's arenas! Now, some of that may have been about COVID -- after all people in the Bay Area took COVID seriously.  And, some of it may have been about the crazy schedule that TV games create (8 pm on Friday nights, 5 and 6 on weeknights) -- but Stanford's amazing coaching staff and fabulous student-athletes deserve a packed house of fans.  Let's all commit to getting to the games and bringing friends!  See you at Maples.