Post by mhbruin on Feb 4, 2024 10:12:16 GMT -8
Next we begin a two-game road trip, where our results will depend on our ability to defend the three-point shot. We start with Stanford.
Gone are the days when no one transferred out of Stanford. Apparently there was an express train from Palo Alto to the ACC. Harrion Ingram left for North Carolina, Neal Begovich left for Duke, and Michael O'Connell went to NC State. I guess they heard that Stanford was going to the ACC, and got confused about what that meant
Isa Silva must have missed the ACC train, because he ended up at Long Beach State. The Beach is definitely not joining the ACC.
Stanford brought in a transfer from Providence. Maybe he realized that a Cardinal outranks a Friar.
Jarod Haase's teams have usually been very good at defense, and poor at offense. Not this year. They are better at offense, but their defense isn't only decent.
METRICS
What are the odds Stanford scores exactly 70 points?
Computers see us as 1 to 6 point underdogs.
If you want to do data mining, over the last 6 games (since Jan 14th), we are #24 in Torvick, and #41 in the country in 3-point shooting. Our 2-point shooting is still terrible at #298. If only the selection committee ignored the first half of the season. They won't. Plus we still don't have a Quad 1 win.
The computers see the trees as slightly better than us.
Oddly, Stanford has a worse NET ranking, KenPom ranking, and Torvick ranking than Samford.
RECORDS
This will be a Quad 3 game for the Cardinal and a Quad 2 game for the Bruins.
Stanford's best win is, of course, over Arizona. Their next best wins are over Utah and Washington. All of these wins were at home.
Their bad losses are to Arizona State (at home), to Arkanasa, and to Northern Iowa by 22. All their Quad 3 losses were in 2023.
In their last 6 games they have gone W-L-W-L-W-L. Let's hope the pattern doesn't continue.
The Cardinal is (are?) much better at home. They are 3-7 away from Maples.
In our first meeting Stanford won by 6, That was while we were in a streak of losing 8 out of 9 games.
UCLA'S OFFENSE VS STANFORD'S DEFENSE
We are not the worst major college team in effective FG%. Vanderbilt is worse. Same for 2-point shooting. Rutgers is worse.
It doesn't get much better if you look at conference games only. We are the worst team in the league at offensive efficiency, effective FG%, two-point shooting, and turning the ball over.
Stanford's defense is perfect for the most part. They are perfectly mediocre.
Our offense is perfectly bad at shooting and perfectly mediocre at almost everything else. The one positive is we don't get our shots blocked.
The only things Stanford does well is not give up offensive rebounds, and we have been rebounding well lately. If we can get some extra shots, it will help a lot.
Stanford doesn't generate a lot of turnovers, which is good, because we haven't been great at protecting the ball.
Stanford is average at defending both the 2 and the 3. We are pretty bad at shooting from either distance, although our three-point shooting has been much better lately.
They don't block a lot of shots, and we don't get many shots blocked. If we don't shoot better, they won't need to try to block our shots,
Advantage: Stanford. In the last 6 games our offensive efficiency is #55 in the county. If we can sustain that, this matchup is at least even.
UCLA'S DEFENSE VS STANFORD''S OFFENSE
Stanford's superpower is three-point shooting. They shoot 39% as a team, which is #10 in the nation. They have four guys shooting over 40% from the arc. One guy shoots 46%. Another shoots 50%. The weakest three-point shooter in the starting lineup shoots 38%. (Will McClendon is the only guy on our team who shoots over 34%.)
In our first meeting, we held them to 30% from the arc. If we do that again, we have a real chance to win this game. Unfortunately, we aren't as good at defending the three as we are at defending the two.
Outside of shooting, they have a couple of weaknesses. They aren't a very good offensive rebounding team, and they turn the ball over quite a bit.
Advantage:Stanford
OTHER FACTORS
We have an advantage on the boards and on turnover margin.
Stanford's biggest weakenss seems to be on the boards. This is a little surprising, since they have plenty of height. We are not an elite rebounding team, but we are much better than they are.
Stanford has a negative turnover margin. They are #257 in turnovers per game and #296 in turnovers forced.
Put those two stats together. and we should get more shots than they do.
They play at a moderate fairly quickly. We are still SLOW.
The Cardinal start four 5th-year seniors, a 4th-year senior, and a junior and either a freshman or another 5th-year senior. Four of them were with the team last season. That is maturity and continuity.
They use their bench more than we do.
Advantage: UCLA
PLAYERS
In recent games Stanford has basically played 8 players. The 9th player, James Keefe, has barely played.
In their most recent game at Arizona, freshman phenom Kanaan Carlyle was out with an injury, and Benny Gealer started in his place and played 34 minutes. All the starters played 33-36 minutes. They seemed to get tired in the second half.
At this point, I don't know if Carlyle will play, although I suspect he will. If Carlyle can't go, they will either play their starters a lot of minutes, or go deeper into their bench than they have lately. Either would help us.
* 3-Pt Freq = Percent of his shots that are 3-point attempts.
Maxim Reynaud has gone from being a journeyman center to one of the better centers in the Pac-12. He is one of two players in the conference who averages a double-double. He leads the Cardinal in scoring and rebounding, and he is just behind Spencer Jones in blocks. He's not a huge volume three-point shooter, but in their most recent game against Arizona he took 6 of them and hit 5 of them on the way to 29 points. We need to defend him on the outside as well as inside.
Andrej Stojakovic is the 5-star player that Mick Cronin wanted so much. He's had an OK freshman year, but hasn't looked like a big star. The less-heraled Kanaan Carlyle has had the much better freshman year. He didn't play in their first 9 games, but by January, he moved into the starting lineup, and he has become their second-leading scorer.
There was not a lot of buzz when Carlyle joined the Trees, but he is now being mentioned as a possible first-round draft pick. He scored 31 against WSU and 28 against Arizona. He shoots a lot of threea, but we would much rather run him off the line. While Stanford has a lot of threats, I would put Dylan Andrews on him.
Brandon Angel doesn't play like an angel, but he is very good. He does everything well. In particular, he shoots the three very well. He hasn't shot 50% because he never shoots them. He has attempted 44 of them in 19 games. Two three-pointers per game isn't a lot. He doesn't take bad shots from anywhere on the floor, and he makes a lot of them.
Michael Jones leads the team in assists, but he also shoots well. He score 21 against Arizona, and he has scored 20 or more three times this season.
Spencer Jones has taken a less active role this season, but he is a very dangerous scorer when he gets hot. He has scored 30 against Washinton and as few as 2. He has a quick release on his threes, and can hit from well beyond the arc. At 6-7 he leads the team in blocks and steals.
Jared Bymum is a solid point guard. He leads in the team in assists by a large margin. He hasn't shot the ball as well as others on the team.
Andrej Stojakovic loves the fade-away jump shot. It was going in a lot in the earlier part of the season, but he hasn't been shooting well lately, and he lost his starting job.
Benny Gealer started his first game of his career last Sunday against Arizona in Tucson. That's not the easiest place to get your first start. He shot 1 for 10, but had 9 assists and 2 turnovers. He's not one of the dangerous scorers.
CONCLUSION
When the Cardinal came to Pauley, I wrote, "Stanford is better at both ends of the floor than we are. They are older and more experienced. We are favored by 3.5, but frankly, I think they should be favored."
Sadly, I was right. And they are still older and more experienced.
However, this was when were were playing like crap. We aren't playing like crap any more. I think they are playing better, too, particularly at outside shooting.
I think this game hinges on a few things:
hen there is the matter of coaching. Jarod Haase has taken a team to the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately for Stanford fans, that team was UAB. He's not going to make the tournament this season either.
Year after year, I looked at Stanford's roster and saw a bubble team. Year after year, they weren't close. They seem to underperform their talent.
However, this might be Haase's most talented team, and they shoot a lot of threes. (The only team in the league that shoots more is our next opponent, California.)
A team that shoots a lot of threes is always dangerous. When they shoot them well, they are much more dangerous.
We still have the advantage in coaching.
For all you fans of Welcome to Wrexham:
We’ve got Cronin;
Super Mick Cronin;
I just don’t think you understand;
Our coach is a bad ass;
You're stuck with Jarod Haase;
We’ve got super Mick Cronin.
Go Bruins!
Gone are the days when no one transferred out of Stanford. Apparently there was an express train from Palo Alto to the ACC. Harrion Ingram left for North Carolina, Neal Begovich left for Duke, and Michael O'Connell went to NC State. I guess they heard that Stanford was going to the ACC, and got confused about what that meant
Isa Silva must have missed the ACC train, because he ended up at Long Beach State. The Beach is definitely not joining the ACC.
Stanford brought in a transfer from Providence. Maybe he realized that a Cardinal outranks a Friar.
Jarod Haase's teams have usually been very good at defense, and poor at offense. Not this year. They are better at offense, but their defense isn't only decent.
METRICS
UCLA Predicted Win % | Predicted Score | |
KenPom | 36% | 66-70 |
Torvick | 28% | 64-70 |
Warren Nolan | 69-70 | |
ESPN | 26% |
What are the odds Stanford scores exactly 70 points?
Computers see us as 1 to 6 point underdogs.
If you want to do data mining, over the last 6 games (since Jan 14th), we are #24 in Torvick, and #41 in the country in 3-point shooting. Our 2-point shooting is still terrible at #298. If only the selection committee ignored the first half of the season. They won't. Plus we still don't have a Quad 1 win.
Stanford | UCLA | |
NET | 100 | 124 |
KenPom Rank | 89 | 95 |
Torvick Rank | 82 | 107 |
SOS | 56 | 50 |
Record | 11-10 | 11-11 |
The computers see the trees as slightly better than us.
Oddly, Stanford has a worse NET ranking, KenPom ranking, and Torvick ranking than Samford.
RECORDS
This will be a Quad 3 game for the Cardinal and a Quad 2 game for the Bruins.
QUAD 1 | QUAD 2 | QUAD 3 | QUAD 4 | |
UCLA | 0-6 | 4-1 | 1-2 | 5-1 |
Stanford | 1-2 | 4-3 | 2-3 | 4-0 |
Stanford's best win is, of course, over Arizona. Their next best wins are over Utah and Washington. All of these wins were at home.
Their bad losses are to Arizona State (at home), to Arkanasa, and to Northern Iowa by 22. All their Quad 3 losses were in 2023.
In their last 6 games they have gone W-L-W-L-W-L. Let's hope the pattern doesn't continue.
UCLA Road | 4-2 |
Stanford Home | 8-3 |
The Cardinal is (are?) much better at home. They are 3-7 away from Maples.
In our first meeting Stanford won by 6, That was while we were in a streak of losing 8 out of 9 games.
UCLA'S OFFENSE VS STANFORD'S DEFENSE
We are not the worst major college team in effective FG%. Vanderbilt is worse. Same for 2-point shooting. Rutgers is worse.
It doesn't get much better if you look at conference games only. We are the worst team in the league at offensive efficiency, effective FG%, two-point shooting, and turning the ball over.
Stanford Defense | UCLA Offense | |
KenPom Rank | 101 | 194 |
Torvick Rank | 99 | 214 |
Points per game (allowed / scored) | 76 | 66 |
FG Percent | 44% (211) | 42% (304) |
Effective FG Percent | 50% (170) | 46% (325) |
3-Pt Percent | 34% (207) | 32% (264) |
3-Pt Rate | 36% (144) | 28% (345) |
2-Pt Percent | 50% (151) | 45% (337) |
FT Percent | 72% (150) | |
Offensive Rebound Percent | 26% (61) | 31% (116) |
Assist Percent | 43% (27) | 50% (179) |
Turnovers (created / committed) | 15% (322) | 18% (196) |
Block Percent | 8% (246) | 7% (30) |
Stanford's defense is perfect for the most part. They are perfectly mediocre.
Our offense is perfectly bad at shooting and perfectly mediocre at almost everything else. The one positive is we don't get our shots blocked.
The only things Stanford does well is not give up offensive rebounds, and we have been rebounding well lately. If we can get some extra shots, it will help a lot.
Stanford doesn't generate a lot of turnovers, which is good, because we haven't been great at protecting the ball.
Stanford is average at defending both the 2 and the 3. We are pretty bad at shooting from either distance, although our three-point shooting has been much better lately.
They don't block a lot of shots, and we don't get many shots blocked. If we don't shoot better, they won't need to try to block our shots,
Advantage: Stanford. In the last 6 games our offensive efficiency is #55 in the county. If we can sustain that, this matchup is at least even.
UCLA'S DEFENSE VS STANFORD''S OFFENSE
UCLA Defense | Stanford Offense | |
KenPom Rank | 31 | 80 |
Torvick Rank | 38 | 78 |
Points per game (allowed / scored) | 64 | 79 |
FG Percent | 41% (39) | 47% (62) |
Effective FG Percent | 49% (81) | 55% (28) |
3-Pt Percent | 33% (129) | 39% (10) |
3-Pt Rate | 43% (337) | 41% (88) |
2-Pt Percent | 48% (87) | 53% (89) |
FT Percent | 74% (73) | |
Offensive Rebound Percent | 28% (127) | 23% (334) |
Turnovers (created / committed) | 19% (93) | 18% (206) |
Block Percent | 11% (94) | 8% (89) |
Stanford's superpower is three-point shooting. They shoot 39% as a team, which is #10 in the nation. They have four guys shooting over 40% from the arc. One guy shoots 46%. Another shoots 50%. The weakest three-point shooter in the starting lineup shoots 38%. (Will McClendon is the only guy on our team who shoots over 34%.)
In our first meeting, we held them to 30% from the arc. If we do that again, we have a real chance to win this game. Unfortunately, we aren't as good at defending the three as we are at defending the two.
Outside of shooting, they have a couple of weaknesses. They aren't a very good offensive rebounding team, and they turn the ball over quite a bit.
Advantage:Stanford
OTHER FACTORS
Stanford | UCLA | |
Rebound Margin | -0.4 | 3.6 |
Turnover Margin | -2.3 | 0.4 |
Assist-Turnover Ratio | 1.3 (74) | 1.0 (242) |
Tempo | 78 | 344 |
D-1 Experience | 49 | 319 |
Continuity | 55 | 292 |
Average Height | 29 | 37 |
Bench Minutes | 115 | 253 |
We have an advantage on the boards and on turnover margin.
Stanford's biggest weakenss seems to be on the boards. This is a little surprising, since they have plenty of height. We are not an elite rebounding team, but we are much better than they are.
Stanford has a negative turnover margin. They are #257 in turnovers per game and #296 in turnovers forced.
Put those two stats together. and we should get more shots than they do.
They play at a moderate fairly quickly. We are still SLOW.
The Cardinal start four 5th-year seniors, a 4th-year senior, and a junior and either a freshman or another 5th-year senior. Four of them were with the team last season. That is maturity and continuity.
They use their bench more than we do.
Advantage: UCLA
PLAYERS
In recent games Stanford has basically played 8 players. The 9th player, James Keefe, has barely played.
In their most recent game at Arizona, freshman phenom Kanaan Carlyle was out with an injury, and Benny Gealer started in his place and played 34 minutes. All the starters played 33-36 minutes. They seemed to get tired in the second half.
At this point, I don't know if Carlyle will play, although I suspect he will. If Carlyle can't go, they will either play their starters a lot of minutes, or go deeper into their bench than they have lately. Either would help us.
Class | Size | Recruiting | Games | Minutes | Points | Rebounds / 40 Min. | Assists | Blocks / 40 Min. | FG % | 3-Pt % | 3-Pt Freq * | A/TO Ratio | Notes | |
Maxime Raynaud F | Jr | 7-1 | Unranked | 21 | 29 | 15 | 14 | 2.0 | 1.2 | 55% | 38% | 15% | 0.8 | |
Kanaan Carlyle G | Fr | 6-3 | 4-star #46 | 12 | 26 | 14 | 5 | 2.7 | 44% | 42% | 45% | 1.0 | ||
Brandon Angel F | Sr | 6-8 | 3-star #216 | 19 | 31 | 13 | 6 | 1.9 | 59% | 50% | 30% | 0.9 | ||
Michael Jones G | Sr 5 | 6-5 | Unranked | 21 | 31 | 12 | 4 | 2.0 | 55% | 47% | 61% | 2.0 | Leads in steals | |
Spencer Jones F | Sr 5 | 6-7 | 3-star #180 | 16 | 28 | 11 | 7 | 2.1 | 1.3 | 42% | 40% | 55% | 1.9 | |
Jared Bynum | Sr 5 | 5-10 | 3-star #366 | 17 | 25 | 7 | 4 | 5.5 | 36% | 33% | 42% | 2.4 | Transfer from Providence, | |
Andrej Stojakovic G | Fr | 6-7 | 5-star #18 | 21 | 23 | 8 | 6 | 0.8 | 40% | 33% | 40% | 0.7 | ||
Benny Gealer G | So | 6-1 | Unranked | 21 | 18 | 4 | 4 | 2.5 | 35% | 34% | 64% | 4.0 | ||
James Keefe F | Sr 5 | 6-9 | 3-star #339 | 20 | 10 | 3 | 10 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 57% | 0.8 | |||
* 3-Pt Freq = Percent of his shots that are 3-point attempts.
Maxim Reynaud has gone from being a journeyman center to one of the better centers in the Pac-12. He is one of two players in the conference who averages a double-double. He leads the Cardinal in scoring and rebounding, and he is just behind Spencer Jones in blocks. He's not a huge volume three-point shooter, but in their most recent game against Arizona he took 6 of them and hit 5 of them on the way to 29 points. We need to defend him on the outside as well as inside.
Andrej Stojakovic is the 5-star player that Mick Cronin wanted so much. He's had an OK freshman year, but hasn't looked like a big star. The less-heraled Kanaan Carlyle has had the much better freshman year. He didn't play in their first 9 games, but by January, he moved into the starting lineup, and he has become their second-leading scorer.
There was not a lot of buzz when Carlyle joined the Trees, but he is now being mentioned as a possible first-round draft pick. He scored 31 against WSU and 28 against Arizona. He shoots a lot of threea, but we would much rather run him off the line. While Stanford has a lot of threats, I would put Dylan Andrews on him.
Brandon Angel doesn't play like an angel, but he is very good. He does everything well. In particular, he shoots the three very well. He hasn't shot 50% because he never shoots them. He has attempted 44 of them in 19 games. Two three-pointers per game isn't a lot. He doesn't take bad shots from anywhere on the floor, and he makes a lot of them.
Michael Jones leads the team in assists, but he also shoots well. He score 21 against Arizona, and he has scored 20 or more three times this season.
Spencer Jones has taken a less active role this season, but he is a very dangerous scorer when he gets hot. He has scored 30 against Washinton and as few as 2. He has a quick release on his threes, and can hit from well beyond the arc. At 6-7 he leads the team in blocks and steals.
Jared Bymum is a solid point guard. He leads in the team in assists by a large margin. He hasn't shot the ball as well as others on the team.
Andrej Stojakovic loves the fade-away jump shot. It was going in a lot in the earlier part of the season, but he hasn't been shooting well lately, and he lost his starting job.
Benny Gealer started his first game of his career last Sunday against Arizona in Tucson. That's not the easiest place to get your first start. He shot 1 for 10, but had 9 assists and 2 turnovers. He's not one of the dangerous scorers.
CONCLUSION
When the Cardinal came to Pauley, I wrote, "Stanford is better at both ends of the floor than we are. They are older and more experienced. We are favored by 3.5, but frankly, I think they should be favored."
Sadly, I was right. And they are still older and more experienced.
However, this was when were were playing like crap. We aren't playing like crap any more. I think they are playing better, too, particularly at outside shooting.
I think this game hinges on a few things:
- Can we defend the three-point line? We did a good job in the second half of the Oregon game, but Stanford is the best 3-point shooting team in the Pac-12. Oregon is #3.
- Will Carlyle play? If not, they suffer from a serious lack of depth, and they could wear down as the game goes on.
- Can we get more shots than they do by beating them on the boards and getting turnovers?
- Can we control the tempo?
hen there is the matter of coaching. Jarod Haase has taken a team to the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately for Stanford fans, that team was UAB. He's not going to make the tournament this season either.
Year after year, I looked at Stanford's roster and saw a bubble team. Year after year, they weren't close. They seem to underperform their talent.
However, this might be Haase's most talented team, and they shoot a lot of threes. (The only team in the league that shoots more is our next opponent, California.)
A team that shoots a lot of threes is always dangerous. When they shoot them well, they are much more dangerous.
We still have the advantage in coaching.
For all you fans of Welcome to Wrexham:
We’ve got Cronin;
Super Mick Cronin;
I just don’t think you understand;
Our coach is a bad ass;
You're stuck with Jarod Haase;
We’ve got super Mick Cronin.
Go Bruins!