Stanford women’s volleyball has been given a #2 seed (No. 5 overall) in the NCAA tournament. They’ll play Friday/Saturday @Maples.

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Read and watch that here.

I’m looking for 2 tickets to Stanford men’s hoops tonight. DM me if you have some.

In return, I’ll write another “dispatches” after the game (we’re undefeated when I attend).

Is the increase in basketball scholarships a good or bad thing? When they were decreased I thought it was a good thing. It kind of leveled the playing field. The reduction created a lot of parity. I think Stamford BBall turned the corner around then and I think the reduction helped(except Paul Garrett lost his redshirt year, which didn’t seem right).
With the NIL money will the rich get richer? Will the transfer portal get even busier with the 13th - 15th players getting little playing time?

First off is XC tomorrow. The NCAA XC Championships will be broadcast live on ESPNU starting at 9:30 a.m. ET on Saturday, November 23. The women’s 6K race begins at 10:20 a.m. ET, and the men’s 10K starts at 11:10 a.m. ET. You can also live stream the races through WatchESPN or the ESPN app.

The MPSF Men's Water Polo Championships are underway. Appreciate the effort they they're making in getting other parts of the country involved, but there's such a discrepancy between the Cali schools and the rest of the country. Stanford has the 2nd seed and took out PSU-Behrend 26-2 in round 1. Likewise, UCLA took out Washington Jefferson 18-2, Southern California beat Austin 31-2 and Cal plays Augustana later today. At least in field hockey. we lose to the top east coast schools by 3 or less. Stanford is hosting the NCAA championship beginning 12/6 and because other leagues getting automatic entry, they usually only take 3 from Stanford, UCLA, USC and UCB. One of these four schools have one every NCAA title since 1998 and have won 31 out of 36 titles.

In women's soccer, #3 Stanford beat UConn 2-1 to move on to round 3. UConn grabbed an early lead after 10:14 and Stanford tied the score at 85:57. Allie Montoya who assisted on the first goal, then scored an unassisted goal with 11 seconds left! They'll face the winner of #2 Arkansas and Cal who play later today in the 3rd round.

The men's soccer team, seeded #16, faces UCSB this Sunday at 5 PM in round 2 action. If they get past UCSB, they face the winner of #1 seed Ohio State and Western Michigan.

The NCAA tennis are having singles and doubles championships this fall. in men's singles, doubles and women's doubles, Stanford didn't make out of the first round Caroline Ma was seeded 6th and lost in the quarters.

We don't have an ice hockey team and Stanford didn't get chosen for field hockey. The other fall championship sport is football and since the final is in late January, I won't discuss Stanford's chances. 😜

…with apologies to K. Dot

(Whispers) Psst…I see dead Oski
Trader Joe got the food, ho

Ayy, Trader Jo got the food, ho
Larry and Sergei started Google
First server still on campus, come an take a look bro
When you not watchin’ TV to see Rachel Maddow

What’s up with these jabroni-ass weenies tryna keep the axe?
Y’all cna hate me but it’s ours an’ that’s a fact

How many ops you really got? I mean, it’s too many options
I’m finna pass on this vax like I’m Aaron Rodgers
Who say he went to Butte CC when TV watchin’

Sometimes I gotta pop out and show weenies
Certified boogeyman, I’m bigger than yo’ Campanile

Our kicker won two games, he’s Emmet Kenney

Walk yours down, whole time, I know he got a loss in him
Lost to Pitt, nervous shit, loss to NC State on him

Say mascot Oski, why you walk around like that?
Stupid-ass grin with yo’ hands behind yo’ back

Even if you win the game, y’all know we the best
Without us, y’all would be in the Mountain West

Y’all got a new Chancellor, name of Rich Lyons
Didn’t get the job first time, but he kept tryin’

I ain't sayin’ nothin’ bout him or his spouse
You gotta ask them bout that night at Free House

And John Yoo a weird case, why is he around?
Named chair tenured prof or war criminal?

Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, Tree, **** 'em up
Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, I'ma do my stuff

Why you tryna pass the bar? Ain’t you tired?
Tryna remember your law deans— probably John Dwyer

Cal not like us, Cal not like us, Cal not like us
Cal not like us, Cal not like us, Cal not like us

(mainly, 2H of Oregon-PSU; last 5 minutes of SMU-Clemson; and a bit of Texas-UGA).

A few random observations:

1. I have a hard time thinking Oregon will actually win the whole thing. Don't you need a good defense to win a title?

2. I guess UGA will be there in the mix. They look stout. Texas not bad, either, but I've never been sold on Ewers.

3. SMU looked mighty good in the part of the game I saw, and the ponies evidently dominated 2H. They look like they "belong" in Top 12. Would be happy if they're "in" and 'Bama is "out" - though I doubt the Committee will agree.

4. Not a huge fan of Dabo - though I admire his attempt to NOT use portal. Grooming team from 1-4 year players is . . . quaint. Of course, I'm a sucker for kids who want to play for a specific college/university and actually stick it out. Also, the "God" thing is a bit much on the post-games (and I consider myself pretty religious, especially in this day and age). But I've always thought this is a very personal thing - all power to everyone for believing in what they do (and I realize it's a bit inconsistent to say everyone can do their own thing and then chastize someone for the public God things). It's just that I don't see the need/benefit of proclamations - is it really necessary to share your personal views on that during TV interviews?

P.S. ASU might be a scary opponent in the playoffs. Didn't see their game, but they pollaxed ISU today (and Arizona last week).

Time for one of my favorite posts of the year, giving a preseason prediction of our top players. This was a fun exercise for me in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019. The basic rule of it is I'm trying to predict the top 35 players by snap count at the end of the season and rank them in terms of quality (best understood in terms of things like quality in relation to ACC peers, which can be approximated by year-end PFF grades). Specialists are not ranked here. The top 35 in snaps is essentially synonymous with the non-specialists who matter in a season, those with approximately 200 snaps over the course of a 12 game season give or take a dozen snaps or so.

You can see in the earlier threads that I did quite well at this the first two years before whiffing in 2021, doing a nice job in 2022 overall but struggling predicting who would be best, and then doing even better last year getting five of the top ten right (better than the four of the top ten the previous two years) and 28 of the top 35 (same as in 2021 and 2022). Let's see how I can do this year:

1. Elic Ayomanor
2. Collin Wright
3. Ashton Daniels
4. David Bailey
5. Scotty Edwards
6. Levi Rogers
7. Anthony Franklin
8. Elijah Brown
9. Micah Ford
10. Connor McLaughlin
11. Chris Davis Jr.
12. Wilfredo Aybar
13. Emmett Mosley V
14. Tobin Phillips
15. Zahran Manley
16. Tiger Bachmeier
17. Che Ojarikre
18. Jackson Harris
19. Sam Roush
20. Teva Tafiti
21. Jack Leyrer
22. Clay Patterson
23. Mitch Leigber
24. Gaethan Bernadel
25. Simione Pale
26. Tristan Sinclair
27. Brandon Nicholson
28. Zach Rowell
29. Luke Baklenko
30. Jake Maikkula
31. Fisher Anderson
32. Jay Green
33. Omari Porter
34. Benji Blackburn
35. Aaron Morris

Apologies to Ryan Butler, Justin Lamson, Zach Buckey, Braden Marceau-Olayinka, Bryce Farrell, Matt Rose, Zach Buckey, Jahsiah Galvan, Sedrick Irvin, Cole Tabb, Mudia Reuben, and others. Butler, Lamson, and Farrell were tough omissions for me as I think they are more likely to be top 35 in snaps than at least one or two guys I included, but this exercise is truly meant to be a prediction and as such I insist on trying to be realistic. While those guys have very good shots at 200+ snaps, it is almost certainly not happening that we'll have four key contributing RBs or three key contributing QBs and I do think Harris has definitively passed Farrell, so I made judgment calls on what I think will happen. As always, obviously many such subjective judgment calls in here and I look forward to hearing folks' thoughts.

P.S. For the longest time I had an audacious pick in here of Javion Randall bucking expectations (which for outsiders couldn't be lower considering he's one of our lowliest regarded recruits ever) and becoming a key contributor in his first year. Just have hunch on that. But I'm a coward and swapped him out for Morris at the last minute. Don't feel great about that but at some point I have to stop tinkering and submit my bid for the year.

Georgia Tech up on Georgia at Georgia 17-0 @Georgia. Halftime. First time Georgia has been shutout in the first half since 2019. Ben Yurosek catching passes for Georgia though.

Read that here.

I’ve arrived at Maples. Stanford WVB vs. LMU. 2nd round of the NCAA tourney.

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Read that here.

we lead Cal 47-31... at the half

Absence of spleen being vented here!

After the game yesterday, I was preparing to post my plea to the Stanford faithful here to write to President Levin about the state of the football program and implore him to make changes that reflect a true commitment to football at Stanford. Well, I still think letter writing to President Levin is in order but now with an expression of appreciation and enthusiasm. The announcement today of Andrew Luck as the new GM of Football at Stanford is an inspired decision that instills great hope that we will turn this moribund program around. A tremendous first step. Clearly, we need some immediate influx of veteran players through the transfer portal. So there has to be a relaxing of the historic restraints on bringing in transfer players. Additionally, Stanford needs to be competitive in NIL. And Stanford needs to retain current players and the recruits in the incoming recruiting class. To that end, I encourage you to write a letter of thanks to President Levin but also urge him to give Andrew the necessary tools to make football great again.

For the record, I don't necessarily think we all need more reminders on how far Stanford Football has fallen

But I cannot ignore this. Stanford Football is 2.5 point underdogs to San Jose State University tomorrow

The resource gap between Stanford and San Jose State is astronomical. This is truly an embarrassment, and unacceptable

A breakdown:

Endowment
San Jose State: $251 Million
Stanford: ~$40 Billion

2022 Athletic Revenue
San Jose State: $39M
Stanford: $134M

2023 Recruiting Rankings (247 Sports)
San Jose State: #116
Stanford: #59

2024 Coaches Salary
Ken Niumiatalolo: $1.5 Million
Troy Taylor: Not reported, an online sources says $4.5M. It is assuredly far more than $1.5M

Bottom Line
You get the picture. We are doing LESS with FAR MORE

Courses of Action
I am at a loss. Is there anything we can / should be doing outside of emailing Muir voicing our displeasures about the program / Taylor?