Stanford's 91-52 loss to No. 18 Arizona was statistically one of the worst in Cardinal history. There's no way around the numbers. The Wildcats shot 62.5%, 71.4% from three and for good measure added 91.3% from the line. The defense has taken a sharp turn for the worse and the Cardinal are not the team that earned several good wins earlier this season, which raised optimism about how the group was coming together under first-year head coach Jerod Haase.
The post-game conversation with media showed a clearly frustrated Haase, who freely admitted that he does not know why some aspects of Stanford's game have taken such a sharp nose dive.
Stanford closed within two in the first half but then Michael Humphrey got his second foul, went to the bench and UA responded with a 13-0 run. How much did Humphrey's exit affect how the first half finished?
Probably some. At this point the unfortunate part is I don't know if we're resilient enough and tough to fight through any adversity. If we're saying the key play is when a guy that didn't play the last game, is coming off the bench, gets a second foul is a determining factor of how everyone plays, and takes the wind out of our sail, we've got bigger issues right now. The bigger issues are that we're not resilient enough, we're not playing with enough passion. If somebody makes a shot maybe that gives us some energy. If somebody makes a play maybe that gives us some energy. But good teams have to have the energy when things aren't going well. This is an important time for us and it falls squarely on my shoulders to find solutions. I do believe there are solutions out there. At this point I haven't been able to find them.
How much of the search for resiliency is about confidence? Were they confident coming into today?
Our practices really have been good. They've been consistently good. I thought our attitude and our practice was really good yesterday after our tough loss to Arizona State. I thought our practices going into the Arizona State game were good. And there is no carryover right now to the games. I'd be lying if I said I knew what the answers were because I don't, yet. But we're going to turn over every stone to find out what those answers are. Right now any sign of adversity our confidence goes down.
On defensive performance: "Not good. It's not good. We're struggling in a lot of ways. Arizona -- it was exposed even more because they do throw the basketball inside ... we tried to double early on and they scored points out of that. We tried to kind of bluff at them and they were able to score one-on-one. Our interior play, our interior defense, should be a strength on the team and today it was not. We continue to struggle guarding the basketball and the three-point line. And the solutions have to be out there but it's tough when the other team shoots more than 70% from three and over 60% from the field. It means we're not doing something right. I don't believe whole-sale changes need to be made. The things we're trying to do does fit our personnel the best, but we need to improve our execution.
Made only 11-of-23 free throws: You can add that to the list .... I think more than anything I think that goes into the entire cultural piece -- we're not playing with as much passion. Things don't go well and we hang our head a little bit, lose confidence. Free throws is an area that really shouldn't be dictated by if you're up or down or what's going on. It should have some kind of consistency.
If you could fix one thing in time for the road trip to USC and UCLA: Passion.
Reid Travis and Dorian Pickens
On practice performance not showing up in games: (Pickens) I agree with him 100%. It's inexcusable for us.
Travis: Ultimately it wasn't our offense that lost this game today. It was our D. I felt like I had some miscues that I need to correct and work on. I feel like I let my defense effect my offense (Editor's note: I think he meant to reverse that) at that point. They started scoring on us, it frustrated me and it kind of took me out of my game.
Pickens said communication is lacking on defense. He said coaches do a great job of scouting. "They provide us a great game plan and it's our job to go out and execute.
Reaction to loud UA fan contingent in Maples Pavilion? (My unofficial count was that by the middle of the second half there were five rousing U of A chants to zero for Stanford. And when Stanford fans tried they got shouted down by Wildcats fans.)
"It's tough." But Pickens said the team has to string together wins to expect better crowds.
Travis said he was disappointed by the defensive effort and described the Cardinal's inability to build a defensive stop beyond the first action of UA: "We had a lot of the actions down pat for the start of the possession. But I feel like we didn't have that second and third effort tonight where we'd stop one of their actions at the start and then we'd get broken down later in the shot clock and they'd kick out for a three. Or we'd let them throw in the post and we weren't working as hard to get in front. We did a good job of scouting and getting in front of their first action, it's just that we didn't have that second and third push.
The post-game conversation with media showed a clearly frustrated Haase, who freely admitted that he does not know why some aspects of Stanford's game have taken such a sharp nose dive.
Stanford closed within two in the first half but then Michael Humphrey got his second foul, went to the bench and UA responded with a 13-0 run. How much did Humphrey's exit affect how the first half finished?
Probably some. At this point the unfortunate part is I don't know if we're resilient enough and tough to fight through any adversity. If we're saying the key play is when a guy that didn't play the last game, is coming off the bench, gets a second foul is a determining factor of how everyone plays, and takes the wind out of our sail, we've got bigger issues right now. The bigger issues are that we're not resilient enough, we're not playing with enough passion. If somebody makes a shot maybe that gives us some energy. If somebody makes a play maybe that gives us some energy. But good teams have to have the energy when things aren't going well. This is an important time for us and it falls squarely on my shoulders to find solutions. I do believe there are solutions out there. At this point I haven't been able to find them.
How much of the search for resiliency is about confidence? Were they confident coming into today?
Our practices really have been good. They've been consistently good. I thought our attitude and our practice was really good yesterday after our tough loss to Arizona State. I thought our practices going into the Arizona State game were good. And there is no carryover right now to the games. I'd be lying if I said I knew what the answers were because I don't, yet. But we're going to turn over every stone to find out what those answers are. Right now any sign of adversity our confidence goes down.
On defensive performance: "Not good. It's not good. We're struggling in a lot of ways. Arizona -- it was exposed even more because they do throw the basketball inside ... we tried to double early on and they scored points out of that. We tried to kind of bluff at them and they were able to score one-on-one. Our interior play, our interior defense, should be a strength on the team and today it was not. We continue to struggle guarding the basketball and the three-point line. And the solutions have to be out there but it's tough when the other team shoots more than 70% from three and over 60% from the field. It means we're not doing something right. I don't believe whole-sale changes need to be made. The things we're trying to do does fit our personnel the best, but we need to improve our execution.
Made only 11-of-23 free throws: You can add that to the list .... I think more than anything I think that goes into the entire cultural piece -- we're not playing with as much passion. Things don't go well and we hang our head a little bit, lose confidence. Free throws is an area that really shouldn't be dictated by if you're up or down or what's going on. It should have some kind of consistency.
If you could fix one thing in time for the road trip to USC and UCLA: Passion.
Reid Travis and Dorian Pickens
On practice performance not showing up in games: (Pickens) I agree with him 100%. It's inexcusable for us.
Travis: Ultimately it wasn't our offense that lost this game today. It was our D. I felt like I had some miscues that I need to correct and work on. I feel like I let my defense effect my offense (Editor's note: I think he meant to reverse that) at that point. They started scoring on us, it frustrated me and it kind of took me out of my game.
Pickens said communication is lacking on defense. He said coaches do a great job of scouting. "They provide us a great game plan and it's our job to go out and execute.
Reaction to loud UA fan contingent in Maples Pavilion? (My unofficial count was that by the middle of the second half there were five rousing U of A chants to zero for Stanford. And when Stanford fans tried they got shouted down by Wildcats fans.)
"It's tough." But Pickens said the team has to string together wins to expect better crowds.
Travis said he was disappointed by the defensive effort and described the Cardinal's inability to build a defensive stop beyond the first action of UA: "We had a lot of the actions down pat for the start of the possession. But I feel like we didn't have that second and third effort tonight where we'd stop one of their actions at the start and then we'd get broken down later in the shot clock and they'd kick out for a three. Or we'd let them throw in the post and we weren't working as hard to get in front. We did a good job of scouting and getting in front of their first action, it's just that we didn't have that second and third push.
