Two reasons I’m hoping today’s presser will be especially informative: First,
we’re coming off two straight wins, so the questions will be softer and the
team, hopefully, less defensive. Only worry is if we start doing too
well, then Trent will have to go into lockdown “we’re not really that good”
mode. Second, the team’s policy is only to talk about the next game, though
reporters will try to sneak in a question about the weekend opponent, as the
Thursday opponent is usually the undercard. No worries about that this week, and
with only one game on the docket, maybe that frees up more time to
Of course, it all depends on the players we get. Fred’s the most open and
talkative with us, with Law Hill a close second. Guess I now have a selfish
reason for those two to do especially well, as we generally get whoever shone
the brightest the last week.
Scarfed down some dining hall food on the way to the noon presser. What’s up
with salad as our hot entrée? Stanford Dining, you better put chicken wings in
the salad bar next time, otherwise I’m going to think you’re just trying to save
money and not cook an actual meal. Okay, my Peter King moment’s up, onto the
actual presser. It’s the usual suspects: Trent, me, my colleague Pat Fitzgerald,
Darren Sabedra from The Mercury News and Jake Curtis from the San
Francisco Chronicle.
Trent Johnson:
On what Cal does well:
Start with Ryan Anderson. When you look at the stats in conference games, you
look at ours, you look at theirs. How is this team 2-4? They’re very experienced,
very good, one possession here or there, and they’d have one loss, if that. Make
no mistake, it starts with Ryan Anderson. He’s averaging a double-double. He
causes a multitude of problems because he can score inside and out and he
finishes, he finishes so well. He gets it on the block and if you don’t play
good defense, he can put it in the basket. To me he’s one of those players. He’s
a three, four, five. Put him out there and he can flat-out play. I say this
every week but it’s true: look at the caliber of players in this league.
Of course, Hardin is explosive, rebounds and changes what you have to do
offensively in the lane. Christopher is nothing like last year, so much
better.
I think they’re getting healthy in terms of their guard play. Randle’s taking
some hits, but he just got back to where he’s healthy. Boykin is a
handful.
This is a team that shoots extremely well, their
assist-to-turnover ratio is impressive. You look at their stats, you look at
ours.
Is Anderson underrated:
Not by players or coaches, but maybe when you talk about the national media,
when you talk about the NBA [mock drafts], though I don’t pay attention to those
things. It blows me away. You don’t deny the numbers now.
On why the teams have opposite records if they’re so similar
statistically:
Breaks, breaks. A basket here or there, say what you want, it’s just a break
here or there and it’s a different story. We’ve got to defend at a high rate and
really rebound.
On Arizona State:
I was really encouraged because, as I said last week, I know we hadn’t
started to play well. We hit rock-bottom first half – and Arizona State had
something to do with it. But in the second, I thought we played extremely well
in all phases. It was nice to see the guys respond down 10 at home. I couldn’t
agree with Herb more. He said we were real aggressive defensively and physical.
And offensively, we attacked and took shots. In the first half, believe it or
not, I thought we were hesitant and had some guys who didn’t want to shoot
it.
On Brook:
He was being sincere when he was asked if you could do that last year. I
don’t think he could. He’s got to finish more, he’s got to get that shooting
percentage over 50 percent. I thought this week was the first where he rebounded
his position and someone else’s. Usually with most big kids, you don’t have that
explosive quickness to the ball, you have tend to watch the ball come to you.
Brook was pursuing the ball to diff areas he was rebounding out of his area.
That one of those things in recruiting I always look for. Yeah, he might not be
able to rebound it because of lack of foot speed or whatever, but is he looking
for the ball, is he following the ball?
On going with a two-Lopez lineup against Cal’s bigs:
You’ll see a lot of them playing together. I think we have to. Whether our
bigs are good enough to compete with theirs, that remains to be seen. They come
with an abundance of post players. Look at it on paper, it’s a pretty good
matchup, quality of players, size and position and all that.
Darren Sabedra wonders if it’s his imagination, or if it’s a shift in
philosophy, but the ball seems to be going to Brook a lot. Us reporters play
dumb and phrase things like that when we think it’s a sensitive topic and need
to ease subjects into opening up about it.
It’s not imagined and our philosophy has always been the same. He’s getting
just as many touches as his brother does when he was playing there. We go into
the post just as much with Law. We’re throwing it in whether it’s on the right
or left block. But because he’s so talented he’s able to come up with positive
results and defensively, people have to rotate down. Makes sense to me, doesn’t
take a rock scientist.
Come on. Robin has taken 117 shots this season. Brook’s taken 120, and his
brother had a quarter head-start. (Law’s at 151.) In conference, Brook’s at 80,
Robin and Law combine for 83. As Trent says, I think that’s about what the
distribution should be, so then the question is why pretend it’s not so. The two
themes of Trent’s comments yesterday: downplaying our advantage over Cal, and
downplaying Brook’s dominance. We’ll have to see if our bigs can hold up with
theirs? Are you kidding?
On Robin’s decrease in minutes:
It’s not anything to do with Rob, or Brook. It has to do with the way Taj
keeps playing, has to do with Law. You look at it, only guys playing
consistently are Mitch and Anthony. With everyone else, 20-23 minutes, Brook a
little more. I like where we’re at. People are able to play harder for shorter
time periods.
Slight exaggeration, but only slight. In-conference, Brook and Law are
both at 27 per game, but Mitch and Anthony are the only players over 30 minutes
per game, with 33 apiece.
On Landry:
Landry looked like the Landry of old this week. That’s going to get him on
the floor more and limit Anthony’s minutes.
On playing big versus small:
I feel comfortable knowing that we can play small and compete and play big
and compete, and for us it’s not surprising, I think that was a question that
was answered in Italy. We knew going in we were going to have some flexibility.
One of the things that’s been disappointing in the league is that we’ve turned
it over more and it’s been unfortunate. There’s a comfort zone there but it’s
not surprising. We knew going in, Law was going to bounce back between the "3" or "4."
The key was who was going to be healthy? Was Fred going to be healthy? Was Brook
going to be there?
On whether he’s glad there’s no Thursday game:
Well me personally, yeah, but the kids want to play. That’s a long time for a
game. Again, it’s our rival, but it’s a game and there’s an even keel to this
group and how I like to approach this thing. It’s a game. The kids would like to
be playing but I like it from a standpoint they were able to have Sunday off, we
went through a light workout Monday, and they have today [Tuesday] off. This is
a group you can’t give two straight days off because they lose a lot of rhythm.
For me, it gives me an opportunity to get out and… [trails off].
Trent’s flight back, presumably a from recruiting trip, was delayed and he
said he got back just in time for the Tuesday noon presser.
On not giving two days off:
In the past, I’ve given two days off. It depends on your personnel. Back at
Nevada, I could give two or two-and-a-half days because we were so explosive, so
we could come back right away. These guys, we’ve got to stay fine-tuned. Mercy.
You guys have seen them, and that’s why we have exhibitions and things.
On whether he’s concerned with the lag:
The only concern I have is coming out after two days. If I have to be
concerned after playing anybody in this league, we’ve got issues. Cal’s got the
same days off as we’ve got.
Are you fully subscribed to The
Bootleg? If not, then you are missing out on all the top Cardinal
coverage we provide daily on our website, as well as our full-length feature
articles in our glossy magazine. Sign up today for the biggest and best in
Stanford sports coverage with TheBootleg.com (sign-up) and The Bootleg
Magazine (sign-up)!