UC Santa Barbara at Stanford

My pilot was getting married today so he took the day off, so unfortunately I couldn't get to Stanford to watch the game live from the non-bouncing floor. So I had to make do with the television set :)

The game summary is really short: Brook Lopez is out until the second semester, Robin Lopez and lawrence Hill got in very early foul trouble and sat out the first half, and Stanford was evenly matched with UC Santa Barbara, until the Gauchos stopped scoring towards the end of the first half. In the second half, with Lopez back, Stanford had the lead and the game was just moving along without any serious threats from the Gauchos.




Of interest, the two tv announcers were having an interesting discussion on the value and impact of Spencer Hawes vs Robin Lopez. Lopez was indeed a factor in the game, especially on the defensive end, and if Brook was around, his foul troubles wouldn't have had as much of an impact on the game. But he also had his fumbles and mistakes, which goes to show perhaps why Spencer Hawes is now in the NBA, and Robin Lopez is not?

By the way, the half time show entertainment was a martial arts act. Not that it really matters :)

For the Stanford fans reading this, the new 6th man club t-shirts from the Stanford store that are coming out are supporting a good cause: Lucille Packard's Children Hospital.

Of the Gauchos, Alex Harris was their star (he had 20+ ppg last season) and Stanford's Fred Washington took him on and slowed him down. Ivan Elliot had a good all around game for the Gauchos, he was their version of Fred Washington.

The absence of the Lopez twins and the subterranean play of Lawrence Hill showed something scary for Stanford fans: They are a Big West team without them. Yes, Stanford fans will not like this and they will object, but let's not forget Drew Shiller was a WCC transfer and he is their first guard off the bench. While Goods and Johnson are not bad players, they are not exactly All Pac-10 caliber players either. But they don't need them to play like lottery picks to win games, they just have to do what needs to get done.