With eighth-seeded Alabama’s 70-67 victory over the top-seeded Cardinal Saturday at KeyArena, Stanford has dropped five of its second-round games in the last six seasons. In four of the five losses, Stanford was the higher seed.
None, however, was as bitter as this one.
“I think you guys look at the past too much,” Cardinal forward Josh Childress said.
Stanford came in as the top-ranked team in the country in both major polls. It won its first 25 games of the regular season, only to be beaten 75-62 at Washington in the regular-season finale.
Now, back in Seattle, the Cardinal (30-2) saw its season end. Stanford outrebounded the Crimson Tide 49-29 and held Alabama to 1-of-17 shooting from the floor to open the second half, yet blew a 13-point second-half lead.
“We made shots to go up 13, then we started missing shots,” Stanford coach Mike Montgomery said. “Then they hit some big shots and made some key plays down the stretch. That closed things up rather quickly.”
To many, Alabama was done. It fell behind to the nation’s top-ranked team and, for all intents, it was done.
Except Alabama coach Mark Gottfried had seen his team come back before, against Providence, Georgia and Arkansas. His team wasn’t playing badly, he said.
“It wasn’t like we were puking up bad shots,” Gottfried said. “We were taking shots we need to make. I felt like some of our guys were starting to feel a little unsure. We just needed to believe and we told our guys to just keep playing. The shots were going to fall.”
Wolf Pack mauls Stepp: It’s likely that Gonzaga star guard Blake Stepp will see Nevada’s Garry Hill-Thomas in his sleep for many nights to come.
Harassed by Hill-Thomas for nearly all of Saturday’s 91-72 loss to the Wolf Pack Saturday, Stepp missed 15 of his 18 shots from the floor and was just 1-for-12 from beyond the 3-point arc.
Nevada point guard Todd Okeson, no stranger to shooting slumps, almost felt sorry for Stepp.
“As a shooter, you can’t build any confidence if your shot doesn’t go in,” he said. “I don’t want to take anything away from Garry because he was following Blake all over the court. Garry did a good job of not letting him get any open looks. He missed some shots in the first half and that carried over to the second half.”
Hill-Thomas’ strategy was simple and fundamental, but when you’re an all-WAC defender, simple and fundamental has a prodigious effect.
“He’s a great player,” Hill-Thomas said. “I just tried to make him work for whatever he could get. He crossed halfcourt and gave up the ball. I tried to make it as hard as I could for him to get it back. He just missed shots.”
Over the last two seasons, Stepp, usually a deadly perimeter shooter and daring driver, has seen a slew of gimmick defenses designed to stop him. However, Hill-Thomas was one of the few to stop him.
“Blake has probably faced that defense 31 times this year – grab and hold and crowd him and play him physical and get lots of help,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “They are a very athletic team. Down the stretch and on this road trip, they have really been defending well.”
To many who hadn’t seen Nevada play, Stepp’s struggle may have been borderline shocking. However, Nevada coach Trent Johnson said, unknown doesn’t equal untalented.
“All due respect to Gonzaga and Coach Few and Blake Stepp, but these guys that play for me are pretty good players,” Johnson said. “Garry’s been guarding a lot of good players in the WAC. Blake’s probably one of the top two or three guys he’s guarded this year.”
No weaknesses, maybe: In interviews Friday, Nevada was very politically correct in praising Gonzaga as a team without weaknesses.
That tune changed Saturday, after Bulldogs forward Ronny Turiaf was saddled with foul trouble and Wolf Pack big men dominated.
Nevada forward Kirk Fazekas said the Bulldogs post players played soft.
“On the defensive end, they don’t want to foul,” he said. “We did a good job of going after Turiaf and getting him to the bench in foul trouble the majority of the first half. It threw them off. I think that was the biggest thing in the first half.”
Nice lineup: The only other time Stanford played Alabama was in 1992, in the first round of the Southeast Regional in Cincinnati.
The Tide won that matchup, 80-75. It was an Alabama team that had future NBA players Latrell Sprewell (who scored 23 points that day), Robert Horry (19), James Robinson (16) and Jason Caffey (two).
Wimp Sanderson was the Alabama coach that day, matched against Montgomery.
Quote of the day: At various points of the season, Gottfried declared that his Alabama team “wasn’t that good.”
So did the victory against Stanford change anything?
“We’re still not very good,” Gottfried said. “We just compete. And if we still compete like we have, we may surprise some people.”
Tip-ins: For the first time since 1999 and the second time in 17 years, the Pacific-10 Conference has not reached the Sweet 16 … In the five years Mark Few has been head coach at Gonzaga, only Duke has more wins than the Bulldogs. Duke has won 149 games, Gonzaga 134 and Oklahoma 131 … Before Saturday’s loss, Gonzaga’s 22-game win streak was the longest in the nation … Gonzaga’s loss to Nevada was the first defeat for the Bulldogs in KeyArena in six games
John Sleeper
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