Fast Break Club On The Road

Order Cal Tix by Phone

2012-01-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

Stanford plays at Cal on Sunday March 4th at 6pm. At a recent "Behind the Bench," Eileen Roche said there would be a booster bus, but that there were no plans for buying a block of tickets for fans.

It is possible to order Haas Pavilion tickets online from the Cal online boxoffice...

However! — as two recent buyers have found, the best seats the online sales form can offer are in sections 4 and higher. Section 1 is behind the visitor bench. Section 17 is directly across from it. (And anyone who's gone to one of these games remembers that the Haas ushers are quite strict about where you sit.)

If you call the Cal ticket office directly at (800) GO BEARS (800-462-3277) you can ask for reserved-seat tickets in section 1, 2, or 17—and at least as of today, you can get them.

New Year’s Eve in Westwood

2011-12-31T17:57:00.001-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

A fast-paced 77-50 win over UCLA was a nice way to end the year and set the stage for a romp to Stanford’s first Pac-12 conference title. Especially because the Bruins had picked off Cal two days earlier 60-55 in the same venue.

Because Pauley Pavilion is being reconstructed, the game was played in the adjacent Wooden Center on the UCLA campus. The UCLA ticket office had told me all seating was general admission, but this was incorrect and half of seating along one side of the court was reserved, apparently for Bruin season ticket holders. Wooden has a capacity of only 1,800. Seating is on all four sides of the court in benches that go eight rows high. There is a single concession stand.

I arrived at 12:50 pm to find a long line of well over a hundred waiting for the doors to open at 1:00 pm. By the time I got inside all of the top row seats which let you lean back against the wall were taken so I took an aisle seat on one of the plastic-topped benches. The benches are slightly contoured, making them a little more comfortable than the upper level benches in Maples.

For once, my estimate of actual attendance and the official count closely agreed. I guessed there were about 1,500 there and the official attendance is 1,426. There were at least 100 Stanford fans present, twice as many as at the Thursday night USC game.

Only 9 Bruins were suited up to play, with 5 injured players on the UCLA bench. Unlike USC, there was no band and only a scratchy recording of the UCLA fight song was played when that team took the floor. One encouraging sight was Mikaela jogging across the floor before the game to get practice balls indicating some mending of her injured foot.

Wooden shows only the score with no display of player numbers or points. The announcer gave the count of personal fouls when these occurred, but no report of cumulative points scored by individuals.

As a suggestion that the game was not going to go UCLA’s way were three Bruin fouls in the first 90 seconds. And, unlike the USC game where the Trojans kept narrowing Stanford’s lead in both halves, this game provided a steadily expanding Cardinal lead. With 11:30 remaining in the first half, Stanford was up by 3, with 5:30 left in the half up by 8 and at the half the score was 40-23.

The second half was more of the same as the Stanford lead grew to 19, then 25, then 32 with 4 minutes left in the game. All Stanford players got on the court and 10 players had more than 11 minutes each.

The Big Three of Nneka, Chiney and Toni led the way with a combined total of 44 points. Both Nneka and Chiney had double-doubles with 18 points and 10 rebounds for Nneka and 15 points and 11 rebounds for Chiney. Stanford’s free throw shooting improved from 59% at USC to 70% today. But Cardinal 3-point shooting was dismal, connecting on only 2 of 13 attempts for 15%, with Toni and Sara getting one apiece.

UCLA played aggressive defense, occasionally pressing and trapping, but it could not contain Stanford. Stanford topped UCLA in rebounds 49 to 27. The Cardinal had 19 assists to 14 turnovers, while UCLA ended with a mere 5 assists to 11 turnovers. This game was Stanford all the way, ending with a decisive win that puts Stanford at 2-0 in conference play.

USC Plays Tough at Home

2011-12-29T23:26:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

It was a sloppy, hard-fought battle at the Galen Center on Thursday night with Stanford able to prevail in the last 8 minutes. Up to that point the game could have gone either way.

Stanford built a 12-point lead in the first half only to have USC cut it to 3 points at the half, 33-30. USC held close for most of the second half, achieving a 41-41 tie with 12 minutes left, then taking a small lead. With 8 minutes left Stanford was up only 46-44. Stanford then went on a 8-0 run to get the score to 54-44 with 4 ½ minutes left. In the ending minutes USC outscored Stanford 9 to 7, but it wasn’t enough for the Women of Troy, with Stanford hanging on for a final score of 61-53.

Senior point guard Ashley Corral had a great game for USC, ending with 21 points. Christina Marinacci had 12 points and 9 rebounds, Briana Gilbreath had 7 points and 12 rebounds. USC made 71% of its free throws. Stanford made an embarrassing 59% at the line with Chiney reverting to her free throw funk, making only 4 of 9. Nneka did well at the line with 7 of 8.

Tara used 10 players, but only 6 had more than 10 minutes—the starters plus Bonnie. Bonnie made her first two 3-point shots, but then missed her next 3. She contributed respectable defense, including a block.

Stanford was led by Nneka with 19 points and 15 rebounds. Stanford could not have won without her. Toni continued her stellar play with 15 points and 3 steals. Chiney achieved a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds.

This was a thrilling game, but it didn’t bring out USC fans. My guess at total attendance is 1,000, including about 50 or so Stanford fans. All seating was general admission and the most expensive ticket was $7. Parking in the adjacent garage was $10.

The LA Times continues to give almost no coverage to women’s college basketball. Today the Times gave a preview of the USC and UCLA men’s games that were played in the Bay Area, but gave only one line to the local USC and UCLA women’s games with nary a comment. In contrast, the New York Times devoted more than half a page to the Texas A&M women today.

Cindy and John Pohlen attended. Lisa Leslie had a front row mid-court seat. Ros Gold-Onwude was doing the KZSU commentary and went over for a half-time chat with Lisa. Several former Stanford players were there, including Krista Rappahahn.

So Stanford is 1-0 in Pac-12 play, but it was a worrisome win, as road games often are.

Good seats at University of Oregon

2011-12-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

Thanks to our helpful rep Jason at OU, we have a commitment that our block of seats at Matt Knight Arena will be in section 102, behind the visiting bench. Here's the floor plan.

Three people have signed up so far; keep it comin'!

OU Brunch and Ticket Buy

2011-12-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

Fan Brunch Before OU Game

The Cardinal play Oregon in Eugene at 2pm, Saturday February 18th

Prior to that game, Andrew Nelson and others of the Eugene alumni group will host a brunch for visiting fans at a local restaurant convenient to Knight Arena. No booking or prepayment is needed for this, but we would like an idea of how many are coming -- see below!

Group Ticket Buy

We will pre-purchase a block of seats for this OU game. (For the OSU game of Thursday evening, 2/16, buy at the door.)

To participate in the ticket buy, please request your seats by email to travel (at) stanfordfbc.org soon, but at any rate no later than the Washington game of January 21st. Whether or not you want tickets, use the same email address to say if you plan to attend the pregame brunch in Eugene.

Hopefully we'll have tickets to hand out at the "Behind the Bench" after the UCLA game of February 12th.

11s no jinx in Texas

2011-11-11T21:45:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

On the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011 the Stanford women, with the eyes of Texas upon them, won their first official game of the season in Austin. They won it without Nneka who was out with some kind of “upper body injury”. They did it with important contributions from two of the freshmen. And they did it with Tara using 12 players, including 5 freshmen. It was not a pretty win, but it was a clear and important W.

Seven players had 21 or more minutes, including freshmen Taylor with 29 and Amber with 25. Taylor started the game, showing that her start against Vanguard was not just an exhibition oddity.

The first 6 minutes of the game were essentially a tie. Stanford took the lead and kept it with 8 minutes left in the first half. At the half it was Stanford up 35-30. Mikaela played for the first time this season—a total of 9 minutes.

Texas really stepped up its defensive pressure in the second half and maintained it to the end of the game. Stanford withstood the pressure well, although its lead shrank to 4 points with 13:30 left in the game. After that Stanford pulled itself together and kept control of the game, ending with a final score of 72-59.

On this Veterans Day, important veteran playing came from Chiney, Joslyn, Toni, Lindy and Sarah. Two outstanding freshman performances were provided by Taylor and Amber.

Chiney had a double-double in her 26 minutes, despite early foul trouble. She was high scorer with 16 points and 14 rebounds. Amber with 25 minutes and Joslyn with 23 minutes each scored 14 points and had 6 rebounds. Joslyn finished the game with 4 fouls. Toni scored 10 points and had 2 rebounds in 25 minutes. Taylor had 9 points and 2 rebounds in 29 minutes. Lindy’s stats were not impressive, but her play was. Sarah scored 6 points and had 6 rebounds in 21 minutes.

This was a hard-fought game with the outcome not certain until the last 5 minutes. Texas is a strong team and deserves its #24 ranking. Interesting comments from Texas fans seated behind me were that Chiney was the best player on the floor and that Tara is not afraid to substitute.

What were some of the lessons learned? Not having Nneka makes a big difference, but not a fatal one. Chiney is a leader and was able to rise above her early foul trouble to finish strong. Joslyn is truly much improved this season. Lindy and Toni can come through under pressure. Taylor and Amber both are excellent all-around players who did exceptionally well in their first real tests.

Tara substituted more freely than she usually does. She used eleven players in the first half.

Improvement is needed in rebounding and free-throw shooting, along with Nneka’s return to health.

Official attendance was 4,700, but my estimate was 3,500. Somewhere between 35 and 50 Stanford fans were there, including Taylor’s parents and an enthusiastic group of Amber’s family members. The win was satisfying and the trip to Austin worthwhile. This Stanford team needs lots of improving, but it is a good one--and this should be an enjoyable season.

Texas Pre-game Party Finalizing

2011-10-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

Austin-based Stanford Alum Sam Chang and the Stanford Club of Austin are finalizing the headcount for a pre-game dinner party near the game site, the afternoon of the Cardinal's game at Texas. Email Sam (spamchang@gmail.com) to get on the list if you haven't already.

Also be aware that if you stay in Austin through Saturday, you needn't miss watching the Stanford-Oregon football game. The same organization is planning a game-watching party and all are welcome; email Sam for details.

Tickets for UCONN and UCLA

2011-10-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

UConn Tickets from Stanford

If you plan to attend the pre-Thanksgiving game at UConn, you can order tickets right now for $22 from our Women's Basket office. Call the office (723-0284) or email Eileen Roche (eroche@stanford.edu) with your request.

UCLA Seating Is All G.A.

As noted in the preceding post, UCLA is playing in an 1,800-seat venue this year, and no single-game tix for Stanford's New Year's Eve game at UCLA will be sold. If you have clicked-through to buy a "Mini-Plan" at the UCLA ticket sale site, you may have noted that it appear to be selling you specific seats by row and number. Not so! Wally Mersereau talked to the UCLA ticket folks and:

The ticket office rep told me the row and seat numbers are meaningless and are just a quirk of the computer system. I was told that no one, including season ticket holders, have reserved seats. I was told the doors at the Wooden Center will open one hour before game time. If you are there when the doors open and are fleet of foot you can sit in the seat of your choice wherever it may be.

Waiting in line to pick up will-call tickets might make you a loser in this foot-race. Do as Wally did; call the UCLA central ticket office at 310/825-2101 and order your tickets to be mailed to you.

Limited Seating at UCLA

2011-10-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

Wally Mersereau has been shopping ahead for away-game tickets and reports:

The UCLA women's basketball team will not play in Pauley Pavilion this season because it is being rebuilt. The team will play in the John Wooden Center, a student recreation facility that is diagonally opposite Pauley, on top of the underground parking garage that is entered from Sunset Boulevard at Westwood Plaza. The Wooden Center has limited seating.

Here is the UCLA page. Collins Court is a gym with pull-out bleachers and a capacity of 1,808. Wally continues,

I just learned this morning that single game tickets will not be sold for the Stanford-UCLA game at the Wooden Center. To get a seat you have to buy at least a Mini-Plan ticket good for 5 games that costs $29... Single game tickets for UCLA will go on sale on October 4, but not for Stanford and some other "big" games.

According to the NCAA, UCLA in 2010 had average attendance of 1,689. The Stanford game would no doubt pull more than the average; hence, they are likely to fill this small facility. On that basis, it is probably smart to order tickets ahead.

On the other hand this game is on Saturday Dec. 31st, New Year's Eve; many students will be off-campus. And, the sight lines in a small gym are short, so it wouldn't matter much if you were in the top row corner. On the other hand, $29 isn't so much on top of the other costs of a trip to L.A. Here's where to order tickets.

2011-12 Travel Plans Forming!

2011-09-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Dinner meet-up in Austin

Stanford alum Sam Chang and others in the Stanford Club of Austin are planning a pre-game dinner meet before the Stanford-Texas game on Friday, November 11th.

If you are planning to make this trip and want to join in, email Sam directly (spamchang@gmail.com).

New Travel Info Posted

The FBC Travel page has been updated with fresh info for 2011-12! The general info has been refreshed (big surprise: airport parking costs $1 more than last year). Also, logistics info and travel suggestions for the first two trips (Texas, and UConn/Xavier) have been added.

That’s All, Folks!

2011-07-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

By Wally Mersereau

South Bay, the team with Stanford players in the summer Pro-Am league at Kezar Pavilion, was short two of its Stanford players on Saturday, July 23. Taylor Greenfield was present on the bench, but not suited up. Joslyn Tinkle was not present. I do not know the reason Taylor did not play or why Joslyn was missing. Alex Green, the sixth freshman, who is recovering from an ACL injury was again sitting on the bench as she has all season, quietly supporting her teammates.

Joslyn has been the team’s dominant player, averaging about 30 points per game, while snagging rebounds, blocking shots and providing leadership. She was sorely missed on Saturday. The team had no one to replace her scoring and defensive contributions. The team was down to 7 players in this first play-off game against the San Francisco team which has several Cal players, including Natasha Vital, Talia Caldwell and Lindsay Sherbert, and the brilliant freshman Brittany Boyd. Boyd again was outstanding, doing everything well, while always displaying great confidence. She will be a real asset for the Bears.

Bonnie Samuelson was back after missing the two games last weekend. Stanford was represented on the South Bay team by Bonnie, Amber Orrange, Jasmine Camp, Erica Payne and Markisha Coleman.

It was a closely matched and excellent game. South Bay was ahead 51-47 at the half. In the second half South Bay increased its lead to 13 points with 11:00 minutes remaining, but then its lead began to shrink. South Bay led by only 3 points at the 8:00 minute mark and the game was tied with 7:15 left. South Bay trailed by 5 with 2:00 to go, but managed to battle back to end the regulation game tied at 92-92. Jessica Kellogg, formerly of San Jose State, was a great clutch player for South Bay.

With 3:00 remaining in overtime and the score 94-94, Erica fouled out, the third South Bay player to do so, leaving only four players available. Despite being short a player on the floor, South Bay still had a chance with 30 seconds left and the score 94-97. The final score was 95-100 and South Bay’s season ended.

It seems clear that if Joslyn had played South Bay would have won and moved on in the play-offs. In her absence, Bonnie had her finest game, making 6 of 7 three-pointers, including her first four attempts and ending with 30 points. Bonnie made all but one of her free throws. Amber was the second-high scorer with 14 points, all in the first half.

Amber and Jasmine are fast. Jasmine plays fast most of the time. Amber tends to amble down the floor, but she can take off like a rocket when she decides to do so. Both are fearless around the basket, undeterred by taller players. Amber had several good passes today.

Erica had a relatively poor game, troubled by fouls, but provided some excellent defense as always.

Bonnie will benefit from time in the weight room and coaching encouragement to play more aggressively, but she is an outstanding 3-point shooter, a nice specialty.

This was an above-average Kezar season for Stanford fans. There was the high number of freshmen to observe. There was the rare presence of a junior in Joslyn, who has never looked better. The quality of play by South Bay was above average and its games were fun to watch. In short, Kezar provided an interesting and encouraging preview of the incoming freshman class and of an improved Joslyn Tinkle.

Next up: the start of official practice in October.

Win One, Lose One

2011-07-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

By Wally Mersereau:

South Bay, the Stanford proxy team, played at Kezar twice this weekend to make up for the first week of the season when South Bay could not field a team because Stanford’s summer school had not begun and the student-athletes had not arrived.

This week’s Saturday game on July 16 was attended by a goodly number of Stanford fans, by Kezar standards--perhaps as many as 25. They were treated to the most shared scoring yet by the Stanford players. The final score was South Bay 98—East Bay 65. East Bay ended the game with a 0-5 season record, putting it exclusively in the cellar and out of the playoffs. South Bay’s league-leading record at game’s end was a nice 4-0, the only undefeated team in the league.

My scorekeeping for Saturday gave Joslyn Tinkle 33 points, followed by Jasmine Camp with 13, Amber Orrange with 12, Erica Payne with 9, Markisha Coleman with 7 and Taylor Greenfield with 6. Markisha plays with abandon at Kezar and does quite well at the point.

Bonnie Samuelson did not participate in either of this weekend’s games, probably because of her uncle’s recent death.

As point guards, Amber and Jasmine were either a little off in their passing on Saturday or East Bay was more nimble than most teams have been in disrupting their passes. Amber and Jasmine also had some passing problems on Sunday, but played well otherwise.

I thought Sunday’s July 17 game was the most exciting of the season, although it produced South Bay’s first and only loss with a final score of 87-91. The winning team was Mission Rec, the Kezar team with experienced veterans who have playing time together. Mission Rec is led by Toni Russell (a Kezar veteran who has played in Europe), Amanda Lassiter (with WNBA and Europe experience) and KiKi Moore (formerly Washington State, now Fresno State). Only about a dozen Stanford fans were present on Sunday.

South Bay got off to a good start leading by 12 points or so in the first half, but let its lead dwindle to 47-43 at the half. South Bay built its lead back to 12 points in the second half, but Mission Rec slowly came back, pulling to within one point with 4 minutes remaining and tying the score with 2 minutes to go. The regulation game ended in an 84-84 tie. The overtime period was tied 87-87 with 1:30 to go, then Mission Rec got up 87-89 with 30 seconds remaining. At that point I thought an official made a wrong call on an out-of-bounds ball, turning the ball over to Mission Rec and depriving South Bay of a chance to tie or pull ahead. Late in the game I thought Mission Rec combined its greater experience with more fire in the belly to will itself to the tie and then to the win, aided by the unfortunate out-of-bounds call.

Erica Payne had a great game on Sunday. She is an aggressive player, always in the mix. While continuing her stellar defensive play, she scored 24 points, just behind Joslyn’s team-leading 28 points. Amber finished with 11 points on Sunday.

In my opinion, based on the five Kezar games to date, the three best, always hustling, freshmen are Amber, Erica and Jasmine. I think these three have the best chance to make it into the Stanford rotation this fall, probably joined by Bonnie because of her 3-point shooting ability.

So the Kezar regular season ended with Mission Rec and South Bay having identical 4-1 records, but because Mission Rec beat South Bay it became the winner of the regular season and will not play again until August 6 when it will meet the survivor of the playoffs among the 2nd to 5th place teams on July 23 and July 30. The good news is that South Bay is now in the playoffs and will continue to play. South Bay’s next game will be at 2 pm on Saturday, July 23.

Stanford fans will have a least one more opportunity to see the freshmen, plus Joslyn and Markisha, do their best to make it into the championship series against Mission Rec. If you haven’t enjoyed Kezar’s laid-back ambiance, give it a try. You’ll be glad you did.

Another Kezar win

2011-07-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

By Wally Mersereau

Despite a couple of problems to overcome, the predominately Stanford South Bay team kept on winning on July 9 in the Kezar summer league. The final score was 96-68 over the Golden State team that had a couple of incoming Cal freshmen. The game was closer than suggested by the score, with South Bay only up by a point or two with 8-10 minutes remaining. Golden State only had 6 players (to South Bay's 9 players) and probably got tired. South Bay did a lot of fouling and Golden State did well with free-throw shooting and that kept the game as close as it was until near the end. At the half South Bay led by 44-40.

Jasmine Camp collected four fouls, which limited her playing time. Markisha Coleman had three or four fouls.

The most surprising South Bay problem was Bonnie Samuelson's shooting. By my count she made only one of twelve 3-point attempts. Her misses were not particularly close, but she kept firing away. Bonnie played well otherwise, making a couple of lay-ups and passing and rebounding well.

My vote for outstanding defensive player of the game goes to Erica Payne who had a great second half. During one stretch she seemed to be a one-person defensive team, stopping Golden State on possession after possession with blocks, steals and rebounds.

Amber Orrange and Jasmine Camp again did really well as point guards with Amber perhaps doing just a tad better overall. Both passed very well, often deceptively. Amber was two for two from the 3-point line and Jasmine was one for two. Amber drove for a basket, Jasmine drove for three.

Joslyn Tinkle didn't seem as dominant as in the first two games, but still scored 34 points, including two out of three 3-point shots. She was followed by Amber and Jasmine with 14 points each.

Sparkling at Kezar

2011-07-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

By Wally Mersereau

The early Fourth of July sparklers lighting up Kezar Pavilion on July 2 were the incoming Stanford freshmen. They all played well in their second summer-league game. Last week I was able to rank the four newcomers who played. This week I just have to say they all played well and all looked good. Joslyn Tinkle out-shone them all by a healthy margin as she did last week. At Kezar it's hard to tell how good Joslyn really is. She has been head and shoulders above the freshmen, literally and figuratively, in the first two games. As a junior she should be a lot better and she is. Joslyn has been doing everything remarkably well and is the go-to player on the South Bay team. But we all know about Joslyn.

Of greater interest are the freshmen.

This was Erica Payne's first game. She did not play last week because of an ankle injury. There was no hint of any ankle problem today. Erica played aggressive offense and defense whenever she was on the floor. She seemed to get to the right place at the right time and often battled for the ball. She made some nice passes and shots.

Amber Orrange is a lefty. I didn't notice that last week, but she relies on her left hand for mid-range and long-range shots. Amber looked very good at point guard. She made two driving baskets and her passing was crisp.

Jasmine Camp played twice as well as she did last week. She is fast and quick. I like her style of play. She stayed close to her assigned player on defense. She also made two driving baskets. I thought Amber and Jasmine were equal at point guard today.

I ranked Taylor Greenfield last among the freshmen last week, but she was more assertive this week. She played aggressively on defense, shot well and did as well as any of her frosh teammates.

Bonnie Samuelson didn't shoot much last week and was somewhat inconspicuous on the floor. This week she had some open shots and made four 3-pointers. She was more in evidence at other times too. Bonnie looks like a dependable 3-point shooter if she gets open.

There was better teamwork for South Bay today. They actually appeared to be running plays. There were a number of passes to cutting players, screens were set and there were several multiple-pass plays.

I was much more impressed with the Stanford freshmen in their second game. Maybe they had more confidence and were a bit more comfortable playing together. I rank all of them equal today. This was an enjoyable and encouraging game to watch. Oh yes, South Bay won 111-81 over San Francisco which was dominated by Cal players. Cal has a great incoming freshman in Brittany Boyd from Berkeley. She is good at everything, has lots of confidence and was the best player for San Francisco, even outplaying Natasha Vital.

Today at Kezar

2011-06-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

Wally Mersereau travelled to San Francisco today and posted the following report of the South Bay vs Bay City game at Kezar.

Stanford players showed up for the first time at Kezar today to play on the South Bay team. Those present were Joslyn Tinkle, Amber Orrange, Jasmine Camp, Bonnie Samuelson, Taylor Greenfield and past player Markisha Coleman. Because of a shortage of players for opposing Bay City, Markisha played for that team. Erica Payne was a no-show with an injured ankle.

About 15 or so Stanford fans attended.

Bonnie Samuelson made about 80% of her pre-game three-pointers, but took very few shots during the game.

This was a typical sloppy, but enjoyable, Kezar game. Bay City took a healthy lead of 11-12 points in the first half, led by Brittany Spears (formerly Colorado), Jessica Kellogg (formerly San Jose State) and Amber White (Utah State). Markisha played very well, especially on drives to the basket.

Joslyn led a South Bay resurgence in the second half, allowing SB to take the lead for the first time with 10 minutes remaining. After that the lead went back and forth until SB finally wrapped it up in the last couple of minutes to win 85-81.

Not surprisingly, Joslyn was the best of the Stanford players with good blocks and rebounds and with a variety of scoring shots, mostly spin moves and hooks. Joslyn also made about three 3-pointers. Amber and Jasmine alternated at the point. They handled the ball well. Amber was aggressive with lots of drives to the basket and a nice pull-up jumper. She probably was the second high scorer from Stanford. Jasmine made a few baskets, including at least one three. Bonnie scored maybe three times from behind the line. Taylor did well on rebounds, but shot little.

Based on this first viewing I would rank the freshmen in this order: Amber, Bonnie, Jasmine, Taylor. None of the freshmen looked like starters. Neither Amber or Jasmine looked close to challenging Toni Kokenis at the point.

Stunned by the unthinkable

2011-04-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

By Wally Mersereau

I thought this was the team that deserved a national championship. It entered the first Final Four game relatively healthy. It had experience. Texas A&M seemed like a preferable opponent for the semi-final game rather than Baylor--no Griner to have to deal with. I came to Indianapolis to see my first Final Four because I thought this would be the time.

There was a good send-off from the Crowne Plaza hotel by maybe 250 Stanford fans, the band, the Tree and four Dollies. A two-motorcycle police escort with sirens led the team bus to the arena. Somewhere between 800 and 1,000 Stanford fans attended the game. There was an Edy's ice cream concession at Conseco Fieldhouse. The stage was set.

I have seen every Stanford game this season. I can attest that Texas A&M presented the most effective defense Stanford has faced. The Cardinal initially appeared rattled by the tight defense and was down by 7 in the first half, but fought back to take a 4-point lead at the half, 27-23. I thought and said it could have been worse. Stanford had ended the half with a little momentum.

The second half went much better for Stanford through the first 15 minutes with the Cardinal generally having an 8- to 10-point lead. But the lead was never a comfortable one and team fouls began to climb. With 4:20 left the Stanford lead was down to 5 and Chiney fouled out. With 3:41 left the lead was down to 3. Stanford managed to get up by 4, 58-54, with 2:23 remaining. At the 1:33 mark the lead was one. With less than a minute to go the game was tied and then A&M was up by one. Nenka's two free throws reversed the lead to 60-59 Stanford. At some point Mel fouled out. A&M made a lay-up with 19 seconds remaining and it was 60-61. Nneka's quick lay-up made it Stanford ahead 62-61 with 9 seconds left. A thrilling win seemed likely--but no, it was not to be. With 3 seconds left A&M made a final lay-up to win 62-63. A desperation down-the-court Stanford heave on the inbound was picked off by A&M and it was over.

Nneka was the only Stanford player that could deal with the A&M defense to score an amazing 31 points, along with 7 rebounds. Jeanette was the only other player in double digits with 11. Kayla and Chiney were both held to 4 points. Kayla grabbed 10 rebounds which may have been enough to give her a new careeer rebounding record.

Seven Stanford players had 11 minutes or more, with the biggest surprise being Mel's 27 minutes, during which she scored 8 points. Kayla played the entire game, Nneka and Jeanette had 39 minutes and Mikaela had 20 minutes. Chiney's foul problems limited her to 19 minutes. Toni was ineffective and played only 4 minutes. Another surprise was that Joslyn did not play at all.

The only thing that has eased the pain slightly as I write this is that Notre Dame beat UConn in the second game 72-63. So no #1 seed will be in the championship game on Tuesday. Two semi-final upsets. The anticipated Stanford-UConn rematch will not happen.

And so the dream has ended abruptly in Indianapolis. It was great while it lasted, it just didn't last quite long enough. Once again: so near and yet so far.

Pre-game Activities in Indianapolis

2011-03-31T19:57:00.000-07:00

If you are going to Indianapolis for the Final Four, note the following activities that occur on Saturday:

Open practice and autograph sessions, 10:45am to 3pm. The schedule is:
- 11am-noon, Stanford
- noon-1pm, Texas A&M
- 1:35-2:35, UConn
- 2:40-3:40, Notre Dame
Battle of the Bands, 3:45-4:15.
WBCA High-school All-American game, the roster including Stanford recruits Amber Orrange and Taylor Greenfield, 4:30.

All the above take place at the Conseco Fieldhouse, the venue for the games as well. Click that link for arena information including floor plan. Here is the official NCAA event schedule.

On Sunday 4pm-6pm there is a reception and band send-off at the Crowne Plaza hotel. Click here for more info and the address to request a reservation.

The recommended bar and watering hole for Stanford fans is the Buffalo Wild Wings Bar and Grille at 7 East Washington Street.

How sweet it is!

2011-03-28T23:58:00.000-07:00

By Wally Mersereau

What a difference a game makes! There are wins and there are wins. Two nights ago I was wrung out after the down-to-the-end battle with North Carolina with Jeanette making only one basket from the floor. After this game, along with all of the Stanford fans present, I was thrilled, happy and had plenty of energy. At the trophy presentation the words were: "The trophy for the Spokane Regional is presented to Stanford University along with an invitation to the Final Four in Indianapolis". No sweeter words could have been spoken. How amazing that this team is going to its fourth consecutive Final Four!

It was especially satisfying for this win over Gonzaga to end in such a dominating manner. All over Spokane were signs reading "Good luck, Lady Zags" and "Go Zags". 11,000 locals packed the Spokane Arena and roared in anticipation before the game. An article about Courtney Vandersloot in today's Spokesman-Review came close to having her walking on water. She is a truly outstanding player who can do just about everything. In the first half she was unstoppable, making 21 points this way and that. But in the second half Courtney made only 4 points and her team made only 8 of 34 shots.

There was a nice send-off of the team from the Davenport Hotel (they stayed in the old hotel this time) with the band, Dollies and Tree performing before a line of clapping players and a good representation of fans. The news of Tennessee's loss to Notre Dame was learned by smartphone just at the opening tip-off of the game and that put Cardinal fans in a good mood. Nneka, as usual, got the opening tip and Stanford scored first. Slowly, Stanford pulled ahead. The lead was one after 4 minutes, 8 after 7 minutes, 10 after 10 minutes. Then Gonzaga battled back, led by Courtney, narrowing the lead to 5 points with 6 minutes to go. At the half Stanford led 47-38. At that point Nneka led Stanford scoring with 15 points to Courtney's 21.

The second half was all Stanford. With 16 minutes to go the lead was 16, it grew to 20 with 12 minutes left and to 23 with 7 minutes remaining. The final score was a sweet 83-60, with Mel making a pretty floating lay-up just before the end.

The box score is not available as I write this, but in this game minutes played were mostly by the starters. Toni came off the bench first, then Joslyn, then Mikaela. Jeanette had a few wild passes in the first half and Tara sent Mel in to replace her just before the half ended. My impression is that the starters played almost all of the second half. There was no reason to replace them as they shut down Gonzaga while scoring and rebounding at will.

Jeanette had five 3-pointers to bring her season total for threes to 93, breaking Krista Rappahahn's Stanford record by two. Lindy and Kayla added more threes. At one point Kayla had four straight rebounds and she had more as she nears the season rebound record. If Nneka wasn't scoring or rebounding, Chiney was. Nneka led Stanford scoring with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Chiney had 18 points and 15 rebounds. Jeanette had 17 points and Lindy 11. Kayla's totals are not available to me now, but she was everywhere, doing everything. There was nothing hesitant about the team tonight. They played with confidence and great determination. There were a few mistakes, but they were far outweighed by stellar playing, individually and collectively. This was a great team performance, unfazed by the 98% Gonzaga capacity crowd. And certainly Tara and her crew did an outstanding job, especially with half-time adjustments.

The All-Regional Team was announced at the end of the game: Italee Lucas of North Carolina, Courtney Vandersloot, Kayla, Chiney and Nneka with Nneka being named MVP.

I was expecting to greet the team when it returned to the Davenport, but learned that it headed straight for the airport after the game for a charter flight home.

And so it is off to the Final Four once again. How sweet it is! May the good times continue.

Through the wringer

2011-03-27T01:07:00.000-07:00

By Wally Mersereau

Before coming to Spokane I told a friend that the games here would show whether #1-seed Stanford has enough fortitude and composure to earn another trip to the Final Four. I guess that's what it took to win the Saturday game over #5-seed North Carolina, but the composure of the 300 or so Stanford fans present was entirely gone by the end of the tension-filled, emotionally draining game. As I walked to my car in the post-game drizzle I could hear Tara's TV interview over the outside p.a. system at the Spokane Arena. She was excited and happy. I was wrung out.

But let me start at the beginning.

There were long lines at the arena doors and will call windows when I arrived. It took me a while to find the Stanford will call window where there was no line and my ticket was quickly produced. The Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena was virtually full and the game was reported as being a sell-out. The official attendance was announced as 11,339. 95% of that number were Gonzaga fans. All of the arena was used, including the upper section that reaches to the roof. There were very few North Carolina fans present--not more than 50 by my estimate.

In the first game #11-seed Gonzaga had a 35-24 half-time lead over #7-seed Louisville. The Bulldogs generally played with more maturity and poise than the Cardinals. Courtney Vandersloot was outstanding for the Zags with 27 final points to Shoni Shimmel's 18. Five minutes into the second half Gonzaga had increased its lead to 20 points and looked as if it would just keep pulling ahead. But Louisville somehow began to slowly claw back and Shoni, who had only 2 points at half-time, began to score repeatedly. With 3 minutes left in the game, Louisville had pulled to within 3 points--a miraculous comeback. But Shoni and her teammates could not progress further. After Gonzaga made a number of game-ending free throws the final score was 76-69 with the grossly under-seeded Zags deservedly making it to the Elite Eight and a rematch with Stanford on Monday.

Tara, Kate and Bobbie watched the first game from mid-court seats. Tara and Bobbie left with 10 minutes remaining, but Kate stayed for the entire game, indicating she was the primary scout.

And then came the Stanford-North Carolina game. I had wondered what the Tar Heel mascot would turn out to be. It was a strange-looking goat with curved yellow horns and a somewhat mouse-like face. The mascot was not impressive in appearance or performance. But the North Carolina players were most impressive and generally stuck like tar, answering Stanford basket after basket for the entire game.

The first half was close with the teams exchanging narrow leads. The game was mostly tied during the final 6 minutes of the first half until Stanford managed to end up by 4 with a score of 39-35. Better than the last UCLA game, but providing no level of comfort. The game was not pretty and no Stanford players really stood out. Most of the Gonzaga fans stayed for the start of the Stanford game, but a lot of them left at the half.

The second half was similarly close. Stanford led for the most part, but only by two to four points. The Tar Heels lived up to their sticky nickname and just would not go away. Italee Lucas was the stand-out player for North Carolina. She is only 5'8', but Stanford could not stop her from scoring in an assortment of ways. It basically was a two-point game for the final 10 minutes. And then those wonderful Ogwumike sisters came through, scoring 12 crucial points between them as the clock ran down. There was less than a minute to play before Chiney increased the lead to 4 points and for the first time North Carolina did not answer back. Jeanette missed all but one of her shots from the field during the course of the game, but she fortunately was the player the Tar Heels fouled in desperation and Jeanette was able to put the game beyond reach with her free throws in the last 30 seconds.

Nneka was again high scorer for Stanford with 19 points, followed by Chiney with 16 and I think Kayla with 14. Kayla again played the entire game and did everything.

And so the Elite Eight game of the Spokane region is set for Monday: Stanford vs. momentum-propelled local favorite Gonzaga. The arena will again be packed with more than 11,000 Gonzaga fans and they will be loud. The exhausted Stanford fans in Spokane will have two days to pull themselves together and get braced for what probably will be another epic contest.

The hard way

2011-03-12T20:32:00.001-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

Well, Saturday started off pretty much like Friday. A walk up Figueroa Street, the band and Dollies playing and dancing, the players getting on the bus, etc. The tournament championship game against UCLA started a half hour earlier, still pretty much the same. Attendance was far better for the final game. It looked to me as if about 2,500 were present with about 250 of them supporting Stanford, including Condi Rice in a mid-court, court-side seat. There were many more UCLA fans.

Stanford got off to an early start as it did the day before. UCLA was supposed to be a tougher opponent than Arizona--and, sure enough, it was. This was a far superior performance by the Bruins than in the two previous games--no comparison really. Stanford maintained a lead for the first 8 minutes of the game and then the wheels began to get a little wobbly. With 5 minutes left in the first half the wheels came off and UCLA took a 3-point lead. The Bruins increased their lead to 6 and then to 9 when the half ended. The half-time score was UCLA 30, Stanford 21. I know it's a lot more fun to win than to lose, but it also is a lot more fun to lead than to fall behind. That is the wrong kind of momentum. That is what Stanford's opponents face most of the time.

During the half-time interlude I tried to find some hopeful indicators and found none. A Stanford fan asked me, "Do you think they can come back?" and I said I didn't know. UCLA played better and better as the first half progressed, confidently, and with breaks seeming to go its way. I didn't see any breaks go Stanford's way and I wondered where they might come from. I wondered how the Bruins could be stopped and had no clue.

Four minutes into the second half Stanford was still down by 9 points. And then Toni entered the game to replace Lindy. Things suddenly began to look up. The UCLA lead shrank to five and then to three, then back up to 6 and then down to four. Then, wonderfully, the sun broke through and with five minutes left in the game Stanford was up by 3--the first Stanford lead in 20 minutes of playing time. Not only did Stanford recapture the lead after crawling out of its hole, but it never gave it back. A bit later the Cardinal was up by six and then by seven and finally by nine--the same margin it had trailed at the half. So Stanford out-scored UCLA by 18 points in the second half, an impressive comeback. The kind of comeback great teams are capable of. The final score was 64-55.

Tara came up with half-time adjustments and the team carried them out. It was a team effort with many participants. But the spark off the bench, the leading scorer of the game and the heroine of the final game was Toni. It was a great and gutsy performance by the freshman guard. She had shown signs of this in the first half to the extent that an observant Bruin fan seated behind me said more than once, "the one I'm worried about is #31," and he was right on the money. Toni did things no other Stanford player could do. Toni ended the game with a career-high 17 points. Nneka added 15 points and Kayla 12. The Big Three played all 40 minutes. Chiney had foul problems and eventually fouled out in the final minutes, but still played 26 minutes. Things went better when she was in the game. Toni played 23 minutes, followed by Lindy with 18. Stanford shot only 27% from the three for a total of 7, but they were crucial baskets.

They say, "All's well that ends well." This game ended well, but it was a painful ordeal before and after the half. Eventually, Stanford won the game, the tournament, and ended undefeated in the PAC-10. Nneka was selected as MVP of the tournament, and rightly so. But the game ball for the final game goes to Toni.

And so ends the Pac-10 games of 2010-11 with Stanford winning all 20 of its games. Stanford showed its strength and fortitude in this game, but it had to do it the hard way. The easy way is much more fun.

The Semi-Finals

2011-03-11T21:56:00.001-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

This morning I walked 20 minutes up Figueroa Street from the Staples Center to the Downtown LA Marriott where all of the women's teams are staying. About 30 or so Stanford fans were there to see the team off with the band, Dollies, Tree and cheerleaders. Arizona departed at the same time and both bands played side by side sometimes at the same time to produce a truly deafening sound under the hotel overhang. I was really impressed with the Dollies who are much more vigorous, athletic and attractive up close than they are viewed from a distance on the court. Viewing the high kicking and ever-smiling Dollies from a few feet away was awesome. After the team put their bags on the bus they formed a clapping line, enjoying the music and dancing. The Arizona band also was excellent. The Wildcat dancing girls were unsurpassed with regard to their glistening lipstick, all of the same shade of Arizona red, expertly and liberally applied.

After the send-off, Marian and Dave Cortesi, Judy Richter and I walked several blocks with Peter Ogwumike who had flown in from Africa the day before. I urged him to send his younger two daughters to Stanford and he said that would be fine with him.

It was another beautiful day, a little cooler with a high temperature in the mid-60s and somewhat more haze in the distance. From Dave Cortesi I learned that a rule for tournaments is that the higher ranked team is considered the home team and wears white uniforms, which Stanford did. Attendance for both of today's games approached 1,000 with Stanford fans being about 8-9% of that. There were almost no Cal fans present, but good representations from Arizona and UCLA. An attempt was made to restrict seating to four sections on the bench side of the arena, but this effort failed and fans ended up sitting on both sides.

This was my first visit to the Staples Center. It is a good arena, but not perfect. It had lots of food choices today, including sushi, Mexican, California Pizza Kitchen, McDonald's and even a gluten-free stand, in addition to the usual arena items. The sound system was poor, making the announcer only semi-understandable. The same announcer was great at the Galen Center. There is a new giant central video/scoreboard unit, but there were no video replays. Marian Cortesi gave me her scorecard for Staples: food concessions = A; video/scoreboard = B-; display of stats = C+; tight seat rows = C; ice cream = D and p.a. system/acoustics = F.

Vanessa Nygard and Tina Thompson were introduced before the game as former Pac-10 women athletes.

The Stanford-Arizona game was the clear winner of the most-impressive-display-of-talent-by-two-sisters game of the season. Nneka's 32 points and 10 rebounds and Chiney's 21 points and 13 rebounds were amazing. Probably the second most significant thing about the game was that Mel played 20 minutes and did well. Stanford was up 45-24 at the half and ended with a 100-71 victory. Soana Lucet led the Wildcats with 17 points and Ify Ibekwe had 15 points, with 9 of those from the free throw line. There were no Stanford injuries.

Lisa Willis of UCLA was the former player introduced before the second game. During a time-out in the first half Kayla was introduced at center court as Pac-10 Women's Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Kayla also was given a page in the program where her 3.53 GPA was noted.

UCLA easily won its game over Cal. Clarendon of Cal, who had been a shining star of Cal's two previous tournament games, had only two points--two free throws made with about two minutes left in the game. UCLA got off to an 11-1 start and that ended up being the primary difference in the game. The Bruins were ahead 37-23 at the half. Cal outscored UCLA by one point in the second half, for a final score of UCLA 63, Cal 50. Cal looked uninspired and ineffective for the most part and yet played UCLA even in the second half. UCLA had a couple of successful traps and generally played with more skill and confidence. Bobbie and Kate watched the UCLA game, Tara and Amy did not.

As of this point, with one game to go, combining the men's and women's Pac-10 tournaments seems to have been a failure. A clever idea that didn't work. Attendance at the women's games has been embarrassingly poor, with a top attendance at Galen of 400 and today's at Staples of not more than 1,000. Certainly contributing to this has been the days and times assigned to the women's games. When the tournaments were separated, the women had evening games on all days. This year they had evening games only on the four-game Day One. And Los Angeles just does not support women's college basketball, although the LA Times ran two stories today on page 6 of the sports section, one captioned "USC's NCAA hopes dimmed" and the other "UCLA will face familiar Cal team".

The women's championship game between Stanford and UCLA is Saturday morning at 11:30 am. The team looks ready.

The field thins

2011-03-10T22:32:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

The second day of the Pac-10 Tournament was again held at the Galen Center, featuring only half as many games as yesterday--a reasonable two. The first upset of the tournament occurred in the first game when #6 seed Cal beat #3 seed Arizona State in a low-scoring game 48-43. The Golden Bears move on to face UCLA on Friday afternoon at the Staples Center. In the second game #4 seed Arizona topped #5 seed USC 72-61. With their losses today, both ASU and USC lost not only their respective games but any hope of earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Attendance did not improve by much on Day Two. Only about 150 were present for the start of the first game with 100 more arriving by half-time. For the second game, with host USC playing for the second day, the peak attendance at Galen Center was achieved with about 350-400 attendees. Stanford fans began to arrive in noticeable numbers to see the second day of eliminations. The UCLA team and coaches watched the first game whose winner, Cal, will play the Bruins on Friday. Tara and her entire coaching staff watched both games and the entire Stanford team watched the second game whose winner, Arizona, will play the Cardinal at Staples at high noon on Friday.

Kate Paye was introduced before the first game as part of the series highlighting former Pac-10 players for the 25th anniversary of Pac-10 women's sports.

The Cal-ASU game was close, with Cal up at the half 27-23 and then maintaining a narrow one- to three-point lead in the second half. With 47 seconds remaining in the game Cal led by only one point, 44-43. Free throws expanded the Cal lead to the final 48-43. Clarendon of Cal, named to the Pac-10 team, was high scorer with 22 points. Becca Tobin led the Sun Devils with 10.

The second game was hard fought throughout and was very close in the first half. The half-time score was Arizona 29, USC 28. Arizona extended its lead in the second half to a maximum of 17 points, but USC whittled it down to 9 points with 1:24 left, before ending up with a 72-61 loss on its home court. Davellyn White had 24 points, Soana Lucet had 20 and Ify Ibekwe had 13, all for Arizona. White and Ibekwe had been named to the Pac-10 team. Both have played well in the tournament, as has Lucet.

On Friday the women's tournament action moves to the Staples Center. Fresh #1 seed Stanford and #2 seed UCLA will meet Arizona and Cal, respectively. Arizona and Cal have both played two demanding games in two days which must have produced some fatigue. Their reward will be to play against one of the significantly strongest teams in the conference, both of whom have had a week off. The winners of the Friday games, which should be Stanford and UCLA, will meet at 11:30 am in the Staples Center on Saturday for the tournament championship.

Four at the Galen

2011-03-10T08:15:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

Wednesday was a beautiful day in Los Angeles with a high temperature of about 75 degrees under clear and sunny skies.

This was first day of the Pacific Life Pac-10 Women's Tournament at USC's Galen Center. This is the first year of tournament sponsorship by Pacific Life with its leaping whale. In recent years the tournament has been sponsored by State Farm. This year, for the first time, the men's and women's tournaments are being held together. All of the men's games are at the Staples Center. The first two days of the women's games are at the Galen Center and the last two days at Staples. Stanford's men lost today in their first game. The Stanford and UCLA women will not play until Friday.

The Los Angeles Times devoted about 78 column inches to the Pac-10 men's tournament, starting on the front page of the sports section. The Times gave 18 column inches to the Pac-10 women's tournament in one article on page 6 of the sports section, headlined "NCAA bid could be on the line for USC".

Wednesday's four games were between the bottom eight women's teams in the Pac-10. All higher seeds won, with one game being extremely close.

Game #1--Noon-- #3 seed Arizona State vs. #10 seed Oregon State. Attendance at tip-off was approximately 115, matched by the combined ASU and OSU bands, cheerleaders, dancing girls and mascots. Nine identifiable Stanford fans were present. By half-time, attendance had swelled to about 200. ASU led at the half 27-20 and increased its lead in the second half only to have OSU close to within 3 points with 3 minutes left. Oregon State is a frustrating team to watch. Its motto could be "So near and yet so far". ASU held on to win 50-44. Dymond Simon showed she deserved her All-Conference selection by scoring 15 points, some in an impressive manner.

Game #2--2:15 pm--#4 Arizona vs. #9 Oregon. Attendance at tip-off was about 200. Oregon got an early lead, but only briefly. At the half it was Arizona ahead 51-36. Oregon players were quick shooters throughout the game, taking lots of early shots. Oregon played remarkably better in the second half as its many shots started to fall. Oregon closed to within one point with 4 seconds left and with the ball to inbound. The inbound play failed and the final score was ASU 90, Oregon 89. Ify Ibekwe, Davellyn White and Soana Lucet were the leading players for the Wildcats, while Amanda Johnson and Ariel Thomas led the way for the Ducks.

On a wall in the Galen Center is a display of Sports Illustrated covers that show a USC player or team from 1955 to 2009. A cover for July, 1996 shows Tara and five members of the USA Olympic team, including Lisa Leslie.

Game #3--5:00 pm--#3 USC vs. #8 Washington State. Attendance at tip-off was about 300. At the half USC led 35-29. If WSU had shot better it would have been a close game. The Cougars played well otherwise. USC pulled away at the end to win 78-66. USC freshman Cassie Harberts was red-hot for the Trojans, scoring 31 points.

Game #4--7:20 pm--#6 Cal vs. #7 Washington. Attendance again was about 300, with a different mix as many USC fans left after Game 3. The Mendiola sisters who played for Washington were introduced before the game as one of a series honoring former players in connection with the 25th anniversary of women's sports in the Pac-10. Taylor Lilley was introduced before the Oregon game. Washington's new Harry the Husky mascot was present, looking fresher but blander than Good Ol' Harry. Oski paced the sidelines, hands clasped behind his back. This was a very close game until the final nine minutes, with many tied scores. Down the stretch the Golden Bears wore down the Huskies to come away with the win. The final score was 58-48.

Four games played over nine hours tests the endurance of the most devoted fans. As the attendance figures indicate, few accepted the challenge. The four survivors of today's games will meet on Thursday afternoon to cut the survivors list to two. Those two will play Stanford or UCLA on Friday.

PAC-10's 3-Ring Circus

2011-03-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

The PAC-10 tournament is about to kick off a mini-march-madness week-long circus of games. Now that the seedings are known, here's how the schedule breaks down for Stanford fans (print this page for handy reference):

Wednesday

12:00 Galen Center: ASU v. OSU
2:15 Galen Center: UA v. UO
5:00 Galen Center: USC v. WSU
6:00 Staples Center: Stanford men v. OSU
7:15 Galen Center: Cal v. UW

Thursday

2:30 Staples Center: Stanford men (if they won) v. UA
3:00 Galen Center: (ASU or OSU) v. (Cal or UW)
5:15 Galen Center: (UA or UO) v. (USC or WSU)

Friday

12:00 Staples Center: Stanford women v. somebody
2:30 Staples Center: UCLA v. somebody else
6:00 Staples Center: men's semi
8:30 Staples Center: men's semi in which Stanford might appear

Saturday

11:30am Staples Center: Women's championship
3:00 Staples Center: Men's championship

It is not too late to buy tickets from the Stanford ticket office. Remember, although tickets are priced based on reserved-seat location for the men's games, all women's games are general admission. So you can buy the very cheapest seats, up in the rafters of the Staples Center with the bats and owls, and that's where you'll sit for any men's games you attend. But for a women's game, at Galen or at Staples, just show up when the doors open and sit where you please!

Double your pleasure, double your fun

2011-02-25T12:40:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

At the Fast Break Club meeting after the Oregon State game I was presented with the 2011 Margie Santillan Fan Spirit Award. It is an honor to become the latest in a long line of recipients who have participated in and contributed to the strong fan base for Stanford women’s basketball. At the same time, as I commented at the meeting, this is an easy award to win. To paraphrase Woody Allen’s quip, 90% of what you have to do to win is just show up.

I haven’t been showing up as long as many others. I’m fairly new to the game. So I’ve been trying to make up for lost time and lost opportunities to see the Stanford women play and Tara and her staff coach. I never knew Margie and I don’t know how she discovered women’s basketball. But I share her love for this ever-changing team and the game it plays.

I discovered the game while TV channel surfing when I came across a Tennessee game where I was dazzled by the talent and athleticism of Chamique Holdsclaw. I had no idea women could play like that. Eventually, I learned that Stanford had a good team and was close to my home in San Mateo, allowing me to see games in person. I attended a few games at Maples, sitting on the hard, backless general admission benches, then a few more, and finally became a season ticket holder with a regular padded seat and arm rests. A couple of years later I joined the Fast Break Club and my life changed. I started planning my life from October to April around the team’s schedule.

When I told my son how much pleasure I was having watching the Stanford women at Maples, he said: “You know, if you went to the away games you could see twice as many”. He was right. I was able to double my pleasure and double my fun by hitting the road. This season I expect to see every game the Stanford women play.

So here’s my tip to you, dear reader: enhance your life and have more fun by traveling to some Stanford away games. You may not be able to go to all of them, but with a little planning and a little effort you can go to some. There is simply no reason you cannot go to at least one road game. You may have friends or family in a Pac-10 or pre-season city, allowing you to combine a social visit with a game and giving you the opportunity to introduce others to the wonders of women’s college basketball.

The most popular trip is to Oregon. With Eugene and Corvallis only 30 minutes apart, attending both road games there is easy and the Willamette Valley is beautiful. Local Stanford alums and the Fast Break Club’s travel committee always arrange some enjoyable events around the Oregon games. Second in popularity is the trip to Los Angeles, easy to get to, and usually providing the chance to see some stiff competition on the court. Wherever you go, even to remote Pullman, you will visit other college campuses and college towns and experience their varying ambiance.

At away games you have the feeling that you are in on a secret, part of a small elite group that shares in the exotic ritual of supporting the remarkable Stanford women. You will astonish strangers when they learn you are not a parent or grandparent, but just a fan who travels to watch the team. More than once I’ve been told by a stranger or opposing team fan: “That’s amazing!” You will be able to see the team play in red or black uniforms and not just the same old white ones worn at Maples. And sometimes, when the stars align, you will find yourself staying at the team’s hotel, riding an elevator with Nneka or Kayla or Jeanette, or being on the same flight as the team and sitting next to Lindy or Sara.

Finally, by traveling to at least one away game you will become eligible to win the Margie Santillan Fan Spirit Award. Give it a try! Extend your horizon! Start planning now! You will find it’s an enjoyable and satisfying experience. I guarantee it!

Go, Stanford!

Two freshmen lead the way

2011-02-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

Nneka was on the sideline wearing a nondescript, non-matching sweat suit. She walked slowly and somewhat gingerly and with a slightly halting step, but she was walking and showed no sign of pain. It was worrisome to have her out of the crucial UCLA game at Pauley Pavilion. Who would be able to make up for her points, rebounds and leadership against the quick and aggressive Bruins determined to get retribution for their earlier loss at Maples?

The answer was #13 and #31--whether you read them forward or backward, they were the answer. Of course it was a team effort and a great one under difficult circumstances. But the decisive factors were two freshmen, Chiney and Toni. They were magnificent. Chiney filled in for her sister and got the opening tip-off. Toni did not start (although she did start the second half and scored the first basket for that period), but both players were in the game for 37 minutes, trailing only Kayla who played the entire 40 minutes. Jeanette was not able to carry out Tara's order not to foul. She did so five times, being forced to leave the game with less than a minute remaining. Despite her foul trouble, Jeanette still played 34 minutes and scored 10 points. These were the Big Four of this game.

This was the last time Stanford will play in the old Pauley. It will close on April 1 for a major renovation and will re-open for the 2012-13 season. The exterior work is already underway. While not certain, it is likely that women's games next season will be in the John Wooden Rec Center which is located kitty-corner from Pauley and seats 1,800. That is plenty of seats for most UCLA women's games, but it would have been woefully inadequate today with an official attendance of 6,725. I think that is an accurate figure. I thought there were about 8 to 10 times more people at the UCLA game than were at Galen Center two days before.

UCLA's frequent pressing and trapping only worked once early in the game when Jeanette was caught in a trap with no escape, but managed to call a time out. After that the Bruins were always pesky and often slowed Stanford's progression down the court, but never were able to trap again.

Toni was first off the bench, going in for Lindy about three minutes into the game. She never came out, scoring a splendid 13 points and grabbing 3 steals. Chiney, drenched in sweat, was high scorer with 18 points and pulling down 15 rebounds. Chiney's greatest contribution was at the free throw line, a place where she did not do well early in the season. Today her style of play earned her 12 free throws and she made 10 of them. Free throws won the game for Stanford. The only two misses were Chiney's. Kayla was 4 for 4 and Jeanette and Toni were both 2 for 2. Altogether Stanford made 20 of 22 free throws, an awesome 91% team percentage--yielding six points more than the 14-point victory margin. Rebounds were about even, 38 for Stanford, 37 for UCLA. Both teams were relatively weak at 3-point shooting with almost equal low percentages. Jeanette did best for three with 3 out of 5, Toni made 2 out of 3.

There was another really bad officiating call, again involving Toni charging the basket, that again brought Tara to her feet looking as if she was ready for another technical, but she calmed herself in time. That was followed by a couple of favorable calls for Stanford that pretty much evened things out.

At the half the score was tied 28-28. Tara did some of her usual adjustments and the team carried them out well in the second half to end with a 67-53 win. This was a great win to cap a great weekend in the Southland. The game was a thriller and Stanford gave a gutsy performance with Nneka looking on.

Nikki Caldwell wore a tight-fitting pants suit and her usual heels. The UCLA band chanted each player's name three times before the game as they always do. I really like that. Josie Bruin was there, but not Joe. The band played a rousing bit from Carmina Burana just before tip-off. After the game, Nikki Caldwell addressed the fans as she always does. She had nice words for Stanford, saying the Cardinal play the kind of basketball UCLA aspires to.

Last season Ros Gold-Onwude scored 18 points, including two last-minute free throws to help Stanford to a 65-61 win over UCLA at Pauley. Today Ros, wearing a spiffy pink jacket, was seated next to Jake Kelman providing the color commentary on KZSU during another Stanford win that should assure yet another Pac-10 title. This was a biggie and Stanford met the challenge.

Tough game, tough injury

2011-02-18T23:52:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

Playing in LA is tough. On January 6, 2008 in Galen Center Stanford lost to USC 73-72 when Camille LeNoir made a jumper with 8 seconds left to turn a Stanford one point lead into a Stanford one point loss. Jayne had 22 points in that game and Candice 17. LeNoir had 21, including that final jumper. Three years later the script was different, but for a while a repeat seemed possible. And Nneka was hurt--how badly I don't know. After a tension-filled first half Stanford led by only 38-36. The Cardinal came out with much greater efficiency in the second half and widened the lead to 10 points in only a little over three minutes. And then Nneka went down.

Nneka got a nice pass and made one of her nice lay-ups, but when she came down she crumpled to the floor in pain. She was helped to the bench by Marcella and they went into the locker room for about 10 minutes. For the remainder of the game Nneka sat and never stood. At the end she was supported by two teammates as she left the court, still with no weight on her left leg. It looked very bad to me. I would have given the game to USC if this incident could have been avoided. I feared an ACL, but the AP game report says it was a bad ankle sprain. That is not good, but, if true, is a whole lot better than my initial fears. I don't think Nneka will play against UCLA and may be out for some time.

As I said, the first half was very close. Briana Gilbreath of USC was on fire and made 11 points in about the first 8 minutes with one great shot after another. USC had other great shooting throughout the game, many of them difficult shots. Stanford's largest first half lead was 7 with less than 4 minutes left in the half. In those last 4 minutes USC scored 14 to Stanford's 9 to close the gap to the previously noted two points.

Stanford did much better in the second half, except for Nneka's injury. USC closed to within 8 points at one time, but got no closer. Joslyn got her first basket--a three--with about 8 minutes left in the game and then picked up 4 fouls in about a minute. Mikaela replaced her. Jeanette was a warrior throughout, doing everything well. Kayla was slow to score in the first half, but finished with a rush. Chiney also had a low scoring first half, but then played much better after her sister went out. Toni was the best player off the bench in shooting, defense and ball handling. Briana Gilbreath was contained in the second half with an assortment of Stanford players guarding her. Mel came in with one minute left and looked ok. The final score was 78-64.

This was a hard-fought game. I thought USC made more difficult shots than Stanford did while being closely guarded. USC effectively played Stanford even in the first half and was still battling at the end, cutting Stanford's largest lead of 19 points with 3 minutes left to 14 at the final buzzer.

There was one outrageous call of a charge on Toni with about five minutes left in the game. Tara leaped off the bench and kept after the refs about the injustice of it and was called for a technical. After the technical free throws were taken, Tara kept protesting, following a ref down the floor until being guided back to the bench. Tara was well aware she would get the technical but felt she could not accept the call. It looked as if she was prepared to get a second technical.

As is usual for the LA schools, attendance was poor. Stanford had about 50 fans present, a fairly high percentage. A dozen Cardinal fans ate together at an adjacent restaurant before the game.

The good news is that the history of 2008 did not repeat itself at Galen Center. Stanford was clearly the better team this time out, especially in the second half, even without Nneka. But USC is dangerous and can be explosive. It has excellent shooters and played strong defense. Stanford came out in the second half with some good corrections and for the most part executed well. The bad news is Nneka's injury. It appeared to be simply how she fell and not due to an encounter with another player. I hope she will recover soon and well.

Social before the USC game

2011-02-14T13:13:00.000-08:00

Are you traveling to LA this weekend for the USC and UCLA games?

The Stanford Athletics Buck/Cardinal Fast Break Club has organized a social before the USC game on Friday, February 18 from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at:

The Lab Gastropub
3500 Figueroa St., Los Angeles
213-743-1843

Join your fellow Stanford fans in cheering on the Cardinal versus the Trojans.

Special appearance and address by former Stanford standout, Vanessa Nygaard.

Drinks and appetizers available for purchase.

Questions? Contact Heather M. Owen at h.owen@stanford.edu or (650) 723-3075.

Planning for the PAC-10 Tournament

2011-02-11T13:50:00.000-08:00

The tournament will be upon us in less than a month! The PAC-10 tournament, always a feast of basketball, offers even more this year with the merger of the men's and women's tournaments. This post covers some of the things you might want to consider in planning to attend.

Tickets

If you have not already done so, you can purchase tickets at the Stanford sales page.

The Schedule

Click here to review the complete tournament schedule, covering a total of eighteen games in four days.

Now, it is a pretty sure bet that the Cardinal Women will be the #1 seed, and hence will not play until the first semifinal game, 12pm on Friday. (Should they not beat UCLA next week, depending on how the tie-breakers work, they might be the #2 seed and play in the second Friday game.) However there are plenty of other story-lines worth watching: how high can the WSU Cougars get? Can the scrappy new OSU Beavers get a tournament win? Can Cal get into a semifinal? Will Nikki Caldwell's heels punch through the Galen Center's floor?

Also, our tickets include the men's games as well, and the Stanford men might play on Wednesday evening (7th-10th seeds) or if not, certainly on Thursday. We won't know the seeding until the weekend before the tournament.

So there are plenty of reasons to attend preliminary games on Wednesday and Thursday, if your real-life concerns permit.

Getting There

The trip starts with getting from the Bay Area to L.A. in time for the first games on Wednesday afternoon. You may plan to return on Saturday the 12th, either following the Women's final about 2pm, or following the Men's Final around 6pm. Probably the latter: since you have the ticket to men's games, and there is always the chance that Stanford might be in the final, how can you plan not to see it? If you are going to stay until 6pm-ish on Saturday, you might elect to stay over and return Sunday the 13th.

Drive, or fly? The drive time, Palo Alto to USC, is 6 hours via I-5, or 7 hours via 101. That would be with two drivers trading off, and minimal stops. Cost, $125 for gas (round-trip), plus one or two additional motel nights, as you would probably want to travel on the Tuesday and return on the Sunday.

Or you can spend about 5 hours door-to-door by flying SFO-LAX, at a cost of $175 per person (again, round-trip), plus either 4 days' parking or $75 for door-to-door van rides, plus a rental car or taxi rides.

In other words, the costs, times, and inconveniences are pretty even; which you do depends on how you feel about airport security hassles versus driving hassles. If you plan to fly and return on Saturday, however, you had better book that flight ASAP. A lot of people will be trying to leave LAX around 8pm Saturday.

L.A. Without a Car?!?

Since the schedule of basketball games is so full—up to fourteen games in four days, if you really try—you won't have a lot of spare time for driving around to see the sights of the Los Angeles Basin. Suppose you fly; if all you do then is eat, sleep, and watch games, do you really need to rent a car?

Well, actually, no! First, select a hotel within walking distance of the Staples Center. There are numerous hotels in this area; here is a map of them.

View Larger Map

Click "View Larger Map." Letter (J) is the Wilshire Grand, where in the past the PAC-10 has housed all the teams.

The Galen Center is a mile or so southwest along Figueroa street. The #81 bus runs every few minutes, as shown on this map.

View Larger Map

Again, click on "View Larger Map." Then you can see the Galen Center at letter (A) and Staples Center at letter (B), and the #81 running between them.

Google apparently doesn't know about the new Metro Silver Line, an express bus that also runs between these two places. The Silver Line station for USC is inconveniently placed three blocks away from the door of the Galen Center, underneath the Harbor Freeway on 37th street. But it is an alternative to the #81.

The return of the threes

2011-02-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

There were lots of positive vibes in Tucson on February 5. The multi-year reconstruction of the I-10 freeway through Tucson has ended. Arizona has unusually attractive freeway structures, in both Tucson and Phoenix, with artistic ornamentation and an absence of graffiti. The temperature increased today by about 15 degrees to the mid-60s and it was a beautiful Saturday. A winter visit to the Arizona desert is a pleasant experience in general and can be enhanced by attendance at a Stanford women's basketball game.

The good vibes carried into McKale Center where President Obama made his Tucson speech a couple of weeks ago. Both teams came out in pink tee-shirts, looking quite a bit alike. The similarity in appearances ended when the tee-shirts were removed and play began.

The first good omens were Nneka getting the opening tip-off for the first time in 4 games, followed by Stanford scoring first. Two minutes into the game the score was 9-0 and Lindy had shown the way with the first 3-pointer of the day. By game's end Stanford had bagged twelve--count 'em--twelve 3-point shots which I'm sure is a season high, topping even the rain of threes in Oregon. Players contributing to that happy total were Jeanette with 5, Lindy with 4, and Toni, Sara and Grace with one each for a very nice 40%. Free throws also went well, with the Cardinal making 19 of 24 or 79%. The team assist-turnover count was a healthy 20 to 11. And Stanford out-rebounded the Wildcats 46 to 34. Nneka was especially impressive in her stretching scoops of many rebounds that would have been out of reach for other mortals.

All five starters had double-digit scoring, with Nneka providing a dandy double-double of 11 points and 14 rebounds. Tara did not substitute as early or as freely as in the Arizona State game, but still nine players had 10 minutes or more of playing time. Toni played much more and much better today. Sarah had good hands today and was more active than usual in grabbing rebounds. A mystery was that Mel did not play at all. She was on the verge of going in with only two or three minutes remaining, but Tara called her back and sent Grace in instead.

The half-time score was 45-24 and the final was 91-61, returning Stanford to the 30-points-or-more margin for Pac-10 games.

Wilma and Wilbur Wildcat were present. Wilma has a red ribbon on her head and dances demurely. Wilbur is a full head taller than Wilma, wears a black hat and walks with a swagger. The Arizona band had three tubas, significantly fewer than ASU, but played well, with its leader dressed in a tie and blue blazer. The red tee-shirt-wearing band liked to chant "U of A", which I have always found a bit unusual because of the strong emphasis on the word "of". I don't think I have encountered another school that gives such prominence to "of". There were four floor-bound baton twirlers and four female cheerleaders who were lifted aloft by their male counterparts. Attendance was announced as 2,300, but my eyeball survey led me to conclude that closer to 1,200 actual bodies were occupying seats. That included about 40 Stanford fans who had much more to cheer about than did the quieter 1,160.

This was a good road trip. Stanford passed its most challenging Pac-10 test so far at Arizona State and showed it was back in the groove at Arizona. The Pac-10 win-loss record now stands at 11-0, which is consistent with the other good vibes felt in Tucson today.

Dogged Devils Defeated in Desert

2011-02-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

In a hard-fought game, its closest of the Pac-10 season, Stanford finally wore down a determined Arizona State team before 4,000 fans in Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. The Cardinal was up by only 5 at half time, 32-27 and ASU never let up in the second half, even though it was out-played by Stanford which built a peak lead of 20 points and then held on to win by 18, 72-54. ASU scored the first basket, but just over a minute into the game Stanford took the lead and never gave it back. The first half was worrisome, the second half more reassuring.

ASU played without Simon and Burke and I doubt they would have made a decisive difference. ASU had excellent play from its entire remaining roster who streamed on and off in Charli Turner Thorne's patented style.

Tara also substituted freely in the first half, with 10 players seeing action in the first 9 minutes. For the entire game, there were 8 players with 10 or more minutes, followed by Sarah with 8 minutes. Chiney played 30 minutes, finishing with 8 points, all in the second half, and a team-high 11 rebounds. After being out of 3 games, Toni returned, played only one minute and looked rusty.

Stanford left its 3-point shooting game in Oregon, with Jeanette making the only one out of only one attempt. I think this was primarily due to Arizona State's aggressive defense which kept tight pressure on the Cardinal for the entire game. ASU also made only one three-point shot.

Considering how aggressive and and physical the game was, I thought the refs seemed restrained in their whistle blowing. There were times when it looked as if there were half a dozen players shoulder-to-shoulder fighting for rebounds under the basket and many scrambles on the floor for loose balls. Stanford did best at the free-throw line, making 25 of 33, or 68%. ASU made 19 of 28 attempts from the line. As indicators of the intensity of play by both teams: Stanford had 17 turnovers to ASU's 15, 11 steals to ASU's 13 and 9 blocks to ASU's 4.

The Big Four lived up to their leadership roles. Lindy, Mel, Joslyn, Mikaela and Sarah also all did well. Jeanette had four fouls and sat for quite a while in the second half. Mel filled in capably for her during that time and throughout the game. We are fortunate to have her back.

The ASU band had an abundance of tubas and played well, including the national anthem. Sparky the Sun Devil was present, but was as unexciting as ever. ASU should give him a make-over. He seems as dull and dated as Reddy Kilowatt.

It was a clear, cool day in the Phoenix area with a high temperature of about 45 degrees under a sunny, cloudless sky. The temperature was down to 40 degrees at game time. The air was clear and the surrounding mountains were sharply visible.

This was a challenging game and a solid test for the Cardinal. ASU lost to Stanford by 47 points at Maples and should feel good about achieving its announced goal of doing far better at home.

Anticipating Matt Arena

2011-01-25T14:37:00.000-08:00

FBC members who are off to Eugene for this Thursday's game will soon have their first look at the brand new Matthew Knight Arena. It is a striking building to look at both outside, where glass walls provide views of surrounding hills,

and inside, where the floor has a striking forest design,

(These pictures are from a slide show by the Eugene Register-Guard; click here to view the entire set.)

The new facility is getting positive reviews from locals. Register-Guard columnist Bob Welch finds the outside "stunning" and says that inside, "Matt is artsy, open and respectful to the past; everywhere you look, images and words honor the hoop history that played out in Mac Court," although he's not a great fan of the tree design on the floor. Click here for the rest of his "Eight Thumbs Up" review.

Planning for the PAC-10 Tournament

2011-01-19T18:57:00.000-08:00

It's time to look ahead at the PAC-10 tournament. This year, as before, it takes place in L.A., but there are big changes in the format, as explained by our own Bob Kinder.

The two key changes are:

The two highest-seeded teams (the Cardinal and ?) go straight to the semifinals, no play-in games.
The Men's and Women's tournaments are combined under a single ticket plan. All tournament attendees will be able to see all games, men's and women's both.

The first change is obviously preparation for next year when it'll be the PAC-12 tournament, with more preliminary games. The second change is an intentional ploy by the PAC-10 to increase exposure of the women's game. Everybody who buys a ticket for the popular Men's tournament will have some slight motivation to attend at least the Women's semi- and final games.

Here is a schedule for all the games, showing the times of the men's and women's games. The eight lower-seeded women's teams play four elimination games on Wednesday 3/9 and two further games on Thursday. These games are at the Galen Center on the USC campus. On Friday 3/11 the Women's semifinals are in the Staples Center at noon and 2:30pm, preceding two men's games beginning at 6pm. On Saturday, the Women's final is at 11:30am, preceding the men's final at 3pm.

Tournament Tickets

The only way to attend the women's games is to buy an All-Session Package that gives access to all games, men's as well as women's. Here is a FAQ file (PDF format) that explains the deal. In brief, a single all-session ticket gives you a reserved seat for all men's games, and also general admission seating for all women's games. That one ticket gets you into Galen for the 6 women's prelim games, and lets you sit where you like in the cavernous Staples Center for the women's semifinal and final games—and you also have a reserved seat for men's games.

To purchase a ticket go to the Stanford sales page. Here you will find that the most economical choice, in the tippy-top 300 level, is $105/seat. Better seats are $263.

Remember, that's your reserved seat for such men's games as you care to attend; for the women's games, both at Staples and Galen, it's general admission. Considering that you could (by running back and forth between Galen and Staples) see as many as fourteen of the eighteen total games at the one price, it isn't too bad a deal.

For tips on travel and lodging, see the notes on our Travel Page.

Home at last

2011-01-18T16:14:00.000-08:00

FBC traveller Wally Mersereau reported on his trip back from Spokane on Monday:

11:19 am

My United flight left Spokane on schedule at 6:00 am. It is the only non-stop to SFO. The team was not on it so they must have left on another airline, because the last United flight yesterday was too early for them to have been able to make after the game.

My flight was due to arrive at SFO at 8:15. As we approached the Bay Area we were told visibility was marginal and we would circle over Marin County for up to 30 minutes to see if it improved. We did, but it didn't, and we were diverted to Fresno where we are waiting for the fog to lift at SFO. Our next update is supposed to be at noon.

This is my first visit to the Fresno Airport which is pleasant enough and has free Wi-Fi. I have enough reading material to last me for at least 24 hours so I am taking a relaxed view of the world.

Ah, the joys of travel. So broadening. So full of pleasant surprises. All in the interest of supporting the young women of Stanford, with the pleasures that provides.

5:55 pm

I arrived at SFO by bus 8 1/2 hours after my scheduled arrival time. I think United sent the buses from SFO because our driver clearly had done this before. I think buses were the only practical solution. United had to get the diverted passengers out of Fresno to a hub airport.

All things considered, I think United handled everything quite well. By a minor miracle, my checked bag was on my bus. When the driver opened the doors to the baggage area under the bus I spotted my bag immediately, pulled it out myself and was on my way.

Another exciting, although certainly unexpected, adventure in FBC travel.

Card crushes Cougs

2011-01-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau:

At 9:30 am on Sunday morning I looked down from my 12th floor hotel room in Spokane and saw the Stanford team bus, with lights flashing, parked at the entrance of the Davenport Hotel Tower. The flag on the hotel roof was whipping strongly in the wind against the grey sky. As I watched, the team trickled out, pulling their rolling bags. I could spot Marcella because she was the only one with two bags. The bus departed at 9:45 for Pullman and I went down for breakfast.

I left a little after 11:00 and made the 73-mile drive to Pullman in 80 minutes. Parking at Beasley Coliseum is free and close in. I bought my reserved seat ticket at the door and got the 4th row, right behind Tara. Butch the Cougar, with his long curving tail dragging on the floor, was doing his thing: fist bumps for all, posing for pictures with small kids, peering into a TV camera, etc. Attendance was about 600. I didn't notice any students at the game except for the band, cheerleaders and Butch. In the pre-game warm-up the Cougars were making 3-pointer after 3-pointer.

As on Friday in Seattle, Stanford took command early and the game was never in doubt. At the half it was 38-24 and the final was 94-50. WSU scored 77 points against Cal for a 14-point win on Friday, but lost to Stanford by 44 points to maintain WSU's perfect record of 51 straight losses to the Cardinal with nary a win. A remarkable record. Beasley is a comfortable place, except for the scoreboard. Nothing is shown about individual players, so you have no idea of who has how many points. Fouls were easy to keep track of because the announcer always gave the cumulative number when each foul occurred. The replay screen is a small reflective movie screen at one end which gives only a dim picture, but the picture was clear enough to show Lindy did not intentionally foul the WSU player who was injured on a lay-up. The player seemed to injure herself because of the way she hit the floor. The refs watched a replay on a monitor and announced no intentional foul.

The Big Three were all out of the game with 7 1/2 minutes left and a 33-point lead. With mostly bench players in the game from then on, the lead was increased to 44. Sarah made several nice baskets during the last minutes, ending with 10 points. Mikaela played only 11 minutes, but scored 8 points and had 5 rebounds. Nine players had 11 minutes or more. All played except Mel. The Big Three were in for 26 to 30 minutes and Lindy played for 29 minutes. Joslyn had 12 points. Chiney again was bothered with fouls, but still made the only double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Nneka led the scoring with 20 points. Jeanette had 14. Kayla had only 4 points, but 9 rebounds.

Stanford free-throw shooting was as good as at Seattle at 76%. Stanford 3-point shooting improved from 25% at Seattle to 40% today.

The weather improved during the game with the sky clearing enough on my return to Spokane to reveal the moon.

This was a satisfying trip with two nice wins. Both games had plenty of Stanford mistakes and shortcomings, but everyone played well enough and no one got hurt. And there was more opportunity to spread around playing time today.

I think the team will be on my early return flight to SFO tomorrow morning.

Cardinal Handily Humbles Huskies

2011-01-14T22:45:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

Stanford, wearing its black uniforms, started this road trip confidently, topping the University of Washington by 29 points in Seattle.

I thought the Huskies played better than their record would suggest and they kept up their efforts into the final minute, although the outcome was never in doubt. Stanford was off to a quick start, jumping out to an 11-0 lead in the first 4 minutes. From there Stanford slowly and steadily built its lead over the course of the game. At the half it was 36-21 and the final was 80-51. Tara did not feel comfortable enough to empty the bench. Mikaela and Sara had only a few minutes on the court. Ashley and Grace did not play, nor did Mel.

Nneka led the offense with 16 points, combined with 11 rebounds. Jeanette had 15 points and Kayla 14. Jeanette played 37 minutes, Kayla 35, Nneka 34 and Lindy 27. Chiney, because of fouls, played only 18 minutes.

Stanford's defense was excellent. Kristi Kingma did not score until the second half and ended with 6 points. Regina Rogers had been reported to be in better shape this season, but I did not notice any visible improvement. She scored 6 points and fouled out with 6 minutes to play. Other Washington players stepped up with a variety of nice shots, but not enough to ever threaten.

Stanford continued to have too many turnovers, mostly due to scrappy play by the Huskies and continued to miss easy layups, most noticeably on fast breaks. Cardinal 3-point shooting was mediocre in this game, with only 5 of 20 going in--25%, but those five all were timely. Stanford got a lot of trips to the free throw line and made 21 of 27 for 78%.

The weather in Seattle was overcast and drizzly in the morning with a high temperature in the mid-50s which is above average for this date. The relatively good and dry weather at game time didn't boost attendance at Bank of America Arena on the UW campus. The official figure was more than 2700, but I thought only about 2000 seats were actually occupied. There were about 50 Stanford fans present, including five Fast Break Club members. A sign behind the student section read "Dawg Pack" and maybe 80 students were there. The Washington band had about 40 members playing loudly and well from above the Stanford bench.

Sadly, Harry the Husky was not there. Instead, a new Husky mascot, with a much more realistic head, lurked timidly around one of the entrances, but did not venture onto the floor. I am a Harry fan and I hope his happy face and friendly, outgoing manner have not been permanently retired.

This dominant win on the road was reassuring as the team now heads over the Cascades for its Sunday visit to the Palouse.

Which hurt more?

2010-12-19T20:16:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

There is no doubt that losing both games on this road trip is indeed a downer. As we left Thompson-Boling Arena, the Halfs and I voted on which loss was the most painful. Cherie and I voted for DePaul, Fred abstained. My reasoning was that the DePaul loss was more unexpected, especially by such a margin--a really major upset--a shocker, with DePaul out-playing Stanford from start to finish. I was numb after the DePaul game, but only disappointed after the Tennessee loss.

Tennessee is always tough, especially at home. The program showed that the cumulative results over the years before this game was Tennessee with 21 wins to Stanford's 6. In tonight's game, Stanford was down by 14 at one point in the first half, made up the half-time deficit of 8 points with about 9 minutes to go in the game and hung in there for the 70-70 tie in regulation. That was a very nice comeback. But the overtime was all Tennessee, out-scoring Stanford 12-2. Jeanette fouling out when the score was still 70-70 pretty much ended any hope, especially with Tennessee into the free-throw bonus.

Tennessee lost its last game to Baylor (having previously lost to Georgetown) and was admitting in the press that it didn't yet have its team well organized. Pat Summitt was reported to have forcefully displayed her unhappiness with her team and this may have had some effect. I didn't notice any lack of organization by the Lady Vols tonight.

There were about 60 or so Stanford fans in attendance among the thousands and thousands of orange-clad Volunteer rooters. Stanford tried to change its luck by switching to red uniforms from the black worn at DePaul. I thought we had been told that only one color of uniforms were taken on road trips, so this might have been a first from an attire standpoint.

Apart from the game, there were two unusual features: the Star Spangled Banner was sung by a Nashville pro who produced the twangiest version of our anthem that I've ever heard. And the half-time entertainment was provided by a talking parrot on a perch. I haven't seen that before.

It would have been sweet if Tara could have obtained her 800th win by beating Pat Summitt. It looked possible for about four minutes in the second half. But it was not to be. If the team learns from these losses, happier days may lie ahead. At least the Xavier and UConn games will be at Maples.

Demons demolish discombobulated Cardinal

2010-12-16T20:49:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

It was a cold night in Chicago--21 degrees to be exact--and a few snowflakes were drifting downward. But inside McGrath Arena on the DePaul campus the Blue Demons were fired up and red hot. They out-played visiting Stanford from start to finish. Stanford's black uniforms did not intimidate DePaul in the slightest. The Blue Demons were better on both sides of the ball for the entire game, playing non-stop aggressive defense and making heart-breaking shot after heart-breaking shot. In comparison, Stanford looked pretty inept over-all. DePaul answered basket for basket and then some.

Halfway through the first half Stanford managed to catch up and take a two-point lead, but it lasted less than a minute. Stanford struggled back again to get within two points at the half, 37-35. The closest Stanford could get in the second half was one point with about 15 minutes to go, but it was all down hill from there as DePaul dominated and ran away with the game to a final score of 91-71. This was just a plain old fashioned thrashing. I haven't looked at the stats, but I'm sure they will favor DePaul in every category.

And this happened in front of one of the largest collection of Stanford fans ever for an early-season road game because of the absolutely great turn-out of supporters for Chicago-area players Sarah Boothe and Toni Kokenis and near-by Ohioan Mikaela Ruef. I sat behind Sarah's high school coach and beside Mikaela's grandfather. There were hundreds of Sarah, Toni and Mikaela fans, but they had little to cheer for. The Fast Break Club had five members present: Fred and Cherie Half, Kellee Noonan, Douglas Lee and me.

I may have jinxed Stanford by optimistically having a banner prepared to celebrate Tara's 800th win. But that will have to gather dust until another, brighter day.

What else? Well, Kayla did not play, apparently being saved for Sunday's game at Tennessee, and, of course, she was missed. Jeanette made many clutch shots to end with, I think, 23 points as Stanford's top scorer. Chiney appeared to be seriously injured with just under 14 minutes left in the game when a DePaul player fell hard on her as she lay on the floor. She could not put any weight on one leg as she was assisted from the floor and went to the locker room. She reappeared with about 10 minutes to play with an ice pack in her hand and almost at once went back in the game and played most of the remaining minutes without showing any limitations. Joslyn made some nice 3-pointers. Toni started, but didn't score her first basket until the waning minutes.

That's about it, folks. What more is there to say? Stanford came and DePaul conquered. Time to regroup. End of story.

Time to Order Oregon Tickets

2010-12-09T10:50:00.000-08:00

It's time to order a block of seats at the new Matthew Knight Arena and at Oregon State.

To review, our game at OU in Eugene is at 6pm Thursday January 27. There may be a social event of some type following the game hosted by the Oregon Stanford alums.

Our game at OSU in Corvallis is at 2pm Saturday January 29. For logistics and travel notes, see the Travel page.

If you are going to attend either game, and want to sit with other FBC members, please send an email to travel at stanfordfbc.org saying which game(s) you want tickets for.

We need this input next week, by December 17th.

Use It Or Lose It: USF Fan Bus in Jeopardy

2010-11-26T17:08:00.000-08:00

At the tent following the South Carolina game, Eileen Roche, director of Basketball Operations, announced that only a few people have signed up for the USF bus ride, and about 30 for the Cal bus. If insufficient people sign up by the fast-approaching deadline, the USF bus will be canceled.

The USF game is at 6:30pm on Wednesday, 12/22. That would be an hour after sundown on the shortest day of the year, just about rush hour on one of the final shopping days of the holiday rush.

Not anyone's favorite time to be driving into The City and looking for a parking space. Being able to sit back and leave the driving to a professional, and not worry about parking at all? Priceless.

It won't happen unless more sign up in the next few days. To sign up, you can

click here

...or, time being short, just call DeeDee in the Basketball office: 650-723-0284.

Oh! And, an anonymous donor has promised fresh brownies on the bus. So call now!

Zigging through the Zags

2010-11-22T11:27:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau, Cardinal fan and intrepid traveler

The Utah game was good. The Gonzaga game was great.

The Big Two were back as the Big Three and all three were essential to the win. Nneka had more tape on her fingers than at Utah, but it did not seem to affect her excellent play. I did not learn the mystery reason for Nneka not playing at Utah. Gonzaga was Mikaela's breakout game, in minutes played and in performance. As a Gonzaga fan seated behind me said: "#3 off the bench has been outstanding for Stanford". Chiney had an off day and early foul trouble.

Gonzaga is an excellent team and USC's win over the Bulldogs, even at Galen Center, now seems more significant than it did at the time. Without knowing about other WCC teams, I predict Gonzaga will handily win its conference. It has lots of good players and good coaching. It would rank in the center of the Pac-10.

It snowed in Spokane in the morning and lightly during the game, providing a winter wonderland setting. The sold-out McCarthey Center was rocking with enthusiasm. Before each half everyone stood and participated in an impressive rhythmic clapping and chanting to recorded music. When Gonzaga came back from 12 points down to tie the game with 5 minutes left, the arena exploded. But, as Tara said, Stanford kept its poise and put the game away, thanks primarily to Jeanette's clutch shooting. Tara used an 8-player rotation, plus a couple of minutes for Sara James. Sarah Boothe continued to be inconsistent in her play.

Joslyn's father had an early Sunday Montana men's practice and then drove three hours from Missoula to attend the game. Joslyn's resemblance to her father is remarkable.

The McCarthey Center is a nice, near-new venue with free parking. Above-average concessions included a stand offering several prepared-as-you-watch Asian stir frys. Despite the weather outside being frightful there was a long line at the Ben & Jerry's stand where waffle cones outsold cups eight to one.

Besides the two games, highlights of my trip included getting reacquainted with the Bunyan-size blocks in downtown Salt Lake City, the snow in Spokane, sitting next to and being surrounded by the Stanford team on the flight to Spokane and chatting with Amy Tucker at baggage claim. Travel to away games provides an up-close-and-personal contact with the team and coaches, a chance to experience different venues and the opportunity to see our team deal with someone else's home court advantage.

In the Land of the Utes

2010-11-19T22:51:00.000-08:00

By Wally Mersereau

Three Fast Break Club members travelled to Salt Lake City for the Utah game: Kellee Noonan, Doug Lee and me. It was an exciting game with the outcome uncertain until the final 7 minutes or so. Utah played great defense from start to finish and Kayla and Jeanette had trouble getting anything to fall in the first half. But the final outcome was much better than the last Stanford game in Salt Lake City which went into double overtime thanks to Mel's buzzer beater. Mel and Hannah did not travel to this game.

The Big Three was down to the Big Two. Nneka seemed to practice normally before the game, but did not play. She had three bandaged fingers on one hand, including two taped together--otherwise she seemed fine. Tara did as she said she would do and had a 9-player rotation without Nneka and still got the win. Sarah and Mikaela had their best games with 22 and 18 minutes respectively. Although Mikaela did not score, she played well.

Michelle Harrison was scoreless in the first half, but found her range in the second half with four 3s and a lay-up for 14 points. She was selected as Player of the Game by the court announcer and addressed the fans after the game. She and Tara embraced and exchanged a few words after the game.

Official attendance was 2000, but I estimated only about 800-1000 were actually there, including about 150 students. Students were offered a drawing for a $300 certificate for books, but had to be present for the drawing midway in the second half. Almost all of the students stayed for the whole game and were noisy throughout. Utah provided its band, its red-tailed hawk mascot and 13 dancing girls. One fan participation event I liked was the Hamster Roll in which two competing players were inside 6-foot-diameter clear plastic balls and had to propel themselves down the court and back, knocking over some plastic bowling pins at the far end. There also was a clown busily making balloon animals for kids. But only one concession stand and two pairs of restrooms were open. I was able to get an over-sized ice cream drumstick for $3 that prepared me for the second half.

I took the light rail from downtown to the Huntsman Center--only 13 minutes each way and no parking hassle. There was an event at the football stadium tonight that generated a lot of parked cars--perhaps a high school football game. During the day hundreds of high school students visited the university, arriving in yellow school buses.

The weather in Salt Lake City was overcast and windy with a high temperature in the 50s, but no rain. The highly visible mountains are covered with snow.

I was satisfied with the game. Utah narrowed Stanford's lead to two points twice in the first half and got it to 36-35 in the second half. But Stanford always quickly increased the lead and had solid control of the game in the last 7 minutes or so. Chiney was the first Stanford player to reach double digits. Jeanette and Kayla began scoring at their usual pace part way through the second half. And nine players got significant playing time even with Nneka on the bench. I was glad I came and felt this was a good W and a good experience for the team.

Buying Tickets for Utah, Gonzaga, DePaul and Tennessee

2010-10-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

At least one FBC member is going to attend all four of the opening road games. Here's what Wally Mersereau reports about ticket availability.

I have purchased tickets for all 4 away games in 2010. Good seats are available for Utah and DePaul. Not so good for Gonzaga and Tennessee. Ticket info:

Utah - ticket office: (801) 581-8849. My ticket is in Section K, Row 4, behind Stanford bench. Cost $11, including postage.

Gonzaga - ticket office: Tickets West (800) 325-7328. My ticket is in Section115, Row 22, Seat 4, behind Stanford bench, but 22 rows away. Cost $9.50, including postage. All of the lower bowl (first 15 rows) is sold out.

DePaul - ticket office: (773) 325-7526. My ticket is in Section B, low row--single tickets go on sale on October 27, so I wasn't given a precise location, but this is behind the visitor bench. Cost $14, including postage.

Tennessee - ticket office: (800) 332-8657. My ticket is in Section 320, Row 13. Cost $?. This is the upper of 3 levels and across from the benches. The first two levels are sold out throughout and all three levels are sold out on the benches side.

Anyone else going to these games? Remember, an FBC member is allowed to call the Basketball office and inquire as to the team's hotel.

Great new airline booking site

2010-08-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

When planning your flights based on the slowly accumulating schedule, be sure to try out a very useful new site: hipmunk.com.

You enter your starting and destination cities and your travel dates, and in very short order up pops a table listing all the flights for all airlines.

Each row of the table is a flight, and the flights are ordered by price from least expensive up.

Each flight is shown in a compact but highly informative way, a single color-striped bar showing you at a glance when it departs, where you lay over, and when you arrive. Clicking the bar opens a pop-up with full details. In the popup is a "buy now" button that sends you to one of the standard travel sites, such as Orbitz, to complete the purchase. There's also provision for round-trip scheduling, so naturally designed there's no need to explain it.

Great site. Book your trip to the Final Four now! If that link gives only the basic search page, get fresh results by entering from: SFO; to: IND; depart: 04/01/2011 (that's a Friday, enter 04/02 if you can't leave until Saturday, missing attractions like the high-school All American game); return: 04/06/2011.

Some Texas Wildflowers

2010-04-05T20:29:00.000-07:00

On our off-day we went for a drive south of San Antonio to see the fabled Texas spring flowers. There were flowers blooming along most roadsides and in the median of main roads. Here are a few pictures.

Typical roadside flower patch. The blue and white ones are the famous Bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis). The yellow ones here are Sneezeweed (reckon somebody had allergies? Helenium elegans).

More Bluebonnets mixed with White Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa)

Evening Primrose, pink version Oenothera speciosa

Flax Linum rigidum var. berlandieri

Primrose, Verbena, one dandelion

Primrose-eating donkey

Indian Blanket, Gaillardia Pulchella

Winecup Callirhoe involucrata

Final Four Notes and Events

2010-03-31T12:49:00.000-07:00

Gitcher Tickets

You can pick up your pre-ordered tickets at any of three times: At the Alamodome will-call during Stanford's Open Practice (see below), at the Hotel Contessa during the reception (see below), and of course at the 'dome before the first game.

Saturday Fun

Saturday April 3, 11am to 12:30 in the Alamodome is Stanford's open practice period. It will be followed by an autograph session.

Then, if you can make that event, stay around the Alamodome until 3:45 for the Battle of the Bands, when the four team's bands have a play-off judged on musicianship and showmanship. In Tampa, the LSJUMB won this event.

Pregame Reception and Sendoff

Stanford hosts a reception Sunday April 4, 3-5pm, in the Hotel Contessa (see map below). Cash bar, free tex-mex nibbles. You must RSVP to Lisa Ortiz (Lortiz@stanford.edu or 650-723-7415).

One Game at a Time, But...

If the Cardinal advance to the Championship game, Stanford will host another reception, from 4:30 to 6:30pm at the Rio Rio Cantina, across the street from Hotel Contessa. The Rio Rio is the "official" Cardinal gathering place.

NCAA Info

The NCAA is providing a wealth of online clickables, starting here. Sort of buried in it is an 8-page PDF, the (right-click and download) Final Four Fan Guide.

Downtown Map

From the fan guide we have extracted a very useful one-page map. Click to biggify, then print.

Note especially #4 on the map; that's the Hotel Contessa where the reception is planned. Also note the route of the NCAA shuttle; almost all downtown hotels are within a short walk of its route.

Heading to Sacramento

2010-03-16T18:15:00.000-07:00

(Updated 3/22 with bus and social info)

Suh-weet Sixteen

The Cardinal move to ARCO Arena in Sakamenna (homage to Herb Caen) to play the "Sweet Sixteen" game against Georgia and then possibly the "Elite Eight" game.

Game tickets from the Stanford ticket office (1-800-STANFORD) starting tuesday morning. Or, if you can stand to wait, you can order them from Ticketmaster beginning Wednesday noon. Click here for Saturday tickets, click here for Monday. In both cases, use the promo code CARDINAL.

The round of 16 games will be on Saturday 3/27. The Stanford-Georgio game begins at 6:04; Xavier-Gonzaga at 8:30. Prior to the first game, the BB office will sponsor a no-host Social. If you are an FBC member you've received email with a link to register for this $20 event. If not, here's the link. You have to create a name and password registration, ho-hum. But don't do that if you plan to take the bus!

The BB Office is also organizing a bus from campus. Just email h.owen @ stanford.edu to reserve bus seats. The bus will leave campus at 2pm and return after the second game. Bring something to read; it's a long ride. Your $55 ticket (for non-FBC members) includes the social, and you can skip the online registration. Game tickets are separate.

Leet Eight

The Elite Eight game will be on Monday 3/29 at 6:07. The Office will sponsor a bus for this game also; $45/seat for you non-FBC members (cheaper because no Social is planned). Will leave campus at 3pm.

Arco and Sacramento

If you've not been to Arco Arena (many FBC members were there last year to see a Monarchs/Lynx game), it sits in the middle of a vast flat agricultural plain just off I5. Here's a Google map (also available by clicking the Arco link on our Schedule page).

There are few amenities near, although there are a couple of chain restaurants near the Del Paso/Commerce intersection. We ate at the Outback Steakhouse there and it was not bad.

Drive up or spend the weekend?

Some Bay Area fans will no doubt expect to drive to Sacramento on each separate day—especially since Stanford is organizing a bus from campus (see above). Out-of-town fans and some locals may consider spending the long weekend in Sacramento.

If you will stay the weekend, you can look for a hotel at either tripadvisor.com or at yelp.com (click 'em for a list of hotels).

That settled, you only have to figure out what to do with a Sunday and most of a Monday in Sacramento. Here's a list of links to things to do:

Old Sacramento is a historic district with shops, eateries and museums.
Sutter's Fort is a State historical park with lots of kid-friendly activities.
The California State Railway Museum has dozens of beautifully-restored steam locos and cars.
The California Auto Museum has lots of beautifully-restored old cars to admire.
The California State Capitol Museum gives you access to the historic capitol building
The Leland Stanford House is a restored governor's mansion once occupied by Stanford's founder.

Besides these, Sacramento has a large number of performing-arts venues: ballet, orchestra, theater and others. We aren't going to comb through and figure out what's on for that Sunday night. But you can open the Yelp Performing Arts listing and look for something that piques your interest.

PAC-10 Meetups and Events

2010-03-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

For Your Reference

Here's the complete PAC-10 tournament bracket which includes game times.

And here's the FBC Travel Page with a long list of things to see and do in L.A.

Also, here (thanks, Eileen!) is a Chowhound thread on "Good east walking distance from USC?"

Band Send-offs

If you haven't seen one before, what happens is the LSJUMB plays loudly and the Dollies dance on the hotel porch or portico while the team is filing out to get on the bus. If the band plays well, team members are sometimes inspired to dance with the dollies. This will be happening in front of the Downtown Marriott, 333 Figueroa street before each game, assuming the team keeps winning:

Friday at 11am (conflicts with the Cal-ASU game)
Saturday at 12:15 (plenty of time to get to the meetup after)
Sunday at 12:45

Saturday Meetup

If the Cardinal win on Friday (in the post-season, you can never be sure of anything) join Heather Owen and other fans for an informal meetup prior to Saturday's 2:30pm game.

Gather starting around ~~1pm~~ 12:30pm in The Lab, just up the street from the Galen Center.

Sunday Brunch

Strictly uncoordinated, but if you want to see other fans and have a nice brunch, make your way to Canter's Deli between 9:30 and 10:30 am Sunday. It is located west of city center, and a convenient walk from a big cluster of museums and parks described on the Travel Page above. Here's a map...

View Larger Map

PAC-10 Logistics Updated

2010-02-22T11:18:00.000-08:00

The PAC-10 tournament bracket is up with times for all games so we can finalize our plans for a weekend in LA!

Thursday 3/11

Two play-in games, at 6pm and 8:15pm. If the tournament was held this weekend, these would be UW v. WSU at 6 and AZ v. OSU at 8:15.

Friday 3/12

First session of two games begins at 11am. The #1 seed (guess who?) plays in the second game at 1:15.

Second session features the #2 seed at 5pm (as of today, that would be UCLA, which would draw a decent crowd), and the fourth game of the day at 7:15.

Saturday 3/13

Happily you have all morning to amuse yourself in L.A.; check out the extensive list of things to do on our Travel page.

The two-game session begins at 2:30pm. Be on time, the #1 seed plays in the first game. Second game, featuring the #2 seed, at 5pm.

Sunday 3/14

The championship game is at 3pm. Allow 2 hours for the game and 30 minutes of trophy-awarding and net-cutting. It would be a bit tight but security lines should be short on a Sunday night, so you could book a flight home from LAX for 9pm or later.

Who's going to the PAC-10 Tournament?

2010-01-31T14:33:00.000-08:00

We need to get an idea of how many FBC members are going to the PAC-10 Tournament this year. If we know people are going, we can plan some activities. Last year there were some fun meet-ups with drop-ins by alumni. Please send email to travel@stanfordfbc.org if you are going!

If you haven't decided whether to go, or for what days, here is a run-down.

Thursday

The tournament starts on Thursday March 11. There will be two games that evening (6pm and 8:15pm) in which the four lowest-seeded teams play each other to see who gets into the real bracket. While these aren't the premier teams, they are evenly matched and the games are competitive and entertaining.

Friday

We like to call this "iron-butt" day because there are four games in two sessions: 11am and 1:15pm, then 5pm and 7:15pm. It's eight hours of squeaky sneakers and loud horns, with a break from 3 to 5 to find an awkwardly late lunch or early supper.

Rather to our surprise, according to the official PAC-10 schedule (scroll to the bottom), the #1 seed—and you know who that's going to be—plays in the first session at 1:15pm. Sorry, worker bees, you need to take Friday off to see the Cardinal play this game.

Saturday and Sunday

On Saturday there is one session with two semi-final games. The #1 seed will play in the first of them. Times have not been set for these games, which is awkward because until they are set, we don't know what part of Saturday will be free to enjoy Los Angeles.

The Sunday championship game is scheduled for 6pm, so we definitely have all day Sunday at liberty.

Logistics and Amusements

We're putting our info on travel logistics and on things to do in LA on the Travel Page but we can always use more info.

What will you do to pass a day and a half in LA?
Will you fly in and out of LAX, or use one of the smaller regional hubs like Anaheim or Long Beach?

Meet-ups for the L.A. Trip

2010-01-05T14:59:00.000-08:00

This coming weekend the Cardinal play at USC at 7pm Friday, and at UCLA at 2pm Sunday. Following the Friday night game at the Galen Center, fans might like to meet for a post-game drink at McKay's Cocktail Lounge in the next-door Radisson Midtown hotel. If you are stuck for things to do on the free Saturday between games, good news: Pepperdine is playing at home! It's a WCC league game against Loyola Marymount, so both teams will be playing hard. The game is at 4pm in the Firestone Fieldhouse on the beautiful Pepperdine campus (click for directions; print out the main campus pdf map for reference).

Fresno Bus Needs Boosters

2009-11-18T15:02:00.000-08:00

As an experiment the WBB Office promoted fan buses for two games: this Sunday's game at UC Davis, and the 12/30 game at Fresno. It costs several hundred dollars to rent a bus and driver for a day, and the WBB program doesn't have the budget to subsidize our rides. A minimum number of commits are needed to ensure that the cost will be (nearly) covered. This weekend's Davis game didn't make the cut. Only 19 FBC members handed in applications, well below the minimum needed. So the Davis bus has been cancelled. Will there be a Fresno State fan bus on 12/30? That will depend entirely on how many sign up. Remember, that game is on a Wednesday night and it's a 175-mile drive:
View Larger Map Without the bus, any fan who wants to attend the game has the choice of either staying overnight in Fresno, or driving home over Pacheco pass in the dark. With a bus, you can see the game and then catch some z's while the bus rolls along home. To help ensure a fan bus rolls to Fresno, sign up now!

Wet Day in Norfolk

2009-11-13T08:35:00.000-08:00

The remains of Hurricane Ida put a lot of rain and wind on Norfolk, VA on thursday. One thursday news report of Tara's comments on the signing of Chiney Ogwumike mentioned that she was speaking from the team bus which was in "knee-deep water." When our flight arrived at Norfolk airport at 9am there was only light rain but a stiff 25-knot breeze. As we drove to the ODU campus through city streets, we had to drive around one large downed tree that was blocking half a street. We noticed several other downed trees. Norfolk is threaded by "rivers" which are all really estuaries of the Hampton Roads bay. We drove alongside and crossed a couple of these, and the water seemed quite high, up close to the top of the bank. High tide is around 6pm and with a strong breeze off the Atlantic, some of these may flood. Power is out in sections of the city, and several traffic lights were dark. Traffic was light and most people were handling the missing lights properly (treat them as four-way stops). However, there are lights on in the Ted Constant arena, and the Lady Monarchs' website (linked from the FBC schedule page) confidently says the game will go on at 7pm. There will be at least 7 cardinal fans in the seats, so we'll see!

Who's Going to UCONN 12/23???

2009-11-06T12:54:00.000-08:00

Are you going to follow the Cardinal to Hartford for the 23 December game? If so, two notes: One, the game location, which until recently was on the campus in Storrs, has now been announced for the larger XL Center in Hartford. This makes your travel logistics a bit easier, as described on our Travel Page. Second, we have a note from Greg Louden, who is the chair of the Stanford Band Alumni Board, and says he...

happens to have family in central Connecticut. I'll be visiting them this holiday season, and naturally wanted to go to the UConn game. Being the chair of the Alum Board and knowing of the enthusiasm of band alumni for the women's b-ball team, I'm trying to put together, if not a band, at least a small cheering section to support the team in Hartford.

If you are going on this trip, contact Greg right away to see if you can meet up or coordinate with him in some way.

Help transition Mac to Matt

2009-10-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

By our special correspondent in Eugene, H. Benson

This year the Cardinal play in the Beaver's orange-and-black arena in Corvallis on Thursday, Jan. 21st. Then, Saturday Jan 23rd, we play for the last time ever in the historic Mac Court.

If you haven’t attended a game at Mac Court (also known as The Pit) at the University of Oregon, you really should do so this season. It is this arena’s last year, to be replaced by the resplendent Matthew Knight Arena next season. As nice as Matt will be, Mac Court has a uniqueness that should be experienced. It is a true home court advantage for the Ducks.

Then, when you learn your way around Eugene this season, you’ll want to plan for the next season as well. While I’ve been in Eugene this month, Matt reached a construction milestone. The bulk of the concrete work is ending, and the workers are turning to raising the structural steel. Here is a picture of the general scene with large tower cranes... And here is the arena in the rough. The really good news about Matt is the large attached parking garage, which will eliminate the haphazard street parking that was a less-pleasant part of the Mac Court experience.

For trip-planning advice, see the Travel Page.

Eighth Trip: Duel in the Desert

2009-09-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Continuing our preview of the 2009-10 road trips...

Thanks to the desire of FOX/CSN to televise the Stanford-ASU game, we play first in Tempe on the evening of Thursday, 2/25. For you non-retired fans, that pretty much means taking Thursday and Friday off. As described on the Travel page, it may be possible to work half a day and fly to Phoenix Sky Harbor Thursday afternoon. But it's tight.

However you work it, ASU is always the tougher opponent with a high-energy, sold-out arena. That's the don't-miss game. Afterward, you might just grab a motel in Phoenix and fly home next morning.

If not, you now have all Friday and Saturday morning to do things around Phoenix and/or Tucson; see the Travel page for links to some of the many interesting destinations.

The Arizona game is in Tucson at 3pm MST on the Saturday. That leaves adequate time to return to Sky Harbor (love that airport name) and get home Saturday night.

For fans with time to travel, a whole 'nother approach to this trip would be to make it Tucson-centric. Fly (or drive) to Tucson arriving on the Thursday morning. Get a good nap, then drive 2.5 hours to Tempe for the game. Drive back to Tucson that night. Spend a nice weekend in Tucson or use Tucson as a base for driving southeast to places like Tombstone and Bisbee.

Seventh Trip: Washington

2009-08-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

We continue our logistics planning for the 2009-2010 away games.
Check the archive list on the right for prior trips.

The schedule for this trip is brutal for anyone with a nine-to-five job. It ~~just isn't~~ is just barely possible to see the WSU game and get home for work Monday.

Friday in Seattle

The weekend starts well with a 7 PM Friday evening game ~~(we presume; game time is still TBS)~~ at the UW. You can expect heavy street traffic and possibly bad weather, so, one, tell your hotel you'll be checking in late, and two, allow three hours from touchdown to reach Hec Edmundsen Pavilion (click the venue in the Schedule page for a map).

You have Saturday at large in Seattle (see the Travel page for things to do).

Then, probably, you'll grab a leisurely flight home, because...

Sunday in Pullman

The WSU game is at ~~2pm~~ NOON on the Sunday.

It's easy to get from Seattle to Pullman. You drive down to SeaTac and catch a one-hour flight to Spokane, which with clear weather, will be spectacularly scenic. In the pleasantly low-key Spokane airport you grab a rental car and drive 90 minutes to the WSU campus in Pullman. ~~Since game time is 2pm, you have all morning to do this.~~Game time is noon but Alaska has 7am and 8am departures from SEA that will do.

After the game you can still get home. Say you fire up the rental car at 2:15pm. You are back to Spokane airport at 4pm so a 5pm departure is makeable. And hey, looka here: United has a nonstop GEG-SFO departing at 6:18! Book it, baby! Or, call Alaska Air and let the friendly operator work out a return to SJC or OAK via either Seattle or Portland.

Sixth Trip: Oregon

2009-08-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

We continue previewing the road trips of 2009-10. For the earlier trips, see the archive list at the right.

The Oregon trip is one of the most popular with FBC members. It's not too far; Oregon is scenic; the arenas are historic; the towns, especially Eugene, are pleasant. On the Travel page we delve into the fly/drive tradeoff and itineraries.

Thursday, Corvallis and OSU

This year the first game is at Corvallis at 7pm Thursday January 21st. Corvallis is the more northerly town, an hour nearer to Portland and an hour farther from the Bay Area. If you drive up from the Bay Area, you can stop off in Eugene, check into a hotel, drive on to Corvallis, and drive back to Eugene after the game—but that makes for a long day. If you fly to PDX and drive down, it makes sense to plan to stay that night in Corvallis and move on to Eugene next day, or even Saturday.

Saturday, Oregon and Eugene

The Saturday game at Mac Court is at 11am, so you can get a good start on a southward drive.

There's lots to do and shop and eat in Eugene. The Travel page has a list.

The Valley River Inn has always been popular with FBC travellers. This year we can also recommend the Hilton Eugene, which is easier to get to and in easy walking distance of downtown shops and even the Oregon campus.

Fifth trip: Los Angeles

2009-07-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

This season the Cardinal plays USC at the Galen Center on Friday, January 8th. Game time is (sigh) TBS, but supposing it will be 7pm as would be typical, you can sneak out of work early on the Friday afternoon, catch a 2pm AA flight or a 4:10 Southwest flight at SJC, grab a rental car and be at the Galen Center door in plenty of time. Well, enough time.

Once there you can see what kind of team the troubled USC Athletics administration has managed to scrape together (read Bob Kinder's analysis for the juicy details).

You get all day Saturday and Sunday morning to live it up in the greater L.A. Basin. What will you do with the time? Share with us in the comments, please?

The UCLA game will be on Sunday at ~~(you guessed it) TBS o'clock~~ 2 PM. ~~Supposing it will be the typical 1pm, you can catch a 5:25 Southwest or~~ You should be able to make the 6:45 AA return flight~~—but don't book this flight until the game time is announced. If there was a late decision to put the game on TV, the start time might be later.~~

If you would rather drive (the Travel page talks about the fly-drive trade-offs), you can schedule a leisurely start Friday, go down 101 with a lunch stop at Pea Soup Anderson's in Buellton, or someplace in Santa Barbara. With two drivers trading off the return trip up I5 can be completed on the Sunday night.

Local Trips: Davis and Fresno State

2009-07-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

UC Davis

In our haste to write about the UConn trip we skipped over a local road-trip, Sunday November 22 to UC Davis. The route to Davis is 114 miles, and Google's estimate of 2 hours is conservative for a Sunday afternoon. Here's the route:

View Larger Map

The game time ~~isn't set. If it's midday (1pm would be typical for a Sunday game)~~ is 2pm, so it should be feasible to make the round-trip in a day. ~~If it's later, see our Travel Page for a motel recommendation.~~

Fresno State

On Wednesday 12/30, at ~~the ever-popular TBS~~ 7 o'clock, the Cardinal plays the Fresno State Bulldogs in Fresno. It's a 3.5-hour drive over Pacheco Pass; here is a route-map:

View Larger Map

~~It's a bit hard to plan for this trip without knowing the game time. If the game starts in the middle of the day, it would be possible to make it a day-trip and be home that night. If~~ Since the game starts after 6pm, you may want to think about a motel. Expedia lists a number of motels in Fresno at $40/night and up.

Possible Booster Buses

The FBC board have very tentatively discussed the possibility of running booster bus for either of these trips. If you would be interested in taking a bus to Davis, or to Fresno, instead of driving yourself, please send email saying so to travel@stanfordfbc.org. No bus will happen unless the board is pretty sure of enough riders to pay for it!

Second Trip: UConn

2009-07-21T13:26:00.001-07:00

We continue our previews of the road trips of 2009-10. See the "Archive" menu on the right for the preceding ones.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 will be the historic date on which Stanford initiates a home-and-home series with the UConn Huskies. In coming years we will always be at away to UConn and at home to Tennessee, or vice versa!

The game will be played on the UConn campus in Storrs, CT at ~~a time to be specified. (The time was~~ 5:30 ET ~~in a preseason schedule but has gone back to "tba" on the official Stanford schedule.)~~ Stay-at-homes will be able to watch it on ESPN. But if you want the full experience (and no nattering Debbie Antonelli) you will have to travel to the game.

We've got logistic and booking tips on the Travel page. Here we just want to comment on the thoroughly miserable scheduling of this game. It falls on the first day of a national five-day holiday orgy:

Wednesday, National Get Your Shopping and Wrapping Done Now day
Thursday, Christmas Eve
Friday, Christmas
Saturday, National No Available Parking Space at the Mall day
Sunday, National Buyer's Remorse and Recriminations day

And they expect us to travel over the best part of that? It's asking quite a lot of the fans.

The First Trip: ODU and Rutgers

2009-07-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

We are starting a series of posts to preview the road trips of the upcoming 2009-10 season. Use this info to help plan your winter travels, make early reservations, or just to daydream a bit!

If you plan to make one of these trips, or if you have any other thoughts about travel, please add a comment below. Other FBC members will be interested. (Yes, really they will!)

First Trip: ODU and Rutgers

There is no easy fall tournament this year, no Virgin Island or Hawaii fun time. We get right down to business on Friday evening, November 13, when the Cardinal play on the Old Dominion campus in Norfolk VA. In our travel notes we assume taking an overnight flight from SFO on the Thursday night, giving most of a day to check into a hotel and poke around Norfolk. (We'll post some links to attractions later.)

The next game is at Rutgers on Sunday, giving a day and a half to traverse some very interesting territory (google map). The possibilities for sight-seeing are wide: you could stop off in Washington DC, in Baltimore, in Philadelphia; you could even have a day and night in Manhattan, and go out to Rutgers on the train. Update:We've put details of DelMarva Peninsula highlights on the travel page.

Those of us who attended the last game at Rutgers—Kayla Pedersen's impressive debut, the game won by Candice with a free-throw after Epiphany Prince made a silly foul—remember very well how "The RAC" is full to the rafters with loud, friendly, red-clad fans.

The Sunday game time is ~~still TBS but, assuming a typical 1pm start, it~~ 2pm ET ~~will be easy to fly home to the Bay Area that evening from nearby Newark Airport.~~ there is a Continental departure for SFO at 5:45 and a United flight at 6:20. There are no nonstops to SJC but several 1-stops via Denver.

Up next— Connecticut for Christmas eve...

St. Louis 'Cues

2009-04-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

St. Louis means barbeque! Sometime in your 3+ days under the Arch, you gotta chow down on dry-rub ribs, slow-cooked brisket, pulled pork, sweet-potato fries, spicy baked beans... Yum! Checking a variety of sources the following downtown locations look like good bets: Pappy's Smokehouse, 3106 Olive St. From Yelp: "...picnic tables, rolls of paper towels on each table, big squirt containers of sauce... Loud blues playing over the sound system... they serve til they run out of food, and then they lock the door. Go early or call ahead." The Shaved Duck, a new 'cue-oriented gastropub with "a terrific selection of beers... curated with great care." Order a side of mac&cheese, and apple cobbler with ice cream for dessert. Smoki O's at 1545 N Broadway, mainly take-out and located in an industrial area. If the weather turns fine, grab some takeout lunch and go to one of St. Louis' many parks.

Pep Rally and Send-off Sunday afternoon

2009-04-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

All those going to St. Louis, plan to be at the team hotel on Sunday 4/5 from 3:30 to 5pm for a reception—complimentary nosh and no-host bar—followed by team send-off with the Band. If you hope to make this, you need to RSVP to Lisa Ortiz (Lortiz@stanford.edu). The location is the Palm Court Lobby of the Millennium Hotel St. Louis (200 South 4th st.). Here's a google map (gettin' to like this google inset thing)

View Larger Map

Cardinal Spot in St. Louis

2009-04-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

As at Tampa, the NCAA has designated a specific lounge for the fans of each Regional to gather. We from the Berkeley Regional are invited to hang out at:

Skybox Sports Bar & Grill
800 North Third Street
St. Louis, MO 63102
(314-241-5100)

(Contrary to our usual practice, we are not linking to the bar's URL. The URL is www.skyboxstl.com but we do not recommend opening it; it is Flash-based, content-light, and has loud annoying music you cannot turn off.) Here's a google map showing the route from the bar (A) to the Scottrade center (B).

View Larger Map

Planning for St. Louis

2009-03-31T11:49:00.000-07:00

Hotels and air

The Cardinal Ticket office recommends Anthony Travel for booking hotels in St. Louis and air travel to it. Check that linked page for lists of hotels and available flights.

As usual, we don't publicize the team hotel, at least until we can announce a send-off event, but FBC members who really want to know can call the office and ask DeeDee.

WBCA High School All-American Game

The Women's Basketball Coaching Assn. stages this annual event, this year on the Saturday April 4th. Order tickets here, although when we attended the one in Tampa, there were plenty of seats available at the door.

On the roster for this year: Cal's recruits Layshia Clarendon and DeNesha Stallworth, USC's Monique Oliver, and of course, our own Joslyn Tinkle—and if you don't know a lot about her, you just haven't been reading John and Sue's Recruiting Blog.

Passing St. Louis Time

The usual schedule gives us all day Monday and most of Tuesday for recreation in the Gateway City. Here are some planning resources:

The NCAA's guide to the event, which has an arena seating chart and parking info & more;
Explore St. Louis's list of 25 things to do;
Yelp's list of downtown Brew Pubs and the Anheuser-Busch tour (it's a beer-drinkin' town);
The City Museum; St. Louis Art Museum; the Museum of Westward Expansion; the Botanical Garden and arboretum; the Eugene Field Home and Toy Museum;
Shopping: Union Station is a mall inside the historic depot; Laclede's Landing is a riverfront "old town"; the Central West End neighborhood has galleries and restaurants; and here is a guide to more malls;
A variety of guided tours.

Enjoy!

Team Send-Off Monday 3:30

2009-03-29T00:15:00.000-07:00

The Band and any available fans will gather at the team hotel at 3:30 pm Monday 3/30, to see the team off to the game. The team hotel is the Hilton Garden Inn San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge, located at 1800 Powell Street, Emeryville (google map). This is not, repeat, not coordinated with the rally bus from the Stanford Campus. That bus will depart from Stanford at 3:30, the same time the team departs from the hotel in Emeryville. To attend the send-off you must find your own way to the hotel and then to the game. Because the campus parking lots are not public until 5pm, one might plan to hang out in the hotel lobby, or at Emeryville's Marina Park, out in the Bay at the end of Powell street, and begin the hunt for parking space about 4:45 or so.

Parking Near Haas Pavilion

2009-03-25T17:20:00.001-07:00

Do not fear the Berkeley Parking Monster! True, there is near-zero public parking near the campus during normal hours; but there is plenty of off-peak parking. Off-peak begins at 5pm weekdays and includes all day Saturday and Sunday -- which covers all game times nicely.

Here are the official rules for off-peak parking, but we can net them out as follows:

Buy a ticket at the dispenser machine: $1/hour with a $12 maximum.
Machines only take cash, so bring plenty of $1s and $5s.

Here is a relevant section taken from the official Parking Map (large PDF) showing the lots closest to Haas (click to embiggen):

Savvy Traveller Su Schaffer favors the non-University parking structure between Durant and Channing, just south of Telegraph. Other convenient lots are the Recreational Sports Facility Garage, a large underground facility just down Bancroft from Haas, and the Bancroft/Fulton lot a bit further, which can be entered from Bancroft or from Durant. There are several other public (non-University) parking facilities indicated on the full map (PDF linked above), south of the campus between Milvia and Shattuck avenues. Give yourself a little extra time for circulating these narrow, busy streets and it should be quite possible to park for the games. (Has anyone used the Ellsworth Structures off-peak? Please email travel@stanfordfbc.org if you have!)

Berkeley Hotels for Out-of-Towners

2009-03-25T15:16:00.000-07:00

Coming to Berkeley for the Regional? Or, do you want a place to stay over after the late game on Saturday? Here are some hotel recommendations. First, three that are a very short walk from Haas Pavilion:

Hotel Durant, remodelled in 2008, apparently with a clever "college" theme. Some FBC members are known to be staying here.
Berkeley City Club, a classic building by architect Julia Morgan, praised for weddings and such events, but the rooms get mediocre reviews.
Bancroft Hotel, another quaint landmark building, said to have good service and breakfasts but tiny rooms and ancient furnishings.

If you don't mind a short (2-mi) drive, here are three nice places in the nearby waterside town of Emeryville:

Hilton Garden Inn. Recommended by DeeDee.
Courtyard by Marriott Emeryville.
Four Point by Sheraton San Francisco Bay Bridge.

Game Time Set - and Party!

2009-03-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

The game times have been set:

6pm: #4 Iowa State v. #9 Michigan State
8:30pm: #2 Stanford v. #3 Ohio State

In addition, the Buck/Cardinal club and Stanford Athletics are holding a pre-session get-together at Raleigh's on Telegraph Ave. For details go to the FBC Website and click on the link under Upcoming Events. Space is limited; RSVP soon! News on a possible fan bus from Stanford to Berkeley will be available soon. Go Cardinal!

Duke Out -- Times in Flux -- Check Your Email

2009-03-24T18:47:00.001-07:00

Ninth-seeded Michigan State has fouled up everybody's plans (and brackets) by defeating Duke. The fourth team for the Berkeley Regional has yet to be determined, but it is certain that Stanford will be the highest seed present -- and the others will all be from the Central Time Zone.

What does this mean for the schedule? We may know later tonight, if the NCAA updates their bracket page following the Ball State - Ohio State game.

Fast Break members: check your email right away. Heather Owen has sent out a request for your interest in Rally Bus to the Saturday and Monday games, and another notifying you of a fan reception Saturday afternoon!

What Time is Saturday's Game???

2009-03-24T15:53:00.001-07:00

In our prior post I said confidently that Stanford would play in the evening game, 8:30 on Saturday 3/28. I thought I had seen that as a fact online -- but now I can no longer find it, and all online sources say "TBA." So hold the phone and don't make firm plans for Saturday -- it could still turn out to be the 6pm game. It would make sense from a ticket-sales perspective to put the local favorites in the later spot, and from a TV point of view, it might make sense to put the (presumably) Duke game on at 9pm Eastern instead of 11:30pm. On the other hand, you can't tell what the NCAA and ESPN will do until they do it. Sorry to think I making you feel as confused and nervous as I feel, but that's how it is. Will update as soon as anything is known. Dave Cortesi

Early Berkeley Planning

2009-03-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

So: on to Haas Pavilion for the Regional! ~~First game, featuring (probably) Duke and (possibly) the upstart Ball State, is at 6pm Saturday. Second game, with Stanford versus Ohio State, at 8:30.~~ (We don't know this yet! See later post!) The final is scheduled for Monday at 6pm (that at least is certain). Reluctant to make the long drive home at that late hour, some FBC members are thinking of taking a hotel for Saturday night, specifically the Hotel Durant, just a few steps from Haas. Some of us have thought of riding BART, and worried about the late start, likely not being able to catch a train before 11pm. In fact the BART schedule promises southbound departures to Fremont as late as 12:29am. At this point we get conflicting information on whether Stanford will have a ticket allotment to sell. If you need tickets for the Regional at Haas, call the Stanford ticket office at 9am tomorrow and ask. If they have tickets, fine; if not, go to the Cal ticket site. We also have conflicting info on whether the Cardinal will stay in a hotel in Berkeley or at home. Regardless, and also given that at this stage of the tournament, it is important not to look past the next game -- in the event the Cardinal win on Saturday, there will be some type of send-off, somewhere, some time on Monday. Check here on Sunday morning!

San Diego Team Sendoff Monday

2009-03-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Come to the Cardinal team hotel, the Sheraton Mission Valley, at ~~4:30pm~~4:15pm Monday to help the Band send the team off to the game! The hotel is at 1433 Camino Del Rio South, which is a frontage road along the southern edge of Interstate 8, just East of the SR 163 junction. Here is the hotel site, the hotel's own local area map, and a rather better google map.

San Diego Update

2009-03-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

Late news from San Diego: The Courtyard by Marriott mentioned in the previous post has vacancies -- lots of them! This nice hotel is located in the San Diego Spectrum, a large office/condo development. There is very little traffic of any kind and you could hold a county fair in the unoccupied spaces of its parking lot. To get the $99/night deal just fill in your days on the left and click Find. Although it says $119 above, it will end up as $99. Food on campus: The SDSU website has a very nice campus map. Look halfway down on the left under Dining Services and select almost anything, and click Go. It appears that most of the food service is in either East Commons or West Common. Both buildings appear to be easily accessible from Cox Arena.

San Diego Subregional Logistics

2009-03-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

The Venue

Our subregional games next weekend are at Cox Arena on the campus of San Diego State University. Here is the SDSU site, the arena site, and the arena seating chart. Tickets should be available from the Stanford Ticket office Tuesday morning (see you outside Gate 2 at 9?)

Flights

The least expensive flights from SFO to SAN are with United. The best deals from SJC to SAN are with Southwest (both come in around $200/person round-trip).

The Saturday games start at 5pm (Stanford plays in the second game, about 7:30pm). Hence you can book a civilized departure time for Saturday. The Monday game is at 6:30pm, hence you will likely need to stay that night and return Tuesday.

Hotels

Late news! Courtyard by Marriott San Diego Central has a special deal for this tournament: $99/night (plus tax). Click the link to reserve. The hotel claims to be 10 minutes from SDSU and offers complementary parking and wi-fi.

If that doesn't suit, here is SDSU's list of hotels near Cox Arena.

There are only 2-star hotels in the near vicinity (HoJo, anyone?). At least one FBC member has booked the Ramada Mission Valley. Su Schaffer, a more discerning & experienced traveller, favors the Sheraton Harbor Island.

Free Time

San Diego affords a ton of stuff to fill your time on Sunday and Monday. Here are some starting points: The San Diego Onecard is one-price pass to a bunch of attractions. Here is the Visitor's Bureau site, and here is a list of 25 Fun and Free Things.

Looking Ahead

If you want to risk the wrath of the gods and look past the subregional to the regional at Haas, here is the link for tickets. One presumes that Stanford would have an allocation of seats to sell starting Tuesday 3/24; but if you want seats regardless of Stanford's success in the subregional, you can order them now.

PAC-10 Tournament Day 4

2009-03-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

Team Send-off Sunday 3:30

Come to the Wilshire Grand Hotel Sunday about 3:30pm to join the Stanford Band in sending the team off to the Championship game.

The Wilshire Grand is at Wilshire and Figueroa (Google map) in central Los Angeles. On-street parking is scarce, although there may be some on a Sunday. There are numerous parking garages in the area.

Eat/Drink Update

Everybody's Kitchen, a USC student facility just into the campus from the Radisson, is comfortable place to eat and a great price-performer (as we used to say in the mainframe business) at $10.80 for all the lunch you can eat.

Pretty much everyone who tried it found The Lab an unpleasant evening spot. However, the lounge in McKay's Restaurant is very comfortable.

Hotel Update

The Radisson is just acceptable as a place to stay, not great. Some FBC folks are staying at the Vagabond Inn on Figueroa and report it as recently-remodelled, pleasant, and quite a bit more economical. The Vagabond Inn is almost as close to the Galen Center as the Radisson (Google map).

This information is only academic now—but if we find out on Monday that we're coming back to the Galen Center for the NCAA sub-regional, keep it in mind.

FBC at the PAC-10 Tournament

2009-03-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

Watch this post! It will be updated frequently with news and links! Add comments below with your suggestions. Updated wednesday 3/11/09 8pm

Fan Reception Saturday

The Basketball office is sponsoring a fan reception on Saturday 3/14 at 4:30pm. Some former players will be there to mingle with us. The location is McKay's restaurant in the Radisson Hotel, a short walk from Galen center (and visible on the campus map linked below).

In these harsh economic times (drink!) the Office won't be footing the bill: drinks & snacks will be available for purchase. But there's no charge for socializing with other fans and alumnae!

Pre- and Post-game socializing

Following Thursday night's WSU-AZ game, we're going to hang out in The Lab, a pleasant new "gastropub" just south of the Galen Center. It's only open until 11pm so we won't be hanging very long—but we have a long day Friday! The Lab may be OK for a meal between the Sessions on Friday; however the wait-staff seem a bit disorganized and service may be slow. See below for more options.

After Friday's UCLA-OSU game (which should be pretty "physical," the way those two play) we recommend hanging out in the bar area at McKay's restaurant, two doors further down Figueroa from The Lab. It closes at 10:30; what is it with these places? We'll try to find a better rendezvous for the next two nights; ask us at the fan reception Saturday!

Getting Tickets

Here is the full tournament schedule.If you ordered tickets through the Stanford ticket office, you should have them now; call 650-725-2787 if you don't. If you are purchasing through the Trojan ticket site, it no longer says "Seating will be determined at a later date," but we don't know what sections they are selling. Here is the seating chart. Stanford has seats in sections 116-119. Cal has been assigned to section 115, so you could go through the Cal site and come close to the cardinal shirts.

Getting around USC

Here is a partial map of the USC campus showing the Galen center with some campus eateries marked. Print it out landscape. (Or get the complete map, a two-page PDF with a directory of all USC buildings.) This is the USC map of parking locations. Convenient to the Galen center are Parking Structures "2" and "X" (actually more visible on the map linked above).

Eating Between Games

The Galen center has concessions, but for proper meals before and between game sessions, there are decent places on the USC campus. All campus eating places are open to the public. Everybody's Kitchen, and The Cafe in Parkside College, are recommended. See the map linked above for locations. The Commons is closed for construction.

Fast Break to Santa Monica

We are recommending Santa Monica for brunch and general recreation Saturday and Sunday mornings. Santa Monica is a friendly, walkable village at the West end of I-10, rarely more than a half-hour drive from USC and less at off-peak hours. The downtown area is full of shops and good restaurants. Walk around there one of these mornings and see how many Stanford shirts you can spot!

For brunch, our L.A. scouts recommend these two places:

The Rose Café, 220 Rose st. at Main, moderate price, has a large outdoor patio.
The Coast Restaurant in the Shutters on the Beach hotel, fairly pricey but highly regarded

Here is a link to a good walking map of downtown Santa Monica, print off all 5 pages landscape format. The visitor center website has well-organized links to the many attractions and facilities.

Saturday morning there's a Farmer's Market at 3rd and Arizona, right downtown. Sunday morning there's another at 2640 Main, somewhat south of downtown. The Sunday market has live entertainment; on 3/15 that will be The Praties, an Irish traditional band.

There are of course thousands of other things to do in L.A.—share your suggestions by adding a comment to this post!

Oregon Trip Photos

2009-02-25T14:04:00.000-08:00

FBC members who travelled to the Oregon games in January enjoyed a pizza party before the Oregon game, hosted by a local Stanford Alumni club, and a group dinner in Corvallis before the OSU game, as well as the games themselves. Ann Hollyfield, a Cardinal fan who lives in Oregon, took photos of these four events. You can view them here.

Who's Going to the PAC-10 Tournament?

2009-02-09T11:35:00.001-08:00

Who is going to the PAC-10 tourney? We'd like to know so we can perhaps set up some group activities. Write to travel@stanfordfbc.org with your plans! (Or, leave a comment below!) If you haven't planned your trip to the tournament yet, here is the complete schedule with a link for ticket purchase. See our Travel Page for more ticket info and hotel links. In summary:

Thursday 3/12: the 7-8-9-10-seed play-in games are at 6 and 8:15pm.
Friday 3/13 (yikes!) is "iron-butt day" with four games in two sessions. The Cardinal will play at 1:15pm (#2 seed) or at 5pm (#1 seed).
Saturday 3/14 the semi-final games are at 6 and 8:30pm.
Sunday 3/15 is the championship at 6pm.

With a Sunday game at 6pm, it's probably not feasible to fly home that night. The last flight out of LAX to SJC leaves at 8:40, so forget that. (You could catch a 10:55 flight to SFO, yawn.) The schedule gives you most of Saturday and Sunday at liberty in Los Angeles. What kind of fun things will you do to pass this time? When, and in what kind of venue, would you like to get together with other FBC members? For example, Saturday or Sunday Brunch? (If so, does anyone know a good brunch spot in L.A.?) Or, where would be a good place to gather post-game Sunday to (we hope) celebrate? Remember, you can leave comments on this posting for everyone to read.

Tickets for the LaLa Trip

2009-02-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

The Cardinal plays at Pauley Pavilion at 7pm Friday, 2/27. There will be no problem buying general admission seats at the door. However, if you would like a reserved seat in the lower sections (and remember, the Pauley ushers are real sticklers about not letting you into the lower section without a lower-section ticket, even after half-time) you can order tickets in advance from the UCLA website. Here is a direct link to the Ticketmaster page with seating chart. As of this post you could sit pretty close to center court for $12 (plus annoying fees). The Cardinal plays at the Galen Center at noon Sunday, 3/1. Again there will be no problem getting general admission at the door. However you can buy lower-section reserved seats in advance starting at this page. That purchase site does not show you a Galen center seating chart, so use this one. As of this post, you could sit opposite a free-throw line for $10 (plus annoying fees).

On the Road: Phoenix

2009-01-05T14:29:00.001-08:00

On the off-day between games, we went to the Desert Botanical Garden where there was an installation of Chihuly glass in the garden: glass in semi-organic forms set among the already-exotic plants like an invasion from the planet Silica.

On the road: Columbia

2008-12-20T18:28:00.000-08:00

David & Marian Cortesi

The State House

Wally Mersereau opines Columbia is a charming town. It's a smallish University town, the university being the U of SC. When we arrived we had time to check out the South Carolina statehouse (another missing from our collection).A helpful and knowledgeable docent showed us around, explaining how the interior had recently been restored from years of neglect and ill-planned remodelling to fully reflect the architect's Victorian vision.Which included some chandeliers right out of a "steampunk" fantasy.Outside, we noted the stars set in the masonry to show where Union cannonballs damaged the walls of the still-unfinished building.This helpful local decided to show us around.He pointed out where the Union cannoneers had also knocked the foot off George Washington's walking-stick.

Zoo and Gardens

We spent Friday morning at the local zoo and botanical garden, on a woodland walk.The animals were not impressed with us. But we liked best a free-range lizard on a christmas bow.

Gamecock Arena

Later we walked to the arena. This is a new and very nice facility, and it exceeds requirements for basketball games and such trivia, but the important things are not up to snuff, by which I mean, the food. Although they do have that sine qua non of good arena noshing, Dippin' Dots, the "chicken tenders" were not, the Philly Cheesesteak was grossly oversalted, and Wally would like it known that they didn't have either pickles or relish at the condiment bar. And, they have pretty near the cheesiest mascot costume around. Actually the mascot had a lot of good moves, but that floppy beak! And that skirt! OK, one more thing for Dawn Staley to fix.

On the road: Charlotte, NC

2008-12-19T12:54:00.000-08:00

David & Marian Cortesi

En route from Durham to Columbia we stopped for lunch in Charlotte, NC, said to be the 2nd-largest financial center after NYC, where the tops of the many skyscrapers were disappearing in the afternoon fog.

Downtown was decorated for the season with cheerful reindeer on every lamppost.The center of downtown Charlotte is The Square, which is defined by four heroic statues. One is a prospector who appears to be dumping his paydirt onto a dude whose bow-tie is too tight,One is a stalwart worker sitting on an eagle with a bow-tie,One is a mother & child,And we forget the fourth because we were busy reflecting on modern art.Tomorrow: Columbia, SC.

On the road: Raleigh

2008-12-18T17:35:00.001-08:00

By Dave & Marian Cortesi The morning after the Duke game was (appropriately) dull gray and gloomy. We drove from Durham to Raleigh to bag us another state capitol. We have pictures of 40 or so of them. In North Carolina, the only official occupants of the Old State House are the Governor and Lieutenant Gov. Inside there was a surprise. All the way up on the third floor is a charming old State Library, very nicely preserved and displayed. Also on the third floor is a similarly cozy and appealing State Geologist's office. Below these are the original legislative chambers. This was the House of Representatives. North Carolina has over 100 Reps (which seems a superfluity, but I'm sure they feel a need...) and you can see why they felt a bit cramped back in 1960: This is what they had built for them by Edward Durrel Stone, who also did the Kennedy Center in DC and many other famous buildings. Finished in 1963. It's a very nice building inside, with four interior garden courts and spacious and imposing legislative chambers. This is where the Reps sit--quite an improvement over the old one. Look at those chandeliers. Those double-cone lamps are just soooo 60s, aren't they? Admit it, you had a fixture like that in some apartment you lived in. Here's Marian, trying out the Grand Staircase (carpet for official use only): The neigborhood around the capitol has a lot of impressive 1890's houses. Here's a detail from one. We also visited the Mordecai House historic park and were given a very pleasant tour but the weather was too gloomy for pictures. Tomorrow: a stopover in Charlotte.

Sign up for Oregon Soon!

2008-11-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

Currently about 25 people are signed up to attend the games at Oregon and Oregon State as a group. Group activities organized by Don Anderson include:

Thursday Jan. 22nd, before the game, a pizza party with local Stanford alums;
Later on thursday, sitting together in a block of seats in Mac Court;
Friday Jan 23rd, a "happy hour" get-together in Eugene;
Followed by a group dinner at a restaurant in Eugene;
Followed by a fireside chat with Amy back at the Valley River Inn;
Saturday Jan 24th, a group dinner in Corvallis before the OSU game;
After which, sitting together for the OSU game.

If you want to join the group for any of these activities, you need to let us know by December 28th. You can email Travel@StanfordFBC.org or speak personally to Don at our 12/13 home game. Of course you are free & welcome to make your own arrangements for this trip; look for trip-planning info on our Travel page.

Last Chance - Going to Duke, South Carolina, or Tennessee?

2008-11-24T12:10:00.000-08:00

Time is getting short if we are going to pre-buy tickets for the games of the East Coast swing: Duke, South Carolina, and Tennessee. If you intend to go to one of those games, and you have not already emailed Travel@StanfordFBC.org to say so, please do it now. Or if you did email and you've changed your plans or number of seats since (or just want to say "hi!"), ditto. Of course, if you'd rather handle your own arrangements, that's fine too. We have a wealth of trip info on the FBC Travel Page and you can get to each of the host schools' websites via the Schedule Page.

Woe in Waco

2008-11-18T14:31:00.000-08:00

by Wally Mersereau

To avoid the $7 access fee to watch video coverage of the Stanford game on the Baylor website and the nuisance of having to cancel the access subscription after the game, five astute Fast Break Club members made the journey to Waco to see the game in person and to provide booster support for the team. It’s always interesting to experience the flavor of a new locale and to observe opposing team fan behavior in its native habitat. An additional advantage was the opportunity to find out where Waco is, along with the challenge of figuring out how to get there (hint: the only direct flights in or out are to Dallas or Houston). Those making the trip were Dave and Marian Cortesi, Kellee Noonan, Doug Lee and me. Baylor claims to be the oldest university in Texas and the largest Baptist university in the U.S. On its largely red-brick campus are the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and the Texas Ranger Museum. The city of Waco began in 1849, early in Texas statehood. Waco is located half-way between Dallas-Fort Worth to the north and Austin to the south—about a 1 ½-hour drive from either direction. In addition to our contingent, there was good representation from the Clyburn and Ogwumike families (including Nneka's sister Chiney!) ... ... plus Jeanette's mother. But we clearly were in “Bear Country” as the sign outside Ferrell Center proclaimed. Our guesses at actual attendance ranged from 5,500 to 6,500 which were reasonably close to the official attendance of 7,136. The official attendance for last year’s Cal game at Baylor was 5,659, so Stanford should take pride in outdrawing Cal in Waco by about 1,500. Cal plays Baylor in Berkeley on December 22 which will provide a comparison of scores. The capacity of Ferrell Center is 10,284, and it’s a nice round arena with comfortable green seats. Before the game we agreed that Stanford would have to play better than it did against Minnesota and we were hopeful that it would. Unfortunately, that was not the case. We felt lucky at half-time that Baylor only led by one point, 36-35.

It seemed that if Tara made some of her usual half-time adjustments that Stanford could improve and pull the game out. Kellee told me not to worry, and I passed on her confidence to Marian and Dave. About halfway through the ever-worsening second half, Marian asked if Kellee had said when we could stop worrying. With about 4 minutes remaining, Baylor started to use the full shot clock which resulted in Tara telling Lindy to foul intentionally which Lindy diligently did four times. Baylor made all 8 of the resulting free throws while Stanford remained relatively ineffective in scoring, leading to a depressing conclusion. When Nneka fouled out of the game, she left the court by heading over to give a pat on the back and a brief comment to Kim Mulkey who had tried hard to recruit her for Baylor. Kim needs no recruiting sympathy. A Baylor fan pointed out to us 2009 Baylor recruit Brittney Griner who was in attendance. Brittney is 6-7 and is the #1 rated 2009 prospect by ESPN, part of a highly rated 2009 class at Baylor. On Monday I attended the last two games of a 3-day women’s basketball tournament at the University of Texas in Austin. In the first game Dayton beat our St. Mary’s Gaels 68-62 after St. Mary’s led in each half by up to 12 points. In the second game #13 Texas defeated #25 Old Dominion 78-44. Brittainey Raven of Texas is an athletic player who scored the first 12 Texas points and had 20 total points. Attendance was about 4,000. The Texas-ODU score was reported on Austin radio and TV on Tuesday morning. Texas has a Fast Break Club whose members were wearing Texas-brown tee-shirts with each player’s number and name on the back in an artistic pattern. Life-size color group photos of this season’s Texas men’s and women’s teams are displayed in the arena. Before the game most of the Texas fans stood and gave the raised right arm Horn salute as the band played “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You”. Some gave the salute whenever a Texas player was at the free throw line. Gail Goestenkors, in her second season at Texas, gave the salute to the fans when she was introduced. Except for the outcome of the Stanford game, this was an interesting, educational and enjoyable trip.

Who's going to Oregon?

2008-11-17T16:06:00.000-08:00

Don Anderson writes as follows

I am once again this year charged with organizing some FBC group activities for the trip to Oregon. I have not yet ordered game tickets or begun to organize group dinners, happy hours, etc., but I need to gather information now. I haven't decided for sure whether to do up front purchase of blocs of tickets this year; the results last year were problematic. But I'd like to assess interest and then decide how to proceed.

As noted on the Travel page, the games in Oregon this coming year will be:

Oregon Thursday 1/22, 7 pm in Eugene
Oregon State Saturday 1/24, 7 pm in Corvallis

I need to know:

Will you be making the Oregon trip this year? If so: how many tickets (seats) would you want to order for the Oregon game, Thursday 1/22 (If I decide to buy them in advance)?
How many tickets (seats) would you want to order for the Oregon State game, Saturday 1/24?
Are you interested in attending a happy hour in Eugene on Friday 1/23? (how many of you)
Are you interested in attending a group dinner in Eugene on Friday 1/23? (how many of you)
Are you interested in attending a fireside chat with one of the coaches on Friday 1/23? (how many of you)
Are you interested in attending a group dinner in Corvallis on Saturday 1/24? (how many of you)

Once I get a preliminary idea via your responses, I may order a bloc of tickets for each game, and begin organizing dinners, fireside chat, etc.

If we do a group dinner in Coravallis, I will try to find an alternative to last year's choice (suggestions welcome). I would likely use the same restaurant in Eugene as last year, unless there are strong objections and someone has an alternative that they know is wonderful.

To reply to Don's questions, just email Travel@StanfordFBC.org.

Who's going to Hawaii? Duke? Tennessee?

2008-11-05T12:36:00.001-08:00

Going to Hawaii?

The FBC Travel Committee would like to get a count of the fans who are going to the tournament in Hawaii, and especially a count of those who are interested in joining the Thanksgiving dinner with the teams at the team hotel on Thanksgiving day.

If you are going to Hawaii please email Travel@StanfordFBC.org and mention whether you are interested in the dinner. We will use your return address to notify you of times, costs, and any group plans.

Going to Duke? Tennessee?

We need a count of those who are definitely planning to make the East Coast swing through Duke, South Carolina and Tennessee. The reason is tickets: for both Duke and Tennessee it is best to order seats in advance. If there is enough interest we can organize a block buy.

If you are going to one or more of the games at Duke, South Carolina or Tennessee, please email Travel@StanfordFBC.org and let us know your plans. We will use your return address to notify you of times, costs, and any group plans.

Cheaper flights to Hawaii

2008-10-31T12:11:00.000-07:00

Travelling fan André writes to alert us,

In case there are FBCers still undecided about going to the Hawai'i tournament, I just discovered that the price for the flights on Hawaiian Airlines from Oakland to Hawaii are now $200 (11/26 & 11/28) up to $265 each way on specific dates. To get the $200 price on the return flight, one would have to stay until Friday 12/5, but there are other flights for $265 and $255 on Wednesday 12/3 and Thursday 12/4 respectively.

Travel Committee Needs Travellers

2008-10-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

Do you regularly travel to away games? The FBC Travel Committee is short of members for the coming season and needs a few seasoned travellers to help out. Each member of the Travel Committee volunteers to coordinate one away trip, and does whatever they reasonably can do to encourage other FBC members to take that trip and to enjoy the experience. The things a Trip Coordinator does may include:

Researching the most convenient or economical air schedules and
Researching things to do on off-days - for posting on the Travel Page;
For busy venues, researching ticket prices, and web links or phone numbers for purchasing;
Answering occasional email queries about the trip;
Keeping an email list of people planning to go and letting them know your cell#;
Getting in touch with Amy to schedule a pre- or post-game talk when possible.

Then, during "your" trip, you make yourself accessible to other FBC members to answer questions and try to make people feel included. The Trip Coordinator is not responsible for fans' enjoying the trip (FBC travellers are a savvy, independent bunch anyway!). You simply try in small ways to help them enjoy it. Sometimes (and this is strictly optional) a Trip Coordinator will arrange a group dinner, happy hour, or other event. Also sometimes the Trip Coordinator will take ticket orders, get tickets and distribute them to other FBC members. But this is a major time commitment (just ask Don Anderson, Fran Liu, or Dal Miranda, who've done it) and is not required. This year's road trips (and coordinators) are:

Sunday 11/16, Baylor in Waco TX
11/28-30, tournament in Honolulu
12/16-21, Duke, S.Carolina & Tennessee (Dave Cortesi)
1/2-4, ASU and AU
1/18, Cal bus trip
1/22-24, UO & OSU (Don Anderson)
2/6-8, WSU & UW (Peter Elderon)
2/27-3/1, UCLA & USC
3/12-15 , PAC-10 tourney in L.A.

As you can see, we can use coordinators for two LA trips, Texas, Hawaii, Arizona, and the Cal game. If you are planning to make one of those trips and want to share the excitement with your fellow FBC members, email travel@stanfordfbc.org right away! Go (go go go) Cardinal!

One Fan's Itinerary

2008-09-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

Wallace D. Mersereau writes saying,

I've made my reservations for the 3-game trip in December. The return date is in Christmas week, but so far seat availability is ok although I expect it will start shrinking soon and that fares may consequently rise. I found the best options from SFO are on American, Delta and Northwest. United/US Air also serves the area, but fares were in the $1,200-$2,000 range. The other airlines were in the $450-$700 range. I chose American through DFW, flying into RDU and returning from TYS.

When we have some kind of head-count for the Tennessee game we can purchase a block of tickets.

First look at the Duke-USC-Tennessee trip

2008-07-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

(Updated with game times 9/3/08; check the FBC Travel page for activities.) The longest trip of the season for fans (and possibly the hardest for the team) is the pre-Christmas excursion:

Tuesday 12/16, 7:30pm at Duke
Friday 12/19 at University of South Carolina (USC) in Columbia, SC
Sunday 12/21, 7pm at Tennessee in Knoxville

~~None of the game times have been set as of this date, so it would not be safe to book air travel as yet. But we've started looking at the logistics.~~ The times of the Duke and Tennessee games are known and we can start booking. The first question—and it has no easy answer—is whether to fly between the three cities or drive. Here's a Google map of the route. It's a total of 500 miles, mostly freeway. There is plenty of time (2 days to get from Durham to Columbia, 1 full day for Columbia to Knoxville), and what else are you gonna do with it? On the other hand, it's winter and might be snowing. Next question: how to get to Duke in time for the game. ~~Presumably a Tuesday game will be at 7pm or later; but~~ The game is at 7:30 but there are no, zero, nonstop flights from SFO/SJC/OAK to RDU. If you take the earliest flight on 12/16 you will get into RDU between 4 and 6pm local time, and that assumes your connection in DEN, DFW, or JFK went smoothly. To be sure of being in time for the game without losing a workday you need to fly a red-eye. Employing the very useful Kayak.com flight search engine we find you can fly JetBlue from SJC (9pm) to RDU (11am) for $275, or OAK (9pm) to RDU (10am) for $195. Those are the only 1-stops; there is a plethora of 2-stop flights (yuckkk) from all three local airports. Question number 3: how do you get out of Knoxville on a Sunday afternoon? At this point we suppose the game will be at 1pm, but that is not settled. If it were to be on national TV (and since it is a rematch of last year's national finalists, it might well be) the time could be 10, 12, 3, or anything else, all depending on what hole ESPN needs to fill in its east-coast sunday schedule. But for now, assume 1pm. Game over 3-ish. Suppose you had gotten rid of the rental car earlier in the day and cabbed (or walked) to Thompson-Boling arena. Allow 120 minutes to get from the door of the arena to TYS and onto a plane. ~~Bad news: that ain't gonna happen!~~ The game is at 7pm (surely for television) and the last flights out of TYS to anywhere leave at 4:50pm. Continental to SFO via Cleveland departs at 4:50; United to SFO via ORD and DEN pushes back at 4:30. What-ho; another hotel night in Knoxville... Do you suppose we could get seats on the team charter??? Please feel free to append comments to this post! How do you feel about driving that route in winter? Do you have any good ideas on getting out of Knoxville on a Sunday? Click the comment button and speak up.

Internet Travel Advice podcast

2008-07-15T18:03:00.000-07:00

The Cnet podcast The Real Deal covers travel web sites this week (of 7/16/08). In this 40-minute discussion of websites for travel planning, the hosts discuss useful-sounding travel sites that I'd never heard of, such as TripIt (which organizes all your confirmation emails into a single itinerary) or SeatGuru (tells you which seats to use or avoid on specific planes), and many others. Listen to The Real Deal show #119, "Travel Resources" and check the show notes for links.

Hawaii Tournament update

2008-07-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

We are finally in touch with the UH staff and getting info on the Thanksgiving tournament. We are keeping our travel page updated with the latest info; check it often. We are told that the lineup of participating teams may have some changes coming soon. We are sure now that no games will be played on Thursday 11/27. Otherwise, the game schedule is not set (but in prior years, the championship game has always been 5:30pm Sunday). The UH will host a Thanksgiving dinner for all the teams at the Marriott on Thursday, and boosters will be welcome. Time and cost to be announced later, but start thinking now if you want to travel on the Thursday in time to get to the Marriot by (presumably) suppertime.

Spokane Experiences

2008-04-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

Some snaps from the Spokane Weekend (click image for larger version). Springlike weather Saturday afternoon in Riverfront Park. Amusing sculpture on steps of Spokane Arena. Crowds milled around waiting for will-call to open. Halftime Saturday: Cully explains to David why Vandy is "in a heap of trouble." Sunday morning we looked out onto fat flakes of snow. It made all the trees look as if they'd been flocked. But an hour later, it had all melted or fallen off. Monday it was clear for a look at the Spokane Falls. Before the Maryland game the Arena staff were assiduously cleaning off footmarks while the Cardinal warmed up. The announced crowd was 6,500 but it looked like more. Wonder how many copies of this image are on the internet? We flew home, appropriately, in a blaze of glory. Noting mile-long swaths of wildflowers near Patterson.

—Dave & Marian Cortesi

Final Four Fan Activities

2008-04-02T16:33:00.000-07:00

News from Eileen Roche, augmented with a few links, ordered by time of occurrence:

Team Send-off Thursday 4/4

Come to the courtyard between Maples and Arrillaga at 10:45am to bid the team bon voyage.

“Official” Fan Site

The NCAA has designated “official” fan gathering places in Tampa. The gathering place for fans who attended the Spokane Regional is Tinatapa's at 615 Channelside Drive, just a few blocks from the arena, St. Pete Times Forum. (Restaurant's official site with annoying flash intro; Tampa Bay Online Restaurant Review) If you'd prefer to gather with fans from the other three regional sites, they are all located at the same address, 615 Channelside Drive: Stump's Supper Club, Howl at the Moon (same web site as Stump's), and Splitsville Lanes which has billiards and bowling.

Team Hotel

The team is staying at the Westin Harbour Island (725 South Harbour Island Blvd, about 1/2 mile from the Forum and Tinatapa's). It's booked up, forget it.

NCAA Activities

The official NCAA Fan Guide to the Final Four is here. This is full of great info including many activities around the games.

Shootaround With Beth & Debbie

The Women's Basketball Coaching Association (WBCA) sponsors a weekly podcast, “Shootaround with Beth (Mowins) & Debbie (Antonelli)”. They will be recording an episode live on Friday 4/4 at 10pm in the Tampa Marriott Waterside's Grand Ballroom foyer (2nd floor). This is open to the public; there will be special guests, giveaways, and cash bars available.

Kay Yow 4K Run

On Saturday 4/5 at 8am there will be a 4Kay (“for Kay”) run honoring Kay Yow and other woman battling breast cancer. Time schedule and registration are here.

Open Practice and Autograph Sessions

Open practice periods will be held at the St. Pete Times Forum between 11am and 4:15pm on Saturday 4/5. No charge for entry. It is not known which team is in which time slot. Autograph sessions should be available after a team has practiced; stop by the forum that morning and check.

WBCA High School All-American Game

The high school All-Americans, whose roster includes our own Nneka Ogwumike, play at the University of South Florida Sun Dome at 4:30pm Saturday 4/5. Some information and a link to purchase tickets ($15) here. (Besides Nneka, our Sarah Boothe is on the honorable mention list, but was not invited to play in this game.)

Forum on Women in College Sports

The NCAA is sponsoring a day-long forum on women in sports, with presentations on such topics as "Barriers to Women in Intercollegiate Athletics," "Portrayal of Female Athletes in the Media," and a keynote address by Sheila Johnson, President of the Washington Mystics. This will take place on Sunday 4/6. This link is for free registration.

Pregame Rally and Reception

Stanford University Athletic Department is sponsoring a pregame event for all Cardinal fans starting at 4pm on Sunday 4/6. This is at the team hotel, the Westin Harbour Island, in the Harbour Island Ballroom. Appetizers and no-host bar provided. At 4:45 we will move outside to send the team off with the help of the band. Then the party continues until 6pm. (The first game, ours, begins at 7pm a short distance away from the hotel.) If you want to enter the ballroom and nosh on the appetizers, please RSVP to Lisa Ortiz, lortiz @ stanford.edu (anyone's welcome outside with the band).

Rally Tuesday

Assuming Stanford advances Sunday, we will have a pre-game party Tuesday, 4/8 from 5:30 to 7:30pm at Tinatapa's (RSVP this one as well).

Final Four Tickets

2008-04-01T12:17:00.000-07:00

Call (or go to) the Stanford Ticket Office (1-800-STANFORd (1-800-782-6367[3])) now to reserve seats in the Stanford section in Tampa. Price is $162 each plus $6 service fee. Tickets are available only for "Stanford Affiliates" and Season Ticket Holders. If that isn't you, consider Cully's Advice: Bob Cullenbine says as long as you are looking for single seats, just show up outside the arena; there is always somebody giving away single seats. Or go to StubHub.com where "upper corner" seats are going for $110.

Spokane Ticket Sources

2008-03-25T12:06:00.000-07:00

Here is the seating chart for the Spokane Arena. The Stanford seats are located in sections ... they don't know yet! As of thursday, they say they will not have assigned sections until they get there. In other news, we hear that Spokane Arena is "nearly sold out." For tickets in whatever section the NCAA finally assigns, call 1-800-STANFORd (1-800-782-6367[3]) and keep hitting "1" at every opportunity until it rings through. If you don't get satisfactory seats from Stanford you can try these:

Pittsburgh: 1-800-643-7488
Vanderbilt: 1-877-44-VANDY (1-877-448-2639)
Maryland's web site

Remember, anyone can append comments on this blog (just below here). If you find something out, please do add a comment! Responding to one comment: the team hotel has usually been the Doubletree, but it has been booked up for some time.

Fast Break Club On The Road

Order Cal Tix by Phone

New Year’s Eve in Westwood

USC Plays Tough at Home

Good seats at University of Oregon

OU Brunch and Ticket Buy

Fan Brunch Before OU Game

Group Ticket Buy

11s no jinx in Texas

Texas Pre-game Party Finalizing

Tickets for UCONN and UCLA

UConn Tickets from Stanford

UCLA Seating Is All G.A.

Limited Seating at UCLA

2011-12 Travel Plans Forming!

Dinner meet-up in Austin

New Travel Info Posted

That’s All, Folks!

Win One, Lose One

Another Kezar win

Sparkling at Kezar

Today at Kezar

Stunned by the unthinkable

Pre-game Activities in Indianapolis

How sweet it is!

Through the wringer

The hard way

The Semi-Finals

The field thins

Four at the Galen

PAC-10's 3-Ring Circus

Double your pleasure, double your fun

Two freshmen lead the way

Tough game, tough injury

Social before the USC game

Planning for the PAC-10 Tournament

Tickets

The Schedule

Getting There

L.A. Without a Car?!?

Leave a Comment!

The return of the threes

Dogged Devils Defeated in Desert

Anticipating Matt Arena

Planning for the PAC-10 Tournament

Tournament Tickets

Home at last

Card crushes Cougs

Cardinal Handily Humbles Huskies

Which hurt more?

Demons demolish discombobulated Cardinal

Time to Order Oregon Tickets

Use It Or Lose It: USF Fan Bus in Jeopardy

Zigging through the Zags

In the Land of the Utes

Buying Tickets for Utah, Gonzaga, DePaul and Tennessee

Great new airline booking site

Some Texas Wildflowers

Final Four Notes and Events

Gitcher Tickets

Saturday Fun

Pregame Reception and Sendoff

One Game at a Time, But...

NCAA Info

Downtown Map

Heading to Sacramento

Suh-weet Sixteen

Leet Eight

Arco and Sacramento

Drive up or spend the weekend?

PAC-10 Meetups and Events

For Your Reference

Band Send-offs

Saturday Meetup

Sunday Brunch

PAC-10 Logistics Updated

Thursday 3/11

Friday 3/12

Saturday 3/13

Sunday 3/14