The Skinny on Stanford

STANFORD CARDINAL

If they can find the right combo of players within their deep bench, the Cardinal could be offishall if they play around SR Fwd. Josh Owens. He shows a skillset that is very similar to that of Derrick Williams from Arizona last year. Josh has a post game with both his back to the hoop and facing the rim. Although defense is not his strong suit, he positions well while ensuring he won’t get into foul trouble. An underrated strong suit is his passing game with Soph. Fwd Dwight Powell.

Soph. Guard Aaron Bright is a great, great spark plug who can penetrate well and shoot the trey while stopping on a dime. He is a young guard prone to turnovers and will get flustered easily when an opponent’s defensive pressure will take him out of his comfort zone. Add in Freshman talented guard, Chase Randle, and there will still be some growing pains for the Cardinal backcourt.

Sr. Fwd. Andrew Zimmerman is a mountain-man spark plug off the bench with nothing but hustle and energy and a big ol’ urban-omish beard. You’ll see when you see him, it’s very omish yet you can notice the chin strap.

I’d like to see their defense better as they were given gifts from the lackadaisical passing from the Oklahoma State Cowboys on Wednesday at the Pre-Season NIT opener. The Cardinal, especially Owens attacked the passing lanes well, but rather then being great defense, it was more of a great scouting report, so alas I say they might be well coached by Duke-alumnus Johnny Dawkins.

The Cardinal have some talent, and learned some valuable lessons last year as a young team, so the turnovers that will be coming from the Cardinal backcourt may be short-lived. In a wide open Pac-12, this could be a great opportunity for Stanford to take over the Andrew Luck Campus of Palo Alto come the Pac-12 schedule in the New Year.