Pac-12 Basketball: Each team’s worst performance of the last decade

Stanford

November 30, 2014 (at DePaul 87, Stanford 72) (GS: 27)

Stanford has had their shares of difficulties over the last ten years. They turned a 10-seed in 2014 into a Sweet Sixteen run, but other than that, it’s been diddlysquat. The Johnny Dawkins years weren’t exciting but at least there wasn’t anything too horrible happening. There are a few games that stood out, like a 13 point loss to San Diego in November 2009 or a 65-42 loss at USC the following year, but nothing so outrageously bad as Oregon State or even Arizona.

And of all the performances of the last decade, I decided to focus on a rough game in Chicago against DePaul. This was a road game, so losing wasn’t the end of the world, but let’s compare these two teams to get a better understanding. DePaul has been a cellar dweller in the Big East for more than a decade and this season was no different, as this underwhelming program had just lost at home to Lehigh a few days earlier. Stanford was eight months removed from their Sweet Sixteen run and had much of that team back for another season, one that would end very underwhelming.

Myke Henry was a machine, putting up 29 points for a DePaul squad that shot 54% from the field. Stanford committed 21 turnovers, completely unacceptable against a team like DePaul, also making just 4 of their 19 3-point attempts. Stanford’s offensive attack (all five starters in double figures) was solid (48% from the field), but the poor defense and turnovers against this DePaul team was really bad.

Stanford has not returned to the NCAA Tournament and now the job belongs to Jerod Haase to remedy that issue. While there might have been larger losses to better teams, this bad trip to Chicago was the first big misstep in a disappointing season. While things haven’t exactly gone the way the Cardinal envisioned, at least they’ve avoided any exceedingly embarrassing performances.