But, there’s reason to hope: with half of conference play behind it already, Stanford (10-11, 4-5 Pac-10) is not down and out. Being 4-5 in the Pac-10 this season is trendier than sorority girls in leggings, and half the conference currently sits with that record. UCLA (10-11, 5-4) shares the Card’s overall record — in case you couldn’t read that yourself — and is just a game away in the Pac-10 standings.
When the teams last met in Maples on Jan. 9, Stanford beat up the Bruins 70-59, thanks to a career-high 30 points from sophomore guard Jeremy Green. In usual fashion, senior forward Landry Fields also posted 16 points, seven rebounds and three steals.
Either Fields or Green has led the Cardinal in scoring in every contest this season, and Fields usually also manages to be the top rebounder. It is no surprise, then, that head coach Johnny Dawkins sang their praises, despite disappointing losses at Arizona and Arizona State last weekend.
“Landry Fields and Jeremy Green have been terrific,” he said. “Those kids are put in a position where they have to create offense for us to have a chance, and to their credit, they’ve shouldered that responsibility.”
Dawkins, though, acknowledged that for as good as the duo is, their production is not strictly a positive for the team, citing the team’s “dependency on them” as a weakness.
However, UCLA does not quite boast a killer combination to match up with Fields and Green — but that does not mean the top few Bruins are incapable of holding Stanford off.
UCLA’s leading scorer, senior guard Michael Roll, is averaging just 13 points per game, good for a 12th-place tie among conference scorers. But fellow guard, sophomore Malcolm Lee, and junior forward Nikola Dragovic are close behind, averaging another 12.7 and 11.5, respectively. Freshman Reeves Nelson averages 11 points and six rebounds per game.
UCLA also struggles at the line more than any other Pac-10 team, shooting only 61.8 percent. Despite great guard play, the Bruins also have no eye for the long ball, hitting only 33.7 percent of shots behind the arc.
Overall, the matchup is one that the Cardinal can handle — and has successfully once this season. But without another big night from Green, or someone else, things will be tighter.
There is also another reason to doubt: Stanford has not won on the road. Period. Unless you count a win over the University of Virginia in Cancun at Thanksgiving, and even in that meeting Stanford was technically the home team. Most recently, the Cardinal fell apart at the Arizona schools to the point that in Thursday’s meeting with the Wildcats, 31 points by Fields and 25 more by Green couldn’t save the team, nor (shockingly) could a cameo by senior and Sun Bowl quarterback Tavita Pritchard on Saturday against the Sun Devils.
Given its record as visitors, an off night for the Fields-Green dream team would spell almost certain death for Stanford, especially since the team as a whole is currently the league’s worst shooting team at only 43.7 percent. Dawkins also says that the Card is not where he would like it defensively.
“We need to continue to improve . . . defensively; we need to shore that up,” he said. “I think when you look at our wins and losses — games that we’ve been very competitive and games that we’ve won — we’ve defended very well. And that’s something that we need to continue to embrace and continue to work on.”
Despite the flaws of the season’s first half, nothing is impossible, especially for a roster that contains two of the conference’s top five players in a league of borderline disarray. While Dawkins called conference play “competitive,” Stanford fans call it a shot.
“I think it’s very competitive,” he said. “The conference is terrific in regard to the balance that it has, and we have an opportunity to continue to improve. We’ve faced everyone now once, we’ve realized we can compete against all the teams in the league, and now we have to go out there and try to get some more wins.”
Try they will, and it all starts tonight in Pauley Pavilion at 7:30 p.m. The Cardinal will head cross-town to meet USC at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.