Feb 5th, 2010
A star player being ejected, coaches planning to go without shoes, a team going more than 10 minutes without scoring and still almost winning, a 35-point performance by a player in a loss, and a player scoring seven points in eight seconds to pull out a game that seemed lost.
Those were just some of the weird happenings in Bay Area college basketball on Thursday:
– Stanford star Jayne Appel had her best game of what has been a trying season, collecting a season-high 23 points and 13 rebounds in a 74-53 win over UCLA, but then got ejected with 7:41 left for landing an errant elbow to the face of a UCLA player, and it remains to be seen whether she will be suspended for the home game against second-place USC on Sunday, the day the Cardinal’s 1990 national championship team will be honored. (The Pac-10 ruled later on Thursday that Appel will not be suspended for Sunday’s game.)
Stanford's Landry Fields scored a career-high 35 points, but the Cardinal lost its third straight -- Associated Press photo
– Cal men went scoreless for nearly 11 minutes (10 minutes and 56 seconds to be exact) while being outscored 25-0, but still took the lead with 2:23 left before losing to USC by three, dropping the Bears to 6-4 in the Pac-10, but leaving them in a four-way tie for first place. Maybe the difference was the fact that Stan Holt, the USC student manager who had been fired for getting a technical foul on Saturday, was back on the Trojans bench after being re-instated earlier Thursday.
– Even though Landry Fields scored a career-high 35 points, scoring more than 30 points for the third time in four games, the Stanford men dropped to 0-9 on its opponent’s home court this season by losing to UCLA 77-73, leaving the Cardinal with a 4-6 conference record, one game out of last place, but just two games out of first.
– USF freshman Michael Williams scored seven points in the final 12 seconds of overtime – a three-pointer with 12 seconds left followed by a four-point play (three-pointer and a foul shot) with four seconds left — to enable the Dons to overcome a four-point deficit with 26 seconds remaining and beat San Diego on the road 72-70.
– For the second time this season, Omar Samhan came agonizingly close to a triple double, getting 22 points, 12 rebounds and eight blocks in a 74-62 victory over Santa Clara, keeping the Gaels tied for first place with Gonzaga.
– For one of the few times this season, Samhan had more blocks than his counterpart on the Gaels women’s team, Louella Tomlinson, who had “only” five blocks in a 69-62 victory over Santa Clara, leaving Tomlinson, a junior, 10 blocks shy of the Division I single-season record for blocks and nine blocks short of the career record for blocked shots.
– The Cal women, who lost their first three conference games by a combined margin of 25 points, beat USC 61-55 and would move into a tie for second place if it beats UCLA at home on Saturday and Stanford beats USC at Maples Pavilion on Sunday. And by the way, the Cal and UCLA coaches will go barefoot in Saturday’s game to show support for people in Haiti. That may make Cal coach Joanne Boyle look like a shrimp because she is fond of wearing high heels during games.
