2009-10 Stanford College Basketball Predictions

Written by Rock Henderson

Duke alum Johnny Dawkins will have his hands full in his second year as head coach of the Stanford Cardinal. The Cardinal lost their top two scorers from a year ago and also their starting point guard. Dawkins led the team to 20 wins in his first year, but they struggled in league play with a dismal 6-12 record. Projected by many to finish dead last in the Pac-10, Stanford will look to rebuild with a young team that will benefit from the experience gained in what could be a long year. Looking at the NCAA basketball lines, Staford is listed at +12500 odds to win the national championship this season.

Three starters in all departed the Cardinal program. G Anthony Goods was the team’s leading scorer and major threat from the outside last season as he hit on 71 three pointers and will be missed. F Lawrence Hill contributed over 13 ppg and five rpg. Ex head coach Trent Johnson’s son Mitch stuck around after his dad was let go from the program and did a nice job running the team from the lead guard position. Dawkins brought in three new players that might be thrown into the mix immediately. Gabriel Harris was ranked the 21st best point guard in his class and with the departure of Johnson could see major minutes in his freshman year. SF Andy Brown is other freshman joining the Cardinals and is out of Mater Dei High School, which produces some of the top athletes out of high school in the country. 6-9 Junior college transfer Andrew Zimmerman fills out the class.

F Landry Fields is the only returning starter that was a major contributor to last year’s 20 win team. The senior averaged a little over 13 ppg and will be relied upon to provide much of the scoring punch on the offensive end. A player to keep an eye on in the backcourt is two guard Jeremy Green. He hit on 46% of his three point attempts last year and will get more opportunities to showcase his shooting touch with a starting position after being named a member of the Pac-10 all-freshman team. PG Drew Shiller played a little over 12 mpg last season and will have the inside track in earning the starting spot as he is a senior and his backup is freshman Gabriel Harris. C Josh Owens has to improve on his 2.6 rpg if he is going to be a major contributor to this team as his mpg should increase from the 17 he saw last year. As you can tell, the outlook for this Stanford team is pretty bleak. Unless Fields steps up and turns into “that guy” and Green provides a decent second scoring option, the Cardinal will struggle to score points.

Any form of postseason play will be deemed a success for this team. Dawkins does have some upperclassmen that he can lean on at times, but the loss of Goods and Hill is most likely going to be too much to overcome. The newly installed CBI tournament would be a nice fit for a team like this and allow some of their young guys to gain valuable game experience.

Comments

One Response to “2009-10 Stanford College Basketball Predictions”

Michael on November 12th, 2009 1:16 PM

Mitch is not Trent Johnson’s son. He is the son of John Johnson. And Trent was not “let go.”
He took a job at LSU while Stanford was twiddling its thumbs.

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