Pachoops’ Adam Butler joins us once again to chime in with his thoughts on our Burning Question. This is now his fourth straight appearance after giving us answers on the programs of Arizona, USC, and Washington. As for Stanford’s question, here goes:

Stanford made the NCAA Tournament in 13 out of 14 seasons before current head coach Johnny Dawkins took over in 2008-09. In his four seasons on the Farm, Dawkins has yet to lead the Cardinal back to the Big Dance, which has dropped the program down a step in terms of national prominence. How many more times can he go without dancing before his seat begins to heat up?

Dawkins Needs To Bring Stanford Back To National Prominence In A Hurry (credit: Danny Moloshok)

Connor Pelton: It’s tough to stand out and become a prominent team nationally in college basketball. In college football, an average fan will watch roughly 70 out of 125 FBS teams play at least one game throughout the season. That number is about the same for college basketball, but  it’s out of 345 Division I teams. If you think of it as a huge pie, there are about 30 large slices, 40 medium slices, and the rest are crumbs. Stanford used to be one of those coveted large slices, one that would without a doubt hear their name called on Selection Sunday year in and year out. But since Dawkins has taken over, the Cardinal have taken a step down to just one of the medium slices. Fans around the nation know who they are, but they don’t care enough to stay up until Midnight (on the east coast) to watch them play. The same goes for recruits, and if you find yourself in one of those six or seven-year droughts without going dancing, your four- and five-stars are going to become twos and threes.

With that said, Dawkins was able to pump some life into a program that was a little sleepy by winning the NIT Championship last season. That will buy him some time, if only because he can point to it and say, “Hey, we’re on the road back to success.” But if he doesn’t get back to the promised land within the next two seasons, it might be time to move on in Palo Alto.

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The 2012-13 version of the Cardinal will not be missing any redshirts or transfers, but coach Johnny Dawkins does welcome in three highly rated recruits. Below, we’ll introduce you to each of those three newcomers, roughly in the order of impact that they’ll have on their new team.

• Rosco Allen, Freshman, Wing, 6’9” 210 lbs, Bishop Gorman High School, Las Vegas, NV – Allen is a classic Johnny Dawkins wing, one who is big enough to bang on the boards but has a tremendous outside stroke as well. The one knock on Allen is his speed, especially in trying to guard the perimeter. That means he needs to bulk up this summer so he is able to guard opponents at the four. Allen should receive good minutes early on next season, but those will quickly dwindle if he isn’t able to keep up on the defensive end. The Cardinal have more than their share of big and lanky defenders in the post, so it’s either bulk up and play down there or improve lateral quickness in order to see more minutes at a less-filled three position on the roster. With that said, Allen didn’t receive offers from North Carolina, UNLV, and UCLA for nothing. He’s basically a bigger Chasson Randle, and he will definitely leave a footprint with the Cardinal by the time he leaves.
  

  Allen Has the Potential To Be The Next Chasson Randle By The Time He Leaves Palo Alto (credit: Sam Morris)

• Grant Verhoeven, Freshman, Center, 6’8” 215 lbs, Central Valley Christian High School, Visalia, CA – With the exception of Brook and Robin Lopez, Stanford has traditionally had smaller centers who have great offensive touch. Verhoeven fits perfectly within this description as he can not only knock down the elbow jumper, but has nice footwork and can turn over either shoulder and score the ball inside. Unfortunately, the one knock on the center is a big one; he has trouble scoring over bigger and more athletic post players, something he’ll run into often against Pac-12 opponents. Still, he has tremendous upside, and after a year in Dawkins’ system, he should be set to gain major minutes down the road. With so many players at a little-used position, Verhoeven will have a tough time earning solid minutes immediately, but down the road he is definitely someone to keep an eye on. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cardinal return five players from last season’s main rotation. Below, we’ll take a look at each of these returnees in order of their scoring averages in the last season played.

• Chasson Randle, Sophomore, Guard (13.8 PPG, 2.1 APG, 3.3 RPG, 1.1 SPG) – Looking for the reason why Stanford won 26 games in 2011-12? Look no further than Randle, the freshman sensation who took over this team from the day he arrived on campus. Even when he would have a rough day putting the ball in the hoop (those days came few and far between), his body language and leadership displayed by the freshman would have neutral observers thinking he was a uppperclassman. Randle led the team with 13.8 PPG but could easily explode for many more on any given night. In Stanford’s first round game of the Pac-12 Tournament against Arizona State, Randle dazzled the Staples Center crowd, going for 30 points and picking up three steals on the defensive end. Randle is a “score first” type of point guard, but expect that role to change slightly in 2012-13. Johnny Dawkins needs to keep the ball in Randle’s hands, but if there was one ongoing problem last year, it was that the offense could become stale and bogged down at times because they didn’t have a true passing guard at the one. Randle will still have all the freedom he can handle in the Cardinal offense, because quite frankly they can’t afford for him not to, but he needs to distribute better. Once he proves to opponents that he can do that, there will be even more of an opportunity to score off the dribble or on a jump shot.
  

  Randle Can Be Even More Dangerous In His Sophomore Season If He Can Distribute The Ball Better In 2012-13 (credit: Jae Hong)

• Aaron Bright, Junior, Guard (11.7 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 3.6 APG) – Bright was the Cardinal’s best passer last season, but he also fit in perfectly within Dawkins’ system of “everyone on the floor has to be able to score” basketball. He saw the floor for an average of 28.4 MPG yet wasn’t always a full-time starter. That will change next season with the departure of Jarrett Mann. The balance of distributing and scoring in the offense that Bright has shown needs to be copied by the younger guards, mainly Randle. If Bright and Randle are both triple threats in 2012-13, Stanford could easily find itself dancing come March.
• Anthony Brown, Junior, Guard/Forward (8.1 PPG, 1.0 APG) – Brown has played identical minutes in his two seasons on the Farm. While a freshman in 2010-11, Brown seemed to focus a bit more on his play as a guard, but that changed last year. Brown played much more as a spread-out small forward who was willing to do anything to get the rebound. With Josh Owens, Andrew Zimmerman, and Jack Trotter all graduating, Brown will continue to play in that role for the most part. He’s got tremendous upside and looks prime for a breakout junior season.

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In last year’s NIT Championship campaign there were seven different Cardinal players who saw significant playing time under head coach Johnny Dawkins. Of those seven players, two will be lost in 2012-13 due to graduation. A third senior saw minutes when the situation or game plan called for it, and a fourth played mainly garbage minutes or was used in backup roles when an injury occurred. We fill you in on their details in the order of importance to the program below.

• Josh Owens – After playing just garbage minutes as a freshman in 2007-08, Owens saw a major increase in playing time as a sophomore the next year. Poised to build on that solid foundation, Owens was forced to sit out the 2009-10 campaign due to a private medical condition. While some speculated he would never play basketball again, Owens returned for what would be the best season of his college career, averaging 11.6 PPG and 6.5 RPG in just over 27 MPG. His scoring and rebounding stats were almost identical in his final season with the Cardinal, but 2011-12 saw a more aggressive Owens, mainly on the defensive end of the floor. Andy Brown, Stefan Nastic, and Jack Ryan will all be competing this October to try to fill Owens’ shoes, with Nastic being the current slight frontrunner. As for Owens, the forward/center did not receive an invite to either the NBA Combine or Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, and while he went undrafted, he impressed enough in team workouts to earn a spot on the Charlotte Bobcats Summer League roster. Owens didn’t see any action in the team’s first game, but scored six points and grabbed two rebounds in its second summer competition.

Out Of Stanford’s Four Graduating Seniors, Owens Will Be Missed The Most (credit: John Todd Images)

• Jarrett Mann – Mann still earned solid minutes as a senior, but due to the emergence of freshman star Chasson Randle, he saw a steep decrease in playing time compared with his sophomore and junior years. Due to Randle playing as a slash-and-score one, it appeared at times that Mann didn’t seem comfortable in his new role, which would led to indecisiveness both in passing the ball and scoring.

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Things were looking good for Stanford after the 2010-11 season came to a close. It wasn’t a great year by any means, but the Cardinal finished the regular season with a winning percentage of .500, picking up wins against #18 Washington and at Washington State along the way, all without a senior on the roster. Things took a turn for the worse, though, when leading scorer Jeremy Green announced he would be forgoing his senior season in Palo Alto to enter the NBA Draft. But instead of going somewhere like Sacramento or Dallas, Green ended up playing three games for the D-League’s Los Angeles D-Fenders before moving to glamorous Erie to finish the final 21 games of his inaugural pro season. Meanwhile, back on the Farm, the Cardinal was making some noise without him. Stanford won 15 of its first 18 games, led by sensational freshman Chasson Randle.

Randle Introduced Himself To Pac-12 Opponents Early And Often In 2011-12, Including In Stanford’s Four-Overtime Win At Oregon State (credit: Rick Bowmer)

Taking Green’s place in the starting lineup, Randle made an immediate impact for Stanford. At times early in non-conference action he struggled to score the ball consistently, which is expected for a freshman when facing opponents like Oklahoma State, Syracuse, NC State, and Butler. But he made up for his lapses on the defensive end, constantly bugging opponents with his ability to poke the ball away and get the occasional block.

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